Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List

a totally racist and bigoted anglo -saxon travesty -the list is a joke

You forgot Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe - a sea of boiling teeth.
Also Heart of Darkness by Conrad.

Isn't this list litle bet Anglo-Saxon ? Where is Lusíadas from Luís Vaz de Camoens ? And Don Quixote, from Cervantes ? huge mistake.

Carlos Costa
Portugal

are you crazy? where is Don Quixote?

No place for CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, THE TRIAL among many others?! Bad,very bad...

What, no Melville. I nominate " Billy Budd" .

I think it's curious that the KJV Bible was ranked at #41. Since this is a list for general readers of many faiths, I didn't expect it to be #1. Also shocked to see Shakespeare so low in the rankings despite his well-acknowledged place. The Bible and Shakespeare have had an enormous impact on the development of the English language. The possibility that a Christian scripture edition has had a sizeable linguistic impact on people of different faiths is a touchy subject. But I don't think it's one that can be avoided or minimized, as Bible allusions and quotations will inevitably appear in works of English literature. Ditto Shakespeare -- it's pretty hard to detour around him as his phrases have woven themselves into English language and literature. But bumping Will down the list unjustly minimizes his impact on other works and their place in a literary canon.

This shows the dangers of using a statistical approach to creating a "best" look. It also brings into question the values and quality of the source lists. No Victor Hugo? Or Charles Dickens? Or Ayn Rand? Something is terribly wrong. It is also inadvisable to mix fiction and non fiction. Next time, stick out your neck and make your own list rather than creating a mess like this. I suspect any list you made would be an improvement.

What were they thinking? Were they thinking?

No one in their right mind would ever take this ridiculous mess seriously. As one poster put it, they must be smoking crack.

So many omissions (writers Dickens, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and works such as Macbeth and most assuredly Moby Dick).

So many disordered (The Bible ??? the single book which has most influenced the English language ??? not at #1?! William Shakespeare ??? the second biggest influence on the language ??? not showing up until #49?!)

And so many totally bogus selections (Gone With The Wind, Lord Of The Rings, Winnie-the-Pooh, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Kim, Charlotte's Web, His Dark Materials, The Wind In the Willows ??? to cite but a few), that I'm left agog and gagging. If these are literature, why not Dick And Jane and The Silver Surfer? (See poster woodc for similar sentiments.)

Seriously ??? this calls Newsweek's credibility fully into question. (But then again, considering the magazine's recent format change, should I really be so surprised here?)

Can't wait to see what they come up with once they get back from whatever planet they've been visiting.

How could a list of the Top 100 Books not include anything by Charles Dickens or Dostoyevsky, two
of the greatest novelists of the 19th century-- of any century?

This list is an unholy mess. All this proves is that, by trying to be eclectic and egalitarian, you're just giving everybody equal reason to complain about why one genre or another has been woefully neglected. You've managed a perfect illustration of our highly confused and conflicted meta-culture, although I'm not sure that's what you were going for. It actually makes sense that you didn't publish this list in print, as the sprawling internet is its only rightful place.

Here's an eclectic and uneven list of my complaints:

Glaring omissions from French literature: Hugo, Dumas, Camus, Sartre

Glaring omissions from German literature: Goethe, Hesse, Kafka, Kant

Glaring omissions from Russian literature: Dostoevsky, Gogol, Chekov, Solzhenitsyn

Glaring omissions from English and American literature: I wouldn't know where to start ...

Omissions in Sci-Fi: Asimov, Wells, Heinlein, Bradbury

And since you've gone out of your way to throw a bone to just about every possible group, I should point out that you somehow neglected to include an Arabic writer as important as Naguib Mahfouz. I'm sure there are other greats from other cultures that have gotten short shrift. The fact that you could never have made room for all of these giants is a very good reason this list should never have been made in the first place (although dropping a few duds wouldn't have hurt that cause). The obvious mistakes in the order are too many to mention, but, as an illustration, is Winnie the Pooh really of higher quality or significance than Hamlet? That should tell you there's some thing wrong with your criteria, whatever they might be.

A while ago, TIME put together a much more sensible list that included only English language books published since 1923. It may not have been as broad or ambitious as this list, but it actually made some sense. Parameters are still useful.

WTF? It's really stupid to combine such different literary schools. Try to make another statistics with various genres. I am Russian and i am proud of representing my country here. Meanwhile Tolstoy on the 1st place of this list is ridiculous. His ideas are not popular today, even more...they are unpopular cause of their unwholesome idealism. There is no place for such ideas in real world practice. G. Orwell and his antiutopia is much more original in comparison with Tolstoy. Every day according to our lifeposition we write in our mind: "Down with Tolstoy! We should live in a real world with its many problems and its real perception".

Seems to me that the list would be better served with the addition of these three authors and their contributions: Charles Dickens, "David Copperfield" and "The Count of Monte Cristo," Alexandre Dumas. Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"

QUIJOTE DE LA MANCHAAAAAA!!!! number 101?

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I'm so proud to see that dead, white men rule continue to rule. I imagine the person who assembled and approved this list are white. Thank God for Oprah's input, but I saw only Morrison, who is fine, but not accessible to all. I was pleased to see Wolfe and Cather, but we need more women!

Well this is an impertinent list. There are no Bernard Shaw, no Oscar Wilde, no Graham Greene or even P.G.Woodhouse. If these are to be top 100 books ever you should add under what criteria, since there are many very average writers on the list and you left out some very ingenious. But these lists never satisfy everyone so let it be. It is probably based on sales which is not a very strong criterion anyway.