Controversial Books

This page shows your 100 most controversial books, as measured by the standard deviation of members star ratings. (This is also the source of the Zeitgeist category "25 Books People Can't Agree on.") To be included, a book must have been rated at least 20 times. Work titles are given.

Standard Deviation	Rating	Title
1.267	3.45	Pussy, King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker
1.249	3.6	The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
1.235	3.25	Virtual History by Niall Ferguson
1.227	3.16	The Interrogation by J. M. G. Le Clezio
1.216	3.47	The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
1.212	3.18	Sunnyside by Glen David Gold
1.201	3.55	Day by A. L. Kennedy
1.187	3.7	Paco's Story: A Novel by Larry Heinemann
1.185	3.71	Microcosmi by Claudio Magris
1.163	3.61	It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best-Selling Book by Paul Arden
1.16	3.62	Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost and Where Did It Go? by Michael Bywater
1.156	3.21	Europa by Tim Parks
1.156	3.09	Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace
1.14	3.4	The Ragazzi by Pier Paolo Pasolini
1.13	3.61	Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
1.12	3.67	Remember Me by Trezza Azzopardi
1.12	3.76	Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier
1.117	3.82	The Outsider by Colin Wilson
1.117	3.49	Underground London: travels beneath the city streets by Stephen Smith
1.116	3.44	The Ruin of Kasch by Roberto Calasso
1.114	3.5	The Collector of Worlds by Ilija Trojanow
1.111	3.81	Brothers: A Novel by Yu Hua
1.108	3.69	The Journey Through Wales and The Description of Wales by Gerald of Wales
1.104	3.66	A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions by Peter Robb
1.101	3.72	One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation "Wrath of Go by Simon Reeve
1.099	3.71	On the Road by Jack Kerouac
1.095	3.98	The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso
1.09	3.52	Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
1.088	3.24	The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent
1.087	3.72	The Famished Road by Ben Okri
1.086	3.88	Encyclopedia of Biographies by David Crystal
1.08	3.54	The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke
1.08	3.74	The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
1.079	2.88	In the Kitchen: A Novel by Monica Ali
1.078	3.79	Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang
1.076	4.05	Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama
1.074	3.42	Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer
1.074	3.83	French for Cats by Henry Beard
1.073	3.72	The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk
1.073	3.7	Emma's War by Deborah Scroggins
1.07	3.4	Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes by Mark Penn
1.069	3.76	I'll Steal You Away by Niccolo Ammaniti
1.068	3.56	Santa Evita by Tomás Eloy Martínez
1.067	3.68	The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton
1.06	3.41	The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey
1.059	3.5	Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
1.059	3.65	Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey
1.057	3.86	Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
1.057	4.01	Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee
1.056	3.94	Kartography by Kamila Shamsie
1.055	3.31	Fury by Salman Rushdie
1.055	3.71	On The Pleasure of Hating by William Hazlitt
1.055	4	Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey by Bill Brewster
1.054	3.35	Visions of Cody by Jack Kerouac
1.054	3.64	The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska
1.051	4.02	Imaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie
1.05	3.76	The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
1.049	3.73	Darkmans by Nicola Barker
1.048	2.68	The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet
1.046	3.79	The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
1.043	3.42	The Information by Martin Amis
1.043	3.83	Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus
1.041	3.16	The Gospel According to the son by Norman Mailer
1.041	3.25	Introducing Semiotics, 2nd Edition (Introducing...(Totem)) by Paul Cobley
1.04	3.86	The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody: Great Figures of History Hilariously Humbled by Will Cuppy
1.04	3.3	The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
1.039	3.07	Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales by James Ellroy
1.039	4.14	Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
1.039	3.79	White Noise by Don DeLillo
1.038	3.74	The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia
1.036	3.24	Hooking Up by Tom Wolfe
1.034	3.88	Underworld by Don DeLillo
1.032	3.8	Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs
1.03	3.88	To the Wedding by John Berger
1.03	3.79	The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas
1.03	3.25	Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom
1.03	3.59	Girl, 20 by Kingsley Amis
1.029	3.71	The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
1.029	3.44	The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa
1.025	3.71	India: A Million Mutinies Now by V. S. Naipaul
1.025	3.61	The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
1.024	3.98	Auto-da-fé by Elias Canetti
1.021	3.72	The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
1.019	3.28	My Idea of Fun by Will Self
1.017	3.61	Gomorrah: A Personal Journey Into The Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System by Roberto Saviano
1.017	3.52	World Orders Old and New by Noam Chomsky
1.017	3.67	The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by C. K. Prahalad
1.015	3.9	The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
1.014	3.74	Nana by Émile Zola
1.014	3.68	Innocent Erendira and Other Stories by Gabriel García Márquez
1.011	4.06	M: Caravaggio by Peter Robb
1.009	3.63	The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
1.009	3.57	Snow by Orhan Pamuk
1.009	3.31	The Anatomist by Federico Andahazi
1.006	3.46	In Praise of the Stepmother by Mario Vargas Llosa
1.004	3.36	The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion
1.004	3.32	The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco
1.003	3.91	Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi
1.003	3.74	The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman
1.002	3.79	The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

Copyright LibraryThing and/or members of LibraryThing, authors, publishers, libraries, cover designers, Amazon, Bol, Bruna, etc. | static: /