Has literature gone downhill?

Or is it just the reading habits of Americans? On the day I was born, Doctor Zhivago and Lolita stood at number one and two on the New York Times bestsellers list.

Further down were Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, The Ugly American, The King Must Die, Our Man in Havana, and On My Own by Eleanor Roosevelt. (Thanks to Tayari Jones for the link.)

Now? It’s Stieg Larsson, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell ... and Jonathan Franzen.