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[jacaranda_]

What criteria are you using besides

1. Gossip in the halls where you work?

2. The halo effect for Ivy League names?

3. Your own personal book reading preferences?

I think this is an interesting thread, but it also reveals how nebulous, and somewhat predictable, such rankings are.

I would also like posters to indicate how many university press books they've actually bought in the last year. I think I've bought 5, maybe.

The Fiona

I just did a quick visual inventory of the bookshelves where I have most of the leading research books for the period that I study, which is early modern English lit, and books that I use for my two current research projects.  So not hard empirical research, but a fair reflection of which presses are publishing the most influential books at least in my field (Chicago, Stanford, Cornell, Cambridge).  But there is quite a bit of overlap for those top presses in other MLA fields, too.  It's true that I don't buy a lot of books -- mostly ones for teaching and my research, and almost all of those are from academic presses.

[verbena]

What criteria are you using besides

1. Gossip in the halls where you work?

2. The halo effect for Ivy League names?

3. Your own personal book reading preferences?

I think this is an interesting thread, but it also reveals how nebulous, and somewhat predictable, such rankings are.

I would also like posters to indicate how many university press books they've actually bought in the last year. I think I've bought 5, maybe.

The Fiona

Bought? Probably a dozen. Looked through carefully at bookstores, acquired by other means - review copies, birthday gifts, filched from dumpsters, the usual: maybe a few dozen more. 

Quality and reputation seem to vary widely by discipline and subdiscipline, according to these lists.

[jerseyjay]

I bought maybe 100-150 university press books over the last year. However, most of these were used; I cannot remember the last time I bought a new academic book.

I am also in history and I read history books for fun (although many are not the latest cutting-edge research, hence the used copies).

Some of my work verges into literary criticism, and while I have read many critical works in the last year for my research, I haven't actually bought any.

In my personal experience, there is an inverse relation between monographs in history and criticism. In history (to me), the final products (books) are very fun to read, at least some of them, while the raw material (primary sources) usually are not and I won't spend my Friday night reading primary sources. In literary criticism, I think it is the opposite. The raw material (literature) is often fun to read and I will spend my free time reading (some of) it; the final product is often not fun to read and hence I do not buy literary criticism. However, I am a historian so this may just be my bias.

[fiona]

In my personal experience, there is an inverse relation between monographs in history and criticism. In history (to me), the final products (books) are very fun to read, at least some of them, while the raw material (primary sources) usually are not and I won't spend my Friday night reading primary sources. In literary criticism, I think it is the opposite. The raw material (literature) is often fun to read and I will spend my free time reading (some of) it; the final product is often not fun to read and hence I do not buy literary criticism. However, I am a historian so this may just be my bias.

Lit crit is not fun for anyone to read, or write. It's an excuse to read books, a kind of Puritan paying-my-dues for reading novels on school time. The people who love to read literary theory? I have never understood how they can bear to do that.

The Fiona, who loves humor and clarity

[verbena]

Lit crit is not fun for anyone to read, or write. It's an excuse to read books, a kind of Puritan paying-my-dues for reading novels on school time. The people who love to read literary theory? I have never understood how they can bear to do that.

The Fiona, who loves humor and clarity

I love some humor, some clarity, and some literary theory. Really!