Week 9: NY Times API

Introduction

Using the NYTimes API, I explore which books are listed as the top 10 best sellers in the middle grade hardback category.

API Request

First I make the request. This requires access to the “Books” API. My endpoint is the list of top middle grade hardcover books. I have my API key saved in my R environment file, not hardcoded into my quarto file or uploaded to github.

nyt_key <- Sys.getenv("NYT_API_KEY")
mg_books_url <- "https://api.nytimes.com/svc/books/v3/lists/current/childrens-middle-grade-hardcover.json"
response <- GET(mg_books_url, query = list(`api-key` = nyt_key))

Convert to Data Frame

Once we have the response to our API query, we can parse the JSON request and convert it to data frame.

# Parse the JSON
json_text <- content(response, as = "text", encoding = "UTF-8")
parsed_data <- fromJSON(json_text, flatten = TRUE)

# Extract into a data frame
mgbooks_df <- parsed_data$results$books

Tidy Data Frame

Finally I tidy the data frame by selecting only relevant, non-empty columns. A preview of the first 10 entries in that list is displayed:

clean_mgbooks <- mgbooks_df %>%
  select(
    rank,
    title,
    author,
    publisher,
    description,
    weeks_on_list,
    primary_isbn13,
    age_group
  )

# Display the top 5 middle grade best sellers
head(clean_mgbooks %>% select(rank,title, author), n=10)

   rank                                   title                        author
1     1                           THE WILD ZONE Rick Riordan and Annabelle Oh
2     2                            BUILDING 903                    Lois Lowry
3     3                                  WONDER                  R.J. Palacio
4     4   THE COMPLETE COOKBOOK FOR YOUNG CHEFS   America's Test Kitchen Kids
5     5                 KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE                   Eiko Kadono
6     6 GAME OF PETS: THE BOY WHO KNEW TOO MUCH                  Aaron Blabey
7     7                                THE WUMP               Tony DiTerlizzi
8     8                             POCKET BEAR           Katherine Applegate
9     9                  KIKI AND THE NEW MAGIC                   Eiko Kadono
10   10                           SPOOKY RIVERS                Geo Rutherford