Amazon.com has provided readers with a “novel” way to view the election – by tracking the sales top politically partisan books in your area through a heat map. Red books lean right and blue books lean left in ideology.
As Amazon warns, however, “Just remember, books aren't votes, so a map of book purchases may reflect curiosity as much as commitment.”
Check out the heat map and read about Colorado’s stats after the jump.
Over the last 30 days, nationwide, 44% of books purchased were “blue” books and 56% of books purchased were “red” books. Interestingly, this trend is prevalent in nearly every state, except Pennsylvania, which is split 50-50, and New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., which all show a higher percentage of blue books purchased.
In Colorado, the percentage of red versus blue book purchases is even more dramatic, with blue books accounting for 41% of purchases and red books accounting for 59% of purchases.
Below are the top five titles in Colorado divided by color.
Interestingly, while the red book "top five" in Colorado is nearly the same as the national "top five", the blue book "top five" in Colorado is quite different from the national "top five". Your guess is as good as ours on this one. See the national below.
Amazon also tracked which presidential and vice-presidential books sold the most copies over the past 30 days. President Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" has outsold Mitt Romney's "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness", but "Young Guns" co-authored by Paul Ryan far outsold Joe Biden's book "Promises to Keep". Who knew Biden had a book?
That Paul Ryan sold more books over the past 30 days isn't surprising since the country is just becoming acquainted with him.
Does this mean anything in the larger picture? Maybe, but maybe not. At the very least, it indicates that more Americans are curious about what the right is saying. Whether that means conservatives are changing hearts and minds or simply are releasing more compelling information remains to be seen.