The Guardian, a daily paper over in the UK, has been running a series of articles over the last few days developing their list of the top 1000 novels. They had done a earlier set of these before focusing on movies (and apparently music albums). I had seen it earlier and didn’t think a whole lot of it, but the series came up a lot today in my RSS feed perusals, both on SF Signal and Metafilter.
While these sort of lists are good benchmarks for readers in a particular area, I’m not sure how well the series works as a whole. During a good year while I’m out in the working world, I think I’m going to be lucky to finish 50 books. At that rate, I’d finish the whole list 20 years down the line, presuming I focused solely on that task. Admittedly, I’ve finished several of the books in the past (say 50 of them; the list isn’t complete yet and I haven’t read through most of the lists). My point still stands, though. It’s a list of books that you’d be lucky to finish unless it’s your job to read books. [I'd love to have that job, for what it's worth.]
This same concept also applies to other general 1000 ‘best-of’ lists. I don’t think someone’s really going to be able to see all 1001 things you must see before you die… unless you’re dedicated and have the time and money to do so. The list of albums and movies are a bit more achievable simply from the lesser amount of time required to listen and watch the works, but you still have to be willing to put in the time and effort to do so, and I’m not sure that many people have that ability.
All this being said, will I use this list as a reference? Sure, but I won’t use it as a guide for my reading selections for the moment. Down the line when I’m done with my award lists, if I’m looking for (say) a science fiction novel, I might use that list of best SF novels as a way of guiding my selections. The list as a whole, though, isn’t for me.
–Ryan
Posted by themoonsofbill 
