Meg Waite Clayton

Author of the international bestsellers The Postmistress of Paris, The Last Train to London, and 6 other novels

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A Statistical Analysis of the New York Times Notable Books in Fiction for 2013

I’m ever curious how the New York Times editors’ book taste compares to that of more general readers, so I sliced and diced The New York Times “100 Notable Books” fiction list for 2013 by the related Amazon and Goodreads statistics just for fun this afternoon, and found:

How they fare on Amazon

Journal Avatar to Link Back to Blog HopAverage ranking: 3.88
The high: 4.5
The low: 3
Percentage of books with a ranking of 4 or higher: 56%
Highest number of reviews: 3,176
Lowest number of reviews: 5

How they fare on Goodreads

Average ranking: 3.64
The high: 4.19
The low: 2.84
Percentage of books with a ranking of 4 or higher: 16-2/3%
Highest number of reviews: 18,222
Lowest number of reviews: 19
And since many of you who know me know that I care about this:

The number written by women: 54%

(Yay!)
– Meg
(All numbers excluding the two poetry volumes which are not also novels. The list is here.)

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Meg Waite Clayton


Meg Waite Clayton is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of nine novels, including the forthcoming TYPEWRITER BEACH (Harper, July 1, 2025), the Good Morning America Buzz pick and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice THE POSTMISTRESS OF PARIS, the National Jewish Book Award finalist THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON, the Langum-Prize honored THE RACE FOR PARIS, and THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS, one of Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. Her novels have been published in 23 languages. She has also written more than 100 pieces for major newspapers, magazines, and public radio, mentors in the OpEd Project, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the California bar. megwaiteclayton.com