Books of the Century by Le Monde

(standardebooks.org)

35 points by zlu2 days ago

5 comments

onli1 hour ago
What a strange list. Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect to be listed are missing. So I looked up the background and indeed it's based on strange methodology, citing wikipedia: "Starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French participants responded to the question, "Which books have stuck in your mind?" (Quels livres sont restés dans votre mémoire?"<p>Makes more sense like that.
- kergonath20 minutes ago
  > Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect to be listed are missing<p>Most of them make sense to me. I don’t know some of them but then I don’t know everything. The methodology can be discussed (and indeed, a pre-selection of 200 books is at the same time a lot and not that much), but none of these lists can be perfect.<p>Out of curiosity, which one would you remove from the list, and which ones would you add?
- jdsnape1 hour ago
  Out of interest, why does that seem a strange methodology?
  - onli1 hour ago
    When reading "Books of the Century" I expected a list of the most important, most influential or just best books. Skewed towards the french perspective, given Le Monde as a source. But this was never the goal, just a "what stuck in your mind" question.<p>For example, 1984 is missing, and Louis Begley Wartime Lies. And I wouldn't have expected Ulysses in there given the french source, for me it was incomprehensible gibberish and I thought only the US ranks it high. But that gibberishness makes it certainly memorable, so given the question it fits.
    - jkingsbery57 minutes ago
      1984 is 22 on the list.
      - onli53 minutes ago
        Upps. Searching for 1984 didn't turn it up.
    - Karuma57 minutes ago
      1984 is N°22 on that list...
  - hammock32 minutes ago
    Starting with only 200 titles in the survey, for a final list of 100, seems off to me for starters. Every book surveyed has a 50% chance of making “book of the century”
lovegrenoble1 hour ago
More clean: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_Century" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_...</a>
haunter1 hour ago
This should have an 1999 in the title even if the site and ebooks published are newer
orwin1 hour ago
I don't think I would place all of them in any 'top' list, but all the books I have read, ~60%, are great read. Weird list though.
pcasca1 hour ago
Infinite Jest?