4 ms·
Modern Library held a "top books of the century" thing, using both critics and popular vote to make two lists. http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100best
by unalone 18y ago
Modern Library held a "top books of the century" thing, using both critics and popular vote to make two lists.
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
The critics one is decent, if a bit off (Ulysses 1: yes, Great Gatsby 2: hardly), but the Ayn-Rand-meets-L-Ron-Hubbard on the other side always makes me laugh, even though I'm a fan of Rand.
- pg 18y agoTheir popular list suggests they didn't have any technology for discounting the effects of voting blocs. I wonder if to this day they believe they had a representative sample of popular opinion.
- unalone 18y agoIf they did, they'd have to be pretty seriously deluded. Atlas Shrugged I can see as #1 popular - there was the poll that said it was second only to the Bible for average Americans - but Hubbard's stuff is incredibly derided. I don't know anybody who's read a single book of his. I'm sure they released a result more to gain popularity through controversy than they did to get a truly accurate reading. And it worked, since theirs is always the one I've heard named when people discuss "great books," and it always gets people angry.