r/books discusses /lit/'s top 100 books

Somebody went and compiled that last 10 years of /lit/'s yearly top 100 books.

• There are now 10 4chan lists which I think is a considerable sample size. My guess is that even given 5-10 more lists, these rankings (especially spots 1-75) will barely sway, which I would not have said about the last list. Also, there are 102 books this time, as spots 15 and 70 are ties, and since everyone last time asked me what books just missed the list, now you'll know (spots 99 & 100).

• Tiering the books by # of appearances can feel somewhat arbitrary but is necessary to prevent books with 3 appearances outrank those with 10. 8+ appearances felt "very high", 5-7 seemed middling, and 3-4 was what was left, and so those are the divisions I chose.

• Like last time, genres and page counts were added "in post" and hastily. Page counts are mostly Barnes and Nobles, and genres are pulled from Wiki. Please notify me of any mistakes in the graphic!

Observations:

• American books dominate (more than last time) with 36 entries, Russian novels (14) overtook English (12) for 2nd place, Germany is 4th with 9 appearances, Ireland & France have 6, Italy has 5. The rest have 1-3.

• An author has finally taken a lead in appearances with the addition of Demons by Dostoevsky which brings the writer to 5 appearances. Then are Pynchon & Joyce with 4 each, and Faulkner at 3.

• The oldest book is still the Bible, but the newest book has changed completely, from what used to be 2018 (Jerusalem by Moore is no longer on the list), to now being 2004's 2666.

• 20th century lit has only gotten more popular, rising to 63 appearances. 19th century has 23, 17th has 3, and both 18th and 21st have 2. There are 5 books from BC.

• This list is more diverse than the last, if by a bit. 2 New Japanese novels make 3 total (though Kafka on the Shore was lost), a first Mexican novel Pedro Páramo, the first Indian entry (though a religious text) with The Bhagavad Gita, and I was pleased to add Frankenstein, which adds a new female writer and brings the total (though Harry Potter is now gone, so the # of female authors drops with the loss of Rowling [ironic]). There are, again, 3 women authors on the list, and 4 books written by women - as Woolf has two.

• The longest entry on the list has changed from the Harry Potter series (4,224 pages), to In Search of Lost Time at 4,215. The shortest book also changed from Metamorphosis (102 pages, still on the list) to Animal Farm at 92. The longest single novel on the list is Les Miserables at 1,462.

The highest rated books on this list that weren't on the last are The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea at 61, and Demons at 64.

Genres, though blurry, are Literary Fiction at 12, Philosophical Fiction: 10, General Fiction: 10, Postmodernist Fiction: 8, Modernist Fiction: 7, Science Fiction: 6, and Epic Poem: 4.

GG effort

Choice comments:

There are almost too many Dostoyevsky books. He is certainly the most "fetishized" Russian author in the West, especially with younger people (maybe 2nd to Nabokov). Don't get me wrong, his works are very complex and profound. But I can almost guarantee you that some of those books are on the list only because people were trying to outDostoyevsky each other. Having read Crime and Punishment or Brothers Karamazov is no longer edgy enough, so they diversify into more fringe works. If they had read them, it was for the purpose of name dropping. Also, how many of them read the Bible cover to cover? I am certain there is a lot of cultural and social pressure (on that platform specifically) towards naming some works/authors over others. So you could say almost the entire list is name dropping.

Dostoyevsky is edgy?

open list

Lolita at 3rd

Infinite Jest at 6th

total of 4 female authors

yep, that's a 4chan list

4chan is literally just reddit for nazis change my mind

Alright I was gonna' be smug about this but the last time I posted on /k/ I was dabbing on how r-slurred the Krauts were for planning a mainland invasion of the USA during WW1 and the whole thread devolved into screeching about Jews.

Bit of a sausage fest.

I won't be giving any authority to a list by people who clearly don't read diversely. I know the stats on men not reading books by women but still 5/100 is a bit of a joke

What are some books that you would've liked to see on the list?

Edit: No idea why this is being downmarseyd. Legit question, and very much interested in new books to read or perhaps seeing books I've already read in a list.

Emma, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Handmaid's Tale, The Colour Purple, Jane Eyre, Beloved, Middlemarch (although it's not to my tastes haha).

Would also replace The Waves with Mrs Dalloway and move it way further up the rankings

Alrightly, gonna' remove these books from my reading list

4chan... Nah I'm good.

It's a much better list than this sub could come up with, I'll give them that.

I think this subreddit would have significantly greater diversity. This list is like all white men.

96 books by men to 4 books by women.

And Virginia Woolf is in at 56

Thanks for sharing.

A couple of notes:

Pride and Prejudice and To Kill A Mockingbird are two noteworthy misses that help explain the groupthink that contributed to this list.

A Stephen King would've been nice.

Why no Peepeeens?

Maybe controversially, I think a Game of Thrones belongs here. I can also see why it doesn't.

Three female authors? That's some list.

This list is a bit... insecure.

Also a /lit/ reaction thread to the reddit thread.