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
1.78	3.33	The Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith
1.326	3.39	Kipps by H. G. Wells
1.307	2.81	Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
1.286	3.42	A Singular Man by J. P. Donleavy
1.241	3.65	The State and Revolution by V. I. Lenin
1.23	3.61	The Egoist by George Meredith
1.222	4.4	The Bible by Bible
1.219	3.89	Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.208	3.58	The Fat Man in History by Peter Carey
1.196	3.63	Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
1.182	3.77	Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
1.181	2.52	Isle of Dogs by Patricia Cornwell
1.18	4.1	The Holy Bible: King James Version (KJV) by Bible
1.177	3.43	The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein
1.174	3.45	The Empire Strikes Back by Donald F. Glut
1.164	3.41	Something Happened by Joseph Heller
1.159	3.77	Wizards and Witches (Enchanted World) by Brendan Lehane
1.158	3.81	Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
1.155	3.57	Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane
1.15	3.78	The Pig Who Sang to the Moon by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
1.148	4.02	I Wish That I Had Duck Feet by Theo LeSieg
1.145	3.13	The Light That Failed by Rudyard Kipling
1.145	3.69	The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook: Delicious Dairy-Free Cheeses and Classic "Uncheese" Dishes by Jo Stepaniak
1.144	3.23	The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel
1.144	4.01	The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
1.141	4.01	A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock
1.139	3.19	Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals by Rupert Sheldrake
1.138	3.35	Hannibal by Thomas Harris
1.133	3.48	The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy
1.133	3.43	It's Not the End of the World by Judy Blume
1.132	3.76	The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
1.13	3.52	Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
1.128	3.42	Skylark Duquesne by E. E. "Doc" Smith
1.127	3.43	Ford: The Men and the Machine by Robert Lacey
1.126	3.63	The Eclogues by Virgil
1.123	3.54	The Hills of Tuscany by Ferenc Máté
1.123	3.62	Billy Budd and Other Stories by Herman Melville
1.122	3.45	Adventures in the Skin Trade by Dylan Thomas
1.122	3.81	The Book of Kells: An Illustrated Introduction to the Manuscript in Trinity College Dublin by Bernard Meehan
1.12	3.16	Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray
1.118	3.58	The Day My Bum Went Psycho by Andy Griffiths
1.118	3.44	The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag
1.117	3.68	Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
1.116	4.07	Ulysses by James Joyce
1.115	3.81	The Sea Around Us by Rachel L. Carson
1.114	3.63	Romola by George Eliot
1.113	3.96	Q by Luther Blissett
1.113	3.5	Dream Catcher: A Memoir by Margaret A. Salinger
1.113	3.61	Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words by John Man
1.111	3.25	Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes
1.109	3.41	The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
1.107	3.61	The Fruits of the Earth by André Gide
1.105	3.17	The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
1.103	3.69	The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
1.102	4	Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White
1.098	2.76	National Lampoon's Doon by Ellis Weiner
1.097	3.89	To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
1.096	3.11	Star Trek: The Motion Picture [novelization] by Gene Roddenberry
1.096	2.81	Hornet's Nest by Patricia Cornwell
1.094	3.35	In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made by Norman F. Cantor
1.094	3.52	The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII by Retha M. Warnicke
1.094	3.76	The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
1.091	4.03	The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
1.091	3.48	Conan the Buccaneer by L. Sprague de Camp
1.09	3.58	Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
1.089	3.94	The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
1.088	3.97	Madame Curie by Eve Curie
1.088	3.63	Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot
1.088	3.73	The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B by J. P. Donleavy
1.086	3.62	The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer
1.085	3.27	Gerald's Game by Stephen King
1.085	3.79	The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1.084	3.48	Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake
1.083	3.75	Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
1.081	3.87	The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
1.081	3.25	Urshurak by Gregory Hildebrandt
1.08	3.54	The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke
1.08	3.38	Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand
1.08	3.83	Secret Language of Birthdays by Gary Goldschneider
1.08	3.95	The Divine Comedy, Vol. III: Paradise by Dante Alighieri
1.08	3.74	The Golden Treasury by Francis Turner Palgrave
1.078	3.38	The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
1.077	3.47	The Genius and the Goddess by Aldous Huxley
1.076	3.81	Le Morte d'Arthur, Volume 2 by Thomas Malory
1.076	3.72	What's It All About by Michael Caine
1.076	3.5	What Maisie Knew by Henry James
1.076	3.51	Krondor: Tear of the Gods by Raymond E. Feist
1.074	3.7	Man's Fate by Andre Malraux
1.074	3.6	Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace by Douglas Rushkoff
1.074	3.01	The Diary of Jack the Ripper by Shirley Harrison
1.074	3.25	John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
1.072	3.48	Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley
1.071	3.83	The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
1.069	3.79	Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia
1.068	3.52	Forever... by Judy Blume
1.068	3.28	The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red by Ellen Rimbauer
1.067	3.92	Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
1.064	3.77	American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
1.063	3.48	Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis by Douglas H. Gresham
1.063	3.97	The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys

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