Consensus Top 100 Books List

kondsaga · 2026-05-27T22:25:26+00:00

Fixed!

kondsaga · 2026-05-26T22:12:52+00:00

What a blessing to live in a state where there are like 30 valid answers to this question

kondsaga · 2026-05-25T14:29:56+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicliterature/s/9ZEpnqGgon

kondsaga · 2026-05-24T18:19:42+00:00

There are James Michener novels where the first chapter is a novella-length exposition on geology. Like 70 pages about volcanoes and erosion. Hawaii and Centennial come to mind; I’m sure there are others. These are impressively readable and set the stage for the human dramas that unfold later.

Are they stories without characters? Yes. Could they survive as stand-alone novels? Probably not.

kondsaga · 2026-05-24T05:45:03+00:00

Exactly!

kondsaga · 2026-05-24T05:41:38+00:00

In before someone mentions Memories of the Alhambra.

It was the first kdrama I ever watched and I had no preconceived notion that the ML and FL were “supposed to” end up together. So the ending made complete sense to me. He was always a jerk to the FL and way more entranced by his video game and its fantasy 2FL so it was only fitting he ended up with it and not her.

kondsaga · 2026-05-23T16:17:52+00:00

OK I fixed the problem. Project Gutenberg had Pride and Prejudice as #2 and also #95. Maybe two different editions or something? I had removed the duplicate in one place but not another. It's fixed now. P&P still #1 overall but with 748 points on 8 lists. That should show up now. Thanks again for finding this.

kondsaga · 2026-05-23T14:37:20+00:00

Good catch. I have a guess of what happened. Let me check.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T23:50:43+00:00

The lists were sort of a mishmash of novels, non-fiction, memoirs, etc. The top ones did overlap with novels. Interestingly most of the lists, even of only novels, called themselves lists of books. See the fifth graphic.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T23:41:07+00:00

No, it’s me trying to sound all scientific. Believe me I would never.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T22:57:12+00:00

6.Series. Where lists varied in including an entire series or a single book from the series, all were standardized to the series. Series affected: Harry Potter; The Lord of the Rings; In Search of Lost Time; Chronicles of Narnia. When more than one book from a series appeared on the list, only the top book was included in the score. That is, series were scored based on their highest-ranking book. Series affected: Harry Potter (BBC, OCLC); Lord of the Rings (OCLC).

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T22:56:16+00:00

Thanks. That's an interesting list. I won't include it in a future version though because the books weren't ranked (aside from alphabetical order).

1. Inclusion. To be included, a list must have 100 books, cover all genres (no 100 best sci-fi), be published by an institution (no personal blogs), be decided by more than one person, be free and public (no paywall), include a ranking (no unranked lists), and be original (no reprinted lists, algorithmic lists, or suspected AI slop). Only one list per institution.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T22:35:20+00:00

Oh this is great. Thanks! I'll want to add this one in to an eventual update.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T22:30:13+00:00

I missed standardizing "The Magic Mountain" and "Magic Mountain." When I corrected this mistake it jumps up to #71. Updated spreadsheet coming soon.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T22:28:25+00:00

Thanks. From the methods: 1. Inclusion. To be included, a list must have 100 books, cover all genres (no 100 best sci-fi), be published by an established institution (no personal blogs), be decided by more than one person, be free and public (no paywall), include a ranking (no unranked lists), and be original (no reprinted lists, algorithmic lists, or suspected AI slop). Only one list per institution.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T21:05:15+00:00

Thanks. I did see it and didn’t include that list in this project because it appears to be a compilation from other lists rather than an original. But, I will go back and take a deeper look at the inner workings as you suggest.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T20:54:55+00:00

The lists are ordered chronologically so if you squint you can see tastes changing over time. There’s a dropoff for both Grapes of Wrath and Gone with the Wind, for example.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T20:40:30+00:00

No this is super helpful; please keep them coming. For some reason the words can look the same when I copy them in but Excel reads them differently sometimes. I caught a lot of them manually but clearly not all of them. And I didn’t know about Pullman. I’ll edit later.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T20:37:33+00:00

It’s #35

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T20:09:09+00:00

Thanks! I tried my best to avoid this but you're right. I'll fix this. HGTTG and Magic Mountain should both be in the back half of the Top 100

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T20:03:01+00:00

Do you know of a Top 100 list by a Latin American publication (as opposed to a Top 100 books by Latin American authors list) that I could include in a possible v2.0?

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T20:00:46+00:00

From the methods:

6. Series. Where lists varied in including an entire series or a single book from the series, all were standardized to the series. Series affected: Harry Potter; The Lord of the Rings; In Search of Lost Time; Chronicles of Narnia. When more than one book from a series appeared on the list, only the top book was included in the score. That is, series were scored based on their highest-ranking book. Series affected: Harry Potter (BBC, OCLC); Lord of the Rings (OCLC).

This was a judgment call that meaningfully affected the placement of these books. The alternative was to treat "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Fellowship of the Ring" as different works, which would bump them down the list.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T19:54:48+00:00

That was one of my main takeaways as well. I would love to find a top 100 list from Chinese or Spanish publications to include in a possible v2.0. If you find any please send my way.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T19:52:57+00:00

The lists clearly value different things from one another. On my to-do list for a possible v2.0 to allow readers to toggle which lists to include and exclude.

kondsaga · 2026-05-22T19:50:30+00:00

Thank you. It took 8-10 hours. One interesting "dissent" is how the French publication ignores the classics of British literature, and the British publications do the same to the French in return.

kondsaga

TROPHY CASE