Comments on: Generating a list of Best 100 Novels

By: Nick Barnes

Nick Barnes — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:53:29 +0000

Also: you can easily improve this list by removing everything published in the last 10 or 20 years. It’s possible you will remove one or two actually good books, but you will also get rid of a lot of trendy rubbish.

By: Nick Barnes

Nick Barnes — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:51:05 +0000

This is an excellent list. There are hardly any books on it which don't seem to belong. I've read (I think) 43 out of the top 50, and at least 35 of those definitely belong near the top of any list of good books. See also my remarks about lists of movies, from which DRJ sent me here.

By: donstuff

donstuff — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:49:54 +0000

You did a great job in putting this together. Thanks.

By: Scott McLeod

Scott McLeod — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:04:57 +0000

I’ve read 19 of your list, for record.

By: Scott McLeod

Scott McLeod — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:02:34 +0000

Of the Novel 100, I’ve read seventeen. On another, 14, another more. I’m an English Lit major, and i’m sure i’m gonna be reading more and more of these at the university, Pitt, but all in good time.

The only real struggle with these list is the wonder of how to rank them. For example…Delilo’s “White Nose” is great, but is it really top 100? (I’m not actually done with it yet) And somehow Charles Dickens is grossly underrepresented on most of these list. For that note, so is “The Razor’s Edge.”

By: Tk

Tk — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:16:53 +0000

Hi Neil,

Cool idea blending all the different lists together. I am actually the publisher of best100novels.com and I know what you mean about the temptation to be bias. I too wanted to 86 The Da Vinci Code. On my list it is currently #48(53 in my database and nearly ready to be updated) but I also decided that it was best to keep an accurate unbiased record of the actual results. Keep up the good work.