Bestseller list for 2008
While looking for an old post for a reader, I came upon one of the bestseller lists I did last year, which reminded me that I hadn’t posted one of these in a while. I had been trying to keep them up quarterly so that readers of this blog could see the books other readers were buying, but, what with all the links required, these posts are a real hassle to put up. So, since I, like most everyone else, gravitate toward pleasure and away from pain, I’ve not kept up with my quarterly timetable.
I can probably muster up the gumption to do it annually, so here is the list of the bestselling books from 2008. These are the books that readers of this blog purchased through Amazon by clicking on the links or book icons on my blog, MD’s blog and the home page of the website. I’ve listed only books not written by MD and/or me.
The number one bestselling book was Mistakes Were Made, which is one of the better books that I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s now out in paperback, so if you haven’t read it, get a copy. It explains in an easy-to-read way how the confirmation bias works and why we all need to carefully examine why we believe what we believe. And it shows the validity of Stuart Chase’s famous quote:
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.
I’ve read a slew of books on the confirmation bias and why we believe what we believe, but, in my opinion, Mistakes Were Made is by far and away the best of them all.
Here are all the books in descending order of sales:
#1. Mistakes Were Made by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson (my full review)
#2. Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes (my review)
#3 Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson et al (my review)
#4 The Brain Trust Program by Larry McCleary, M.D. (my review)
#5 500 Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender
#6 The Great Cholesterol Con by Malcolm Kendrick, M.D. (my review)
#7 200 Low-Carb Slow Cooker Recipes by Dana Carpender
#8 Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution by Richard Bernstein, M.D.
#9 How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman (MD’s review)
#10 The Low-Carb Baking and Dessert Cookbook by Ursula Solom
As always, I appreciate all of you who have supported this site by purchasing your books, CDs, DVDs, clothing, electronics and all the other stuff you’ve purchased through the Amazon portal on this site.
For those of you who don’t realize how this all works, you can click on one of the above links or one of the book icons on the front page of this blog or the home page of the website and you will be taken to that particular book’s page on Amazon.com. Once there, you can search for anything Amazon has available, and if your purchase it, I get a little kickback for providing the entry portal. It is one of the few truly win-win deals out there. You get your book (or whatever) at the regular (usually heavily discounted) Amazon price, and I get a little dinero to help pay the web guys who keep the site updated and running. In looking over last year’s records, I was able to pay about two thirds of my tech bills with my Amazon kickback (I hate that word, but I can’t think of a better one), so thanks very much to all those who helped.
I’m constantly telling my own family members, most of whom order a lot of stuff from Amazon, to go to Amazon through the portal on this blog instead of just logging in on amazon.com and buying away. But it often falls on deaf ears, so maybe I’ll have a little better luck with readers here. I know it’s a little extra hassle to pull up this blog and click on one of the books to get to Amazon than it is to simply click on Amazon directly, but if you do take the extra couple of seconds, you’ll make an old man very happy.
To Bob Rauh’s query, you said:
“As long as you get to Amazon by clicking through my blog (or MD’s or the website), we get credit for whatever you purchase while you’re there. Thanks in advance.”
Does this include, let us say a camcorder or laptop purchased through Amazon after linking to it from Protein Power site? Please let me know. Most of my purchases are through Amazon. I would gladly put those extra seconds effort to pay back for the wonderful knowledge you share with us.
Regards,
Ram
It includes anything you purchase through Amazon by going through our website or blogs. People have purchased clothing, camcorders, iMacs, laptops, shredders, vitamins, Iodoral (Amazon is the best place to get it), insulin syringes, and almost anything else you could imagine. Thanks in advance for any purchased you might make.
Interesting that the bestseller list reflects the two basic interests of man — socialization and food, in that order as indicated in the list; same as our ancestors although probably in reverse order.
True.
I do use this method when shipping stuff to the US, but do you know if I click through your site to amazon.com and from there click through to amazon.ca (or UK or wherever), if it can still track the purchase back to you or is that link broken when I switch countries (to avoid huge shipping costs)?
The link is broken when you switch countries. I’m working on getting a portal for Amazon.co.uk, but I haven’t gotten it yet.
Thanks for your response:
“If I were sending a scientist who wanted to learn more about the failures of the lipid hypothesis, I would send him/her to GCBC and Chris’s siteI”
I wasn’t sure at first what GCBC was, so I googled it and got” Grand Case Beach Club in St. Martin.” Sounds to me like a good place to send people . . .
I did soon realize it was “Good Calories, Bad Calories.”
Glad you finally figured it out. But if I were a scientist I would much rather be sent to the other GCBC.
Prompted by the above comment I read your endocrine disruptor article with great interest – and being an experimental sort, I started to make some tentative plans to try out your POP-elimination protocol…
Couldn’t regular blood donations have the same effect, minus the bathroom excitement? (Plus the side benefit of ferritin reduction.)
Yep, but you can do it only once every 60 days.
Have you read David Kessler’s “The End of Overating.” I just read a summary of his ideas in the CSPI Nutrition Action newsletter. I was so annoyed as it just seems totally offbase. Your thoughts?
It is offbase, but what would you expect? Kessler is as mainstream as you can get, and, as you may have noted, the mainstream has done a pretty dismal job of preventing the obesity epidemic.
My editorial aside, apologizing for reading the CSPI newsletter didn’t seem to come through. Please forgive me.