We love our lists here in America. Top 20 football teams. The Billboard Hot 100. Letterman’s Top Ten. Lists everywhere. You can even find the Book of Lists, original and international versions.
Some lists are strictly fact. Most NFL passing touchdowns: Peyton Manning. Some lists are strictly subjective. Rolling Stone Magazines’ Greatest 500 Albums of All Time: #1, The Beatles, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (I personally have no severe objection to that one, although I would have several others in close contention on my list. There are plenty of people, no doubt, that would not have Sgt Pepper’s in their Top 10, and that’s my point exactly.)
There are a couple of titles missing over in the American and English literature section, and my unfortunately-mental inventory system could not produce which ones to reorder. Easy enough to figure out, I guessed. Just print out a list of the Top 100 novels of all time. Bound to be on that list.
Two lists popped up on the Random House site, at the top of the Google search. They offer “The Board’s List” and “The Reader’s List.” As I read down the columns they both seemed more and more like a complete joke. Apparently great writing only came about after 1900.
Looking down the list, I cannot find a single author on the Random House “board’s list” who died before 1900. (I don’t know if “The Board” signifies ‘Editorial Board,’ ‘Board of Directors,” or ‘Board Books.’) I’ve read some pretty engaging novels from the 18th and 19th centuries. You may have heard of a title or two from then as well: Three Musketeers, Oliver Twist, Les Miserable, for example.
The board selects James Joyce’s Ulysses as the best novel ever, followed by The Great Gatsby, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. James Joyce holds two of the top three places. I’m not disputing Joyce as a great writer. But two of the top three? Of all time? Really?
The reader’s list has Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as the top two of all time. Since paper was invented. She has to be the best writer ever then, by default. Readers, are you sure about that? Certainly they both deserve places on the list, and maybe plenty of votes – but numbers one and two? I don’t know. Maybe the reader’s selection for the third best novel of all time soured my opinion.
If you were stranded on a desert island and could take along the Random House reader’s top three books to tide you over until your rescue, you’d get the box set from Ayn Rand – and for your third volume?
L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth.
That’s right. A science fiction alien-invasion title beats out Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies (oh, I could just keep typing and typing on this sentence…)
Truly?
Since Mr Hubbard landed three titles in the top ten, I’m guessing that the list is a little skewed. In fact, Canadian “urban fantasy” writer Charles de Lint landed six titles in the reader’s Best 100 Novels of all time. I wonder if Mr de Lint himself might be a little embarrassed by that, however flattering. Without question, his fan base is a force to be reckoned with.
As for our literature section, I highlighted in yellow each title on Random House’s two lists that was absent from the inventory. I’m confident that most of these won’t be ordered in the near future. Catch-22 and the Grapes of Wrath ought to be in stock, and will be again next delivery. I’m sold out of Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor, but haven’t had a request for it in some time. I’ll keep an eye out for that one.
As for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? That’s a skipper, even at #73 on the RH reader’s list. It may be an occasional seller, and it had its day (or week). But a book called Oliver Twist by an author that did not get a single one of his fifteen novels on either list – outsells Zen by a margin of ten to one. And that’s just the Dover Thrift edition. As a work in the public domain, any publisher can release its own version. Add together all the different copies from various publishers and Oliver Twist sales beat Zen’s – like a drum.
My guess is, Random House doesn’t publish any titles by Charles Dickens. And that’s likely why his name is absent from two separate lists containing 100 great novels.
From the results of my Google search, I could probably produce a lengthy list of various “Top 100” novels of all time. And each one would probably have a different winner. I’ll make a list of reasons why. (Or not.)
Real classics? We’ve got ‘em (amongst plenty of other books)!
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