9549304-Bestseller-stamp-Stock-Photo-best-seller-stampIn the UK, Amazon has published a list of its bestselling e-books of the year. That’s not really news—but just how much and in what ways it differs from a similar list of bestselling paper books compiled by Waterstones is.

The Telegraph reports that Amazon’s list includes fairly lowbrow popular fiction, including psychological thrillers and misery memoirs. 18 of top 20 authors are women. But Waterstones’s list “is significantly more highbrow and features four times as many male authors.”

While there is a little overlap—a Paula Hawkins novel and EL James’s Grey both make the top three of both lists—the interesting thing is how different a lot of them are. It’s a little clichéd to suggest, as the Telegraph does, that it might be accounted for not wanting to be seen buying the books bought as e-books, or not wanting to be seen reading them, but what other explanation might there be for such a difference?

Another interesting thing is to consider how many of those books are written by women. They have a majority in both—18 for Amazon’s and 12 for Waterstones. That’s good news for equality, at least.

(Found via The Digital Reader.)

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