Why some books endure

My first book did OK; meanwhile, books that I reviewed and loved in 1991 and 1992, books every bit as good or better than mine, are out of print, simply because they never found a readership then.

Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

Nick Hornby ponders a question that I have pondered myself from time to time in this blog: Why do some books endure, or at least endure longer, than other books? Here are five factors that may help explain it:

1. Literary quality

Hornby is correct that some books endure (I believe his first book that he refers to was Fever Pitch), while others equally good, if not better, fall away. Yet as I pointed out on June 1 ("Not a horse race"), literary quality is mostly a matter of opinion. One person's idea of the great American novel will not necessarily be another's. There's no scale or measuring stick to measure which book is best. Still virtually everyone can agree that some books are better than some others. Most authors don't pretend to be writing great literature. They are just trying to sell a few books and make a living. In the book world, the cream doesn't always rise to the top, but often it does.

2. Timeliness

To endure, a book must speak to the times in which it first appears, but also to later times. It also helps if a book comes to represent a particular point in history, as All Quiet on the Western Front has come to represent World War I and The Sun Also Rises the post-war generation. I have commented in the past that a big reason for the success of Slaughterhouse-Five is that it appeared in 1969 when its style and anti-war message found an audience, especially among younger readers.

Yet to endure, books must also speak to generations to come. Writers like Oliver Wendell Holmes and William Dean Howells were once considered among the greatest American writers. Today few people read them.

3. Critics

Favorable book reviews, especially in publications like the New York Times, do make a difference. Critical praise excerpted on paperback covers help sell books. Authors often disparage critics, especially when they are critical, but even a negative review gains attention for a book. And a positive review from a respected critic can put an author on the literary map.

4. Teachers and professors

For many people, the only really good books they will read in their lifetimes will be those assigned in high school and college classes. I think To Kill a Mockingbird would have endured anyway, but it has certainly helped that the novel has been taught in so many classrooms. When we read a book for a class, we tend to regard it as great literature, even if we didn't particularly like the book. This probably explains why so many books considered great happen to be considered suitable reading for teens. Consider 1984, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men and so on. Somehow Lolita made the cut, but that has sometimes been assigned in college. That's where I first read it.

5. Popularity

This is the factor mentioned by Hornby, and he is right. Books sales translate into subsequent editions and then to keeping a book in print. Nowadays most books are being digitized, but previously a book had to be in print to be found by anyone who doesn't haunt used bookstores. Instructors couldn't assign books that were no longer in print. And publishers had no incentive to republish a book if there was no known market for it.

There are other factors involved in deciding which books endure and which don't. Movies based on books help keep those books around longer. Successful movies based on About a Boy and High Fidelity, among others, help explain Hornby's success. It also helps if the author is still alive and writing. When I was in Barnes & Noble after reading The Waterworks, I looked for other novels by E.L. Doctorow. I couldn't find any. He died in 2015, and already his books have apparently disappeared from bookstores. Books about authors, such as Tim Page's biography of Dawn Powell a few years ago, can renew interest in that writer's books.