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
1.217	3.16	The Well of Tears by Cecilia Dart-Thornton
1.205	3.71	Wizard of the Pigeons by Robin Hobb
1.188	3.67	The Essential Clive Barker: Selected Fiction by Clive Barker
1.175	3.05	The Iron Tree by Cecilia Dart-Thornton
1.113	3.99	Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
1.112	3.54	Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind
1.111	3.35	The Battle of Evernight by Cecilia Dart-Thornton
1.067	3.76	Heart of Darkness and The Congo Diary (Penguin Classics) by Joseph Conrad
1.062	3.27	Vittorio the Vampire by Anne Rice
1.06	3.46	The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy
1.057	3.86	Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
1.054	3.85	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
1.038	3.73	Threshold by Sara Douglass
1.038	3.73	Temple of the Winds by Terry Goodkind
1.035	3.93	Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
1.034	3.67	The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
1.034	3.78	Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist
1.025	3.88	Modern Operating Systems by Andrew S. Tanenbaum
1.018	3.91	The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1.014	3.79	Ice Station by Matthew Reilly
1.01	3.46	The Nameless Day by Sara Douglass
1.007	3.96	Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
1.006	3.78	Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice
1.004	3.8	Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface by David A. Patterson
1.004	3.73	Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind
1.004	3.9	Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind
1.002	3.6	The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose
0.998	3.92	Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
0.986	3.98	Neuromancer by William Gibson
0.979	3.38	Renegade's Magic by Robin Hobb
0.978	3.04	Nightwing by Martin Cruz Smith
0.968	3.98	Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
0.967	3.64	The Hammer of the Sun by Michael Scott Rohan
0.965	3.43	Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb
0.963	3.31	The Reindeer People by Robin Hobb
0.961	3.34	Forest Mage by Robin Hobb
0.961	3.83	The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré
0.959	3.85	Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
0.949	3.79	Executive Orders by Tom Clancy
0.944	3.81	Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
0.939	4.04	Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
0.936	4.06	The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright
0.926	4.12	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
0.923	3.73	Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander
0.92	3.41	No Safe Place by Richard North Patterson
0.917	4.21	Middlemarch by George Eliot
0.9	4.15	The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
0.9	3.79	Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
0.897	3.57	December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith
0.896	4.16	Birds Are Weird by Jerry Holkins
0.889	4.07	Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
0.888	4.01	Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl
0.88	4.13	Blindness by José Saramago
0.879	3.86	Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick
0.878	3.92	How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
0.874	3.59	Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith
0.873	4.16	Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Stuart J. Russell
0.87	3.96	Going Solo by Roald Dahl
0.869	4.18	QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman
0.869	3.36	Murder in LaMut by Raymond E. Feist
0.868	4.12	Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass by Karen Blixen
0.861	4.01	Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
0.859	3.3	This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities by Jim Rossignol
0.858	3.83	A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
0.854	4.09	The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
0.854	3.83	The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
0.852	4.15	Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould
0.851	4.17	Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb
0.85	3.98	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
0.85	3.86	The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
0.85	4.05	The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
0.839	4.22	Programming Perl by Larry Wall
0.837	3.43	Shallows by Tim Winton
0.835	4.38	The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
0.832	3.1	Hemingway's Chair by Michael Palin
0.83	4.1	Attack of the Bacon Robots by Jerry Holkins
0.826	4.2	The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume 1. An Age Like This by George Orwell
0.825	4.38	The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
0.825	4.36	Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
0.824	3.76	Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith
0.823	3.98	The Tao Is Silent by Raymond M. Smullyan
0.821	3.94	Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
0.818	4.03	The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl
0.814	4.29	The Case of the Mummy's Gold by Jerry Holkins
0.814	3.61	Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith
0.811	3.95	The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
0.802	4.24	Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard Feynman
0.799	4.41	A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
0.798	3.94	Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
0.797	4.18	Epic Legends Of The Magic Sword Kings by Jerry Holkins
0.793	3.66	Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell
0.788	3.36	Stallion Gate by Martin Cruz Smith
0.787	4.29	The Warsun Prophecies by Jerry Holkins
0.784	3.72	Comeback by Dick Francis
0.782	3.92	Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould
0.781	4.15	Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency / The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams
0.776	4.46	The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
0.775	4.17	The Code Book by Simon Singh
0.772	4.27	Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen
0.76	4.05	Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner

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