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
RatingTitle
1.3563.44The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale
1.3533.47Elements of the Philosophy of Right by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1.2824.17Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton
1.2773.23The Celestine Prophesy: An Adventure by James Redfield
1.2713.51The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
1.2623.9On Christian Doctrine by St. Augustine
1.2563.72The Book of J by David Rosenberg
1.2533.45One Nation: America Remembers September 11, 2001 by Life Magazine
1.2513.23Start Late, Finish Rich: A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age (Finish Rich Book Series) by David Bach
1.2473.92The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel
1.2193.89Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.2193.37The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
1.2153.66Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales by Vance Randolph
1.2153.15Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind by Alexandra Ripley
1.2093.36Roxana the fortunate mistress or, a history of the life and vast variety of fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, afterwards called the Countess de Wintelsheim in Germany being the person known by the name of the Lady Roxana in the time of Charles II by Daniel Defoe
1.2063.87Poor Richard's Almanack by Benjamin Franklin
1.2033.61The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
1.1973.58The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes
1.1864.06The Tempting of America by Robert H. Bork
1.1853.53Joshua: A Parable for Today by Joseph F. Girzone
1.1823.35Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville
1.1823.77Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
1.1813.64A Letter Concerning Toleration: Humbly Submitted by John Locke
1.183.57Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
1.1784.09Plutarch's Lives by Plutarch
1.1772.97The Book of God and Physics: A Novel of the Voynich Mystery by Enrique Joven
1.1753.92Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the Subsequent Assault of the Equally Evil Lunchroom Zombie Nerds) by Dav Pilkey
1.1744.09Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas
1.1733.46The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
1.1693.7Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan
1.1653.85From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (2 Vols. in 1) by John Hope Franklin
1.1643.48An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books by Wendy Werris
1.1563.6The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins
1.1563.98Attack of the Talking Toilets by Dav Pilkey
1.1553.38The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley
1.1544.24Writings : Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters by Thomas Jefferson
1.1533.82The Antiquary by Walter Scott
1.1484.53Elements by Euclid
1.1483.87The Dragonology Handbook: A Practical Course in Dragons by Dugald Steer
1.1473.86Moby Dick by Herman Melville
1.1443.7The Golden Bowl by Henry James
1.143.44Rama Revealed by Arthur C. Clarke
1.1393.29Ten Philosophical Mistakes by Mortimer J. Adler
1.1363.44Pericles, Prince of Tyre by William Shakespeare
1.1342.9The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom
1.1333.48The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy
1.1323.29Life's Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Brown
1.1323.76The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
1.1293.8Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship by Diane Schoemperlen
1.1293.84Agamemnon; Choephori; Eumenides; The Persians; Prometheus Bound; Seven Against Thebes; and The Suppliants by Aeschylus
1.1283.54The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
1.1273.61The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
1.1273.32The Prairie: A Tale by James Fenimore Cooper
1.1263.63The Eclogues by Virgil
1.1253.71Elegy for Iris by John Bayley
1.1164.07Ulysses by James Joyce
1.1143.57The Highly Selective Thesaurus for the Extraordinarily Literate by Eugene H. Ehrlich
1.1143.64Romola by George Eliot
1.1133.52Dream Catcher: A Memoir by Margaret A. Salinger
1.113.37Le Livre de ma mère by Albert Cohen
1.1093.42The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
1.1093.62She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith
1.1073.67The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
1.1073.45Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
1.1063.08The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
1.1064.21The Book of Common Prayer [1662] by Church of England
1.1053.45The Wave by Todd Strasser
1.1043.71More Anguished English: an Expose of Embarrassing Excruciating, and Egregious Errors in English by Richard Lederer
1.1033.64Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
1.1013.83The Poems (Bantam Classics) by William Shakespeare
1.1013.85Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau
1.13.62Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving
1.13.68Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
1.0993.71On the Road by Jack Kerouac
1.0993.81The Complete Poems by Andrew Marvell
1.0973.89To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
1.0963.58The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
1.0963.72Simplify Your Life: 100 Ways to Slow Down and Enjoy the Things That Really Matter by Elaine St. James
1.0954.09Typee, Omoo, Mardi by Herman Melville
1.0943.76The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
1.0943An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke
1.0933.38Henry VIII by William Shakespeare
1.0933.62On the Nature of the Universe by Lucretius
1.0914.03The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
1.0893.48The Sea by John Banville
1.0893.95The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
1.0883.91As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
1.0883.29A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley
1.0883.66The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn
1.0883.73The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B by J. P. Donleavy
1.0863.88Encyclopedia of Biographies by David Crystal
1.0863.68A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
1.0863.15Tipperary by Frank Delaney
1.0843.33Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke
1.0843.5Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake
1.0832.99Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
1.0823.42King John by William Shakespeare
1.0813.87The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
1.083.33The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
1.083.99National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Western Region by Miklos D. F. Udvardy
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