The website The Literary Saloon has done some stats-gathering on titles covered in recent issues of The New York Times Book Review, and the data may not be encouraging for fiction authors and publishers. From November 6 through 20, the paper’s books section covered 53 non-fiction titles as opposed to merely 22 fiction titles.

Of course, the results might carry a little more weight if the survey covered more than three issues. (After all, the Globe and Mail books section has been a little heavy on non-fiction of late, but the paper seems to strike a fairly equitable mix over the course of a full season.) But the Literary Saloon folks are worried nonetheless: “[W]e do hope [books editor Sam] Tanenhaus gets over his non-fiction fetish; it’s a waste of good space that could be put to far better use covering fiction.”

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