Remember the good old days of mom-and-pop bookstores? Back when Ruminator had healthy operations in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, we might have walked in the door, charged right up to the counter, and asked a real person: Can you tell which city readers are from by the books they buy? With the recent unpleasantness, though, we got lazy and threw in with the enemy. Amazon keeps track of sales by region and by city, a swell feature they call “Purchase Circles.” A random peek at the bestsellers the other day revealed some interesting differences. Though both Minneapolis and St. Paul are dominated by the latest Harry Potter doorstop, John Grisham’s The King of Torts was at No. 3 in St. Paul and No. 13 in Minneapolis. This probably doesn’t flatter either city, but might also reflect the fact that you can’t swing a dead cat in downtown St. Paul without hitting a real-life lawyer.
Perhaps not coincidentally, St. Paul seems to be suffering from low self-esteem, judging by the number of self-help titles on its Top 20, including The Power of Now (9), The Purpose-Driven Life (12), Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (14) and What Should I Do With My Life? (15). The more self-confident city, Minneapolis was interested only in The Power of Full Engagement (15). Then again, it could be that Minneapolitans are too distracted or vain for introspection, because they are busy searching out beef sources for Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution (8).
According to someone we spoke with at Amazon, St. Paul is actually buying more books than its more populous twin—enough to get its own list of books selling uniquely well there. Some books unique to St. Paul are no surprise: Jim Brandenburg’s Chased by the Light is selling well (9), presumably among capital citizens with big coffee tables and “critical habitat” license plates. With the holidays upon us, The Great Scandinavian Baking Book (12) is also a natural local favorite. The media edges out the message near the top of St. Paul’s unique list, where KARE-11 political reporter Kerri Miller’s novel Dead Air (2) clocks in ahead of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone’s The Conscience of a Liberal (3). One title stands out, however, in summarizing St. Paul’s identity issues: The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World (20).—Dan Gilchrist
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