Introduction to
RALPH's Top Pops
(And an Introduction
To the Faces
Behind the Reviews)

Our Average Reader
RALPH now gets over 6,000 hits a day, some 180,000 a month. Our server delivers a daily accounting not only of gross totals, but those reviews, readings, poems, letters and articles that receive the most hits.

Typical Daily Editorial Meeting
There are a variety of different reasons for an item's popularity. A few seem to create interest because of the colorful attention-getting photographs attached to the review. Thus, Paul Krassner's book on Toad-Slime may make the grade not only because he is a funny writer, but because of the poignant shots of toads and frogs we came up with to add pizzazz to the review.

Our Director of
Communications
The numbers racked up on Moko Maori Tattoo may be because of the text, or perhaps because of the heart-stopping photographs of indigenous New Zealanders with wondrous designs all over their faces.

Others may make the grade for less seemly reasons. Our longest-running hit article has to do with the trial of Fatty Arbuckle, showing that Hollywood scandal may attract not only endless but eternal curiosity.

Our Chief of Protocol
And files of ours up at Google with the word "Sex" or "Erotic" or "Nude" (or, in one case, "Onan") in the title always attract inordinate --- and perhaps naïve --- interest.

At the top of the bare bums list is Nude Sculpture: The Last 5,000 Years --- a respectable volume from the very respectable publishing firm of Harry N. Abrams.

Our Editor, Lolita Lark
There is, too, the bitter, funny prison poem, "Song to Onan's Complaining Hand" by 19th-century Dominican Republic poet, Manuel del Cabral.

And a "Letter to the Editor" that continues to excite prurient interest is the one explaining to those looking for RALPH that they may be being waylaid by yet another RALPH --- an excessively noisy beer-and-bust-fondle mag out the wilds of Australia ... partially owned by, of all people, Bill Gates.

Our Staff Physician
Outside of these exceptions, we figure that most of the reviews, readings, articles, and poems are on the hit list because they are strange, honest, or caustic enough to attract attention from those who have grown tired of the puff-piece world of American book reviewing.

Our Public Relations Director

Go
here
to see the list
of our 10
Most Popular Titles,
or
here
for the 20
Runners-Up.

All are listed in order of
average number of daily hits
over the last sixty days.