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The New Yorker and Excel Work So Well Together

Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Complete New Yorker, fiction, Roberto Bolano, The New Yorker

The Millions has just posted a really juicy spreadsheet that a teacher named Frank Kovarik sent in. It's got basic information on every short story that has appeared in The New Yorker since 2003. I salute Kovarik for his industry and public-spiritedness! I also use Excel to make sense of The Complete New Yorker's vastness. Indeed, I think those two just might be the new PB&J, the new franks and beans, the new vodka and tonic. It's possible I overstate.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this data, but I hope that Kovarik elucidates the meaning of the "Rating" column. I suspect it refers to his own personal opinion of the story, on a scale from 1 to 10. If that guess is correct, he sure doesn't like Roberto Bolaño!

One aspect of this information that has already gotten some attention is the statistics on gender. Obviously, The Complete New Yorker permits comparison across eras, so that's something I'd like to look into soon. —Martin Schneider

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Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.

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Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)

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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.

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Edited by Martin Schneider, designed by Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.

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