Sonny Mehta Is Officially The Best Publisher In The World

The Really: Alfred A. Knopf Publisher titles voted 7 of the top 10 books for 2008 by the New York Times.

Sonny Mehta (accused of still smoking in his office at headquarters) is arguably the finest publisher operating today. Here are the Top Ten.

And if you want to include corporate ties, the Random House conglomorate includes Doubleday and Pantheon (each has one title) so that makes it 9 out of 10. Who spoiled a clean sweep? Farrar, Straus & Giroux with the novel 2666.

But would founders Alfred and Blanche Knopf be turning over in their graves to hear that today the corporate masters (Bertlesmann) of Random House have decided to fold Doubleday and Bantam and Dell into various other divisions at Random? Lay-offs to follow.