What bestsellers are on the charts now that deserve to be there? All of them? None?

I'm not sure how ''worthy'' these books are, but this is the current (12/20/08) bestseller's list from Publisher's Weekly:

1.Scarpetta. Cornwell, Patricia
2.The Christmas Sweater. Glenn Beck
3 Cross Country. James Patterson
4.The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. David Wroblewski
5.The Host. Stephenie Meyer
6 Just After Sunset: Stories. King, Stephen
7.Arctic Drift. Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler
8.The Hour I First Believed. Lamb, Wally.
9 The Lucky One. Nicholas Sparks
10. A Mercy. Morrison, Toni

There's not much that interests me.

Read the King collection (but didn't bother to review it). It's spotty - there are at least two total clinkers in there, and a pair of stories that are so similar that it boggles the mind that they were both anthologized. So I'd say that one belongs in the top 100, but not necessarily the top 10.

Since there's not a single reference to his Dark Tower series, I imagine many of his recent fans are far more disappointed than I - I was kind of relieved at the absence. These stories are far more like what he was publishing in the '70s, back before he became king of the genre.

I have Scarpetta on a hold at my local library, but I don't have much hope that Cornwell will end the downward slide she's been on for several installments.

-30-

rex