THE HAWKING INDEX FOR SOME WELL-KNOWN BOOKS. This gallery in the Independent gives Hawking Index scores for some representative books:
1.Donna Tartt THE GOLDFINCH 98.5
2. Suzanne Collins CATCHING FIRE (from the Hunger Games trilogy) 43.4
3.Scott Fitzgerald THE GREAT GATSBY 28.3
4. E L James FIFTY SHADES OF GREY 25.9
5. Michael Lewis FLASH BOYS 21.7
6. Sheryl Sandberg LEAN IN 12.3
7.Daniel Kahneman THINKING FAST AND SLOW 6.8
8. Stephen Hawking A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME 6.6
9. Thomas Piketty CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 2.4
I was pleased to see that GATSBY did reasonably well.
Joseph Brean says that Professor Ellenberg is tempted to rename the Hawking Index the “Piketty Index,†because Mr. Piketty scored even worse than Mr. Hawking.