East Coast Meets West, in the Bookstore

University of California-Berkeley—haven for political
activists, Nalgene-toting prepsters, and a new generation of flower
children—has a surprising secret: its students are just like
you and me, at least as far as their taste in books is
concerned.

Living up to its reputation, Berkeley boasts four political
titles on its combined best seller list, including Bill
Clinton’s My Life, the Kerry/Edwards manifesto Our
Plan for America, Ernesto Guevara’s Motorcycle
Diaries, and of course, The 9/11 Commission Report. Not
surprisingly, you won’t see John Rolfe’s Monkey
Business: Swinging through the Wall Street Jungle—number
seven on Columbia’s non-fiction list—much around the
Cal campus. Similarly though, three of Columbia’s non-fiction
best sellers are overtly political: The 9/11 Commission Report,
The Motorcycle Diaries, and Jon Stewart’s America.
Two are politically oriented: Art Spiegelman’s In the
Shadow of No Towers and Anita Allen’s The New Ethics:
A Guided Tour through the Twenty-First Century.

Though New York City and northern California are, literally and
metaphorically, miles apart, are the similarities so surprising?
Though many Columbia students like to see themselves as urban
hipsters and much more fashion-conscious than their Berkeley
counterparts, Columbia’s liberal atmosphere fosters its own
version of left-wing crunchiness. Judging by the numbers of people
who attended rallies during the Republican National Convention, the
overwhelming reminders to register to vote around campus, and the
widespread interest in the recent World Leaders Forum, Columbia
students seem to be among the most politically aware in the
country.

That’s not to say we don’t have our wild side,
evidenced by the popularity here of Buzzed by Cynthia Kuhn.
It may be surprising that Buzzed, a book about the history
and effects of recreational drugs, is more popular at Columbia than
at Berkeley, with its strong reputation as a haven for
counterculture. But maybe that’s stereotypical—or maybe
it’s because Berkeley only gave us its top five non-fiction
books in a combined best seller list. How much would you bet that
on a non-fiction list, Buzzed would have been their number
six?

University of California-Berkeley Bookstore Best
Sellers

Combined Fiction/Non-fiction

1. The 9/11 Commission Report, by the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. W.W. Norton and
Co.

2. The Motorcycle Diaries, by Ernesto Guevara. Ocean
Press

3. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.
Bloomsbury USA

4. My Life, by Bill Clinton. Knopf

5. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David
Sedaris. Little, Brown

6. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. Back Bay
Books

7. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to
Punctuation!, by Lynne Truss. Gotham Books

8. Our Plan for America, by John Kerry and John Edwards.
PublicAffairs

9. Diary, by Chuck Palahniuk. Anchor

10. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. Doubleday

Columbia Bookstore Best Sellers: Fiction

1. Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, by Stephen King.
Donald M. Grant/ Scribner

2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.
Bloomsbury USA

3. Grim Grotto: Book the Eleventh, by Lemony Snicket.
HarperCollins

4. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez. Perennial

5. Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown. Mass Market
Paperback

6. Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Houghton Mifflin

7. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. Penguin Books

8. Tar Baby, by Toni Morrison. Plume Books

9. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. Vintage

10. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. Picador

Columbia Bookstore Best Sellers: Non-fiction

1. The 9/11 Commission Report, by the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. W.W. Norton and
Co.

2. America, by John Stewart. Warner Books

3. In the Shadow of No Towers, by Art Spiegelman.
Pantheon

4. Da Gospel According to Ali G, by Sacha Cohen.
Pocket

5. The Motorcycle Diaries, by Ernesto Guevara. Ocean
Press

6. Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker, by David
Remnick. Modern Library

7. Monkey Business: Swinging through the Wall Street
Jungle, by John Rolfe and Peter Troob. Warner Business
Books

8. The New Ethics: A Guided Tour through the Twenty-First
Century Moral Landscape, by Anita Allen. Miramax Books

9. Buzzed, by Cynthia Kuhn, et al. W.W. Norton and
Co.

10. Mole People, by Jennifer Toth. Chicago Review
Press