Ben Blatt. (2017). Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing. Unabridged Tantor Media, Inc.

Ben Blatt. 2017. Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing. Tantor Media, Inc.

Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing. Tantor Media, Inc, 2017.

Ben Blatt. Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing. Unabridged Tantor Media, Inc, 2017.

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   • bioText: Ben Blatt, a former staff writer for Slate and the Harvard Lampoon, has brought his fun approach to data journalism to topics such as Seinfeld, mapmaking, The Beatles, and Jeopardy! He is also coauthor, with Eric Brewster, of I Don't Care If We Never Get Back.
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Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve

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In Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, statistician and journalist Ben Blatt brings big data to the literary canon, exploring the wealth of fun findings that remain hidden in the works of the world's greatest writers. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and starts asking the questions that have intrigued curious word nerds and book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors' favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Are bestsellers getting dumber over time? Which bestselling writer uses the most cliches? What makes a great opening sentence? How can we judge a book by its cover? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring? Blatt draws upon existing analysis techniques and invents some of his own. All of his investigations and experiments are original, conducted himself, and no math knowledge is needed to understand the results. This eye-opening book will provide you with a new appreciation for your favorite authors and a fresh perspective on your own writing, illuminating both the patterns that hold great prose together and the brilliant flourishes that make it unforgettable.

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   • content: Sad to say, not every title adapts readily to the audio format. Blatt's statistical analysis of the words used by different authors promises to be a hoot, and often is. And it offers a number of not-so-predictable insights into differences in gender, era, literary standing, and, most interestingly, authors' professed principles of style, which they often violate in practice. Narrator Vikas Adam does a superlative job with a difficult text, one interrupted every two minutes by a reference to the PDF files, most of them statistical tables. For easier listening, one can easily skip those files and still enjoy the narrative, which has its own unique highlights and surprises. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
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   • content:

     January 16, 2017
     In this diverting if lightweight work, statistician Blatt (coauthor of I Don’t Care If We Never Get Back) applies data analysis techniques to the work of hundreds of authors, from Jane Austen to E.L. James, to extract insights into literary art and human psychology. Opening with the dramatic story of 1960s researchers who used word frequency techniques to solve the Federalist Papers’ authorship, the book never follows up on the promise of comparably exciting or substantial findings. Blatt applies his techniques to look at topics such as adverb usage, the relationship between word choice and gender, and trends in writing complexity. After quick, clear, but cursory descriptions of methods, Blatt details creative visualizations (charts and graphs are included) and findings, but limits the conclusions that can be drawn (“Trying to draw too much meaning out of these findings is a bit like reading tea leaves”). This leaves the reader with the feeling of having witnessed engaging parlor tricks instead of scholarly inquiry. But parlor tricks are fun, and so is this book. Blatt provides amiable and intelligent narration, and literature enthusiasts will enjoy the hypotheses he poses and his imaginative methods. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency.

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In Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, statistician and journalist Ben Blatt brings big data to the literary canon, exploring the wealth of fun findings that remain hidden in the works of the world's greatest writers. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and starts asking the questions that have intrigued curious word nerds and book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors' favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Are bestsellers getting dumber over time? Which bestselling writer uses the most cliches? What makes a great opening sentence? How can we judge a book by its cover? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring? Blatt draws upon existing analysis techniques and invents some of his own. All of his investigations and experiments are original, conducted himself, and no math knowledge is needed to understand the results. This eye-opening book will provide you with a new appreciation for your...

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