While reading the CBC last night I took a look at their "Top 10 Best Selling Canadian Books of 2021" list and my immediate response was "wow this is astroturfed to shit." For those not in the know, the CBC is the Canadian state media company. Unlike the BBC, which has some serious journalists working for it, the CBC mainly exists to pump out narrative television content that literally no one watches, all on the taxpayer's dime. The list is full of works by Indigenous authors that no one has read. To give you an idea of what they are like, here is the description of the number 5 book: "Jonny Appleseed is a novel about a two-spirit Indigiqueer young man who has left the reserve and becomes a cybersex worker in the city to make ends meet. But he must reckon with his past when he returns home to attend his stepfather's funeral." Noticeably, not a single book by a white man. The methodology for the ranking is "using data from close to 300 independent Canadian bookstores." Below is the CBC's list versus the Toronto Star end-of-year bestsellers, a newspaper that is fairly left-leaning itself. The latter's methodology is as follows: "The Star compiles its bestseller list from sales data supplied by BookNet Canada. It tracks English-language print book sales reported from Canadian booksellers each week," although they have divided fiction and non-fiction so some speculation is necessary. Importantly, this is only talking about books by Canadian authors, so I imagine a lot of this will be shit you've never heard of because most Canadian literature is irrelevant. Stay with me though, it's not about the books themselves but the taxpayer-funded newsbroadcaster intentionally pushing an agenda.
The comparison shows that there is a major discrepancy between the two. While some align, many books were clearly left out. For instance, if Peterson is outselling the No. 2 book on the CBC's list but isn't even in their top 10 then something is amiss. Despite not really being into him, not seeing him on the list was what initially set me off. Clearly his books sell well.
The difference between the lists is of course attributable to the choice of where the sales data is being pulled from. I feel like they intentionally choose a source that (A) excluded authors they didn't like such as Peterson and (B) boosted black and Indigenous authors to look woke. Those 300 independent bookstores are probably all in Toronto, selling to millennial queer white women who refuse to read anything by white dudes. What I don't get is, what is the endgame here? The CBC doesn't benefit from feeding people into buying these books simply because they are written by people other than white men, so why do this? I might just be overthinking it but I don't get what's going on here and why this is happening. Something just seems off about shilling books about "Indigiqueer" cybersex workers to the general populace.
Rank | CBC Top 10 Bestsellers | Toronto Star Fiction Bestsellers | Toronto Star Non-fiction Bestsellers |
1. | Five Little Indians by Michelle Good | State of Terror by Louise Penny & Shillary Rodham Clinton | Beyond Order by Jordan Peterson |
2. | 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph | The Push by Ashley Audrain | Indian in the Cabinet by Jody Wilson-Raybould |
3. | Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard | Five Little Indians by Michelle Good | Talking to Canadians by Rick Mercer |
4. | The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny | The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield | The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell |
5. | Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead | The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny | Crossroads by Kaleb Dahlgreen |
6. | State of Terror by Louise Penny & Shillary Rodham Clinton | Home Body by Rupi Kaur | 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph |
7. | The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline | Not a Happy Family by Shari Lapena | No One Wins Alone by Mark Messier |
8. | Fight Night by Miriam Toews | The Strangers by Katherine Vermette | From the Ashes by Jess Thistle |
9. | Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi | Fight Night by Miriam Toews | Off the Record by Peter Mansbridge |
10. | Indian in the Cabinet by Jody Wilson-Raybould | The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline | Value by Mark Carney |
The comparison shows that there is a major discrepancy between the two. While some align, many books were clearly left out. For instance, if Peterson is outselling the No. 2 book on the CBC's list but isn't even in their top 10 then something is amiss. Despite not really being into him, not seeing him on the list was what initially set me off. Clearly his books sell well.
The difference between the lists is of course attributable to the choice of where the sales data is being pulled from. I feel like they intentionally choose a source that (A) excluded authors they didn't like such as Peterson and (B) boosted black and Indigenous authors to look woke. Those 300 independent bookstores are probably all in Toronto, selling to millennial queer white women who refuse to read anything by white dudes. What I don't get is, what is the endgame here? The CBC doesn't benefit from feeding people into buying these books simply because they are written by people other than white men, so why do this? I might just be overthinking it but I don't get what's going on here and why this is happening. Something just seems off about shilling books about "Indigiqueer" cybersex workers to the general populace.