Just wanted to throw out there...some in this thread mention the New York Times bestseller list, like that's where all the snob books go to hang out.
The NYT bestseller list is statistics from booksellers. That's it. And you can tell that, because (especially recently) snobs wouldn't go near 90% of what's on the list: "bestselling author X's latest gripping 342nd entry of their series about stock character Y." Or, in non-fiction, the latest political/celebrity bio, or pundit screed.
The snobs hang out in the NYT Book Review, where they're looking at what's considered significant fiction/non-fiction, and their definition of significant is pretty broad.
While I enjoy my guilty pleasures, I'm definitely on the elitist side of the spectrum, and I think they happen to do a pretty good job of pointing out what's new and worth putting on hold at the library. But hey, what do I know?
