The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books (1997)

Ever wonder what books your favorite authors would recommend, or which works they rank as their own favorites? 125 contemporary writers were asked to pick their top 10 favorite works of fiction. Author J. Peder Zane scored their choices by awarding 10 points to their first choice, 9 to their second choice, and so on.

From such data, Zane compiled a list of what might be called the Top Top Ten: Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, War and Peace, Lolita, Huckleberry Finn, Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, In Search of Lost Time, The Stories of Anton Chekhov, and George Eliot's Middlemarch. Likewise, he breaks the choices into lists of top ten works of the 20th, 19th, and 18th centuries, top authors worldwide, top authors by nationality (American, British, Russan, and French), top comic works, top mysteries, works of science fiction, and so on.

About 1/3 of the book consists of the top ten lists of each of the surveyed authors. Most of the rest consists of one paragraph descriptions of each of the 544 books chosen, although some works are given essays of tribute by a particular writer. An index to book descriptions is included, listed by book title.

I devoured this book, and found it most enjoyable. The avid reader will enjoy checking off books they've read in each of the lists, and taking note of works they will want to indulge in. There are many surprises, including the number of books that got a vote from only one of the writers surveyed. (In fact, most of the works listed got only a single vote -- meaning a graph of the responses would show a distribution with a very long tail, much like the books at Library Thing itself).

One notable point is that the surveyed authors include quite a number whose impact and writing output has been small. Readers will likely recognize fewer than half of them, but readers are of course free to seek out the ones they know. Another point is that Zane necessarily did some judicious editing, sometimes combining multiple short works under a single listing for the sake of consistency.

The one flaw in this work is that no index is given of authors of the chosen books. As a result, if a reader wonders which works of (say) Faulkner or Wharton have been listed, there is no alternative but to scan the list of 500+ titles. However, in reality, few readers will mind searching through lists of books for their favorites.

Overall, this is an ideal book for Library Thing members. As a sequel, wouldn't it be great to see lists of the top ten favorite works of public figures -- political leaders, scientists, biographers, artists, and so on? Or how about a book of top ten non-fiction works? ( )

I browsed through this book a few weeks back during a bookstore visit and put it back on the shelf; my quick assessment found it tediously monotonous, with all the writers picking the same few classics. I couldn’t pass it up for two dollars at a book sale, however. It did read with deadly repetition for the majority of the book: Macbeth…Macbeth…Macbeth…Middlemarch…Middlemarch…Middlemarch…War and Peace…War and Peace…War and Peace. It was the surprises, the little known favorites, that I found to be worth the price of the book, the So Long, See You Tomorrows, The Man Who Loved Childrens, the Quartet in Autumns. I love to hear about other people’s favorite books….It should be written under their name on a tag when meeting new people….inscribed on t-shirts….emblazoned on business cards….added to signature lines…. ( )

Addictive. Great fun. ( )

An exhaustive list of wonderful books recommended by today's authors. Enjoyable to read and possible purchase? I did note one book mentioned that was not on anyone's list. It was mentioned in one of the summaries. A Void by George Perec - it does not contain the letter 'E'. How difficult that must have been to write? I have added that one to my list out of curiosity. The 544 titles actually on lists do include many that I have read. I will add the others to my list in the future - hence the possible purchase. ( )

This is a great resource if you are looking for ideas for a quality read. With books for just about every taste and ability, the advantage of using this book instead of just looking up lists on the internet, is that descriptions of the books are included, so you don't need to google each title separately.

There are books from just about every era listed here, from the fifteenth century and earlier (such as Oedipus the King by Sophocles) to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (such as Paradise Lost by John Milton) to the eighteenth century (such as The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin) to the nineteenth century (such as Middlemarch by George Eliot) to the twentieth century (such as One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez).

There are poems (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samual Taylor Coleridge), kids books (Peter Pan by J.M.Barrie), short stories (Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin), plays (practically all of shakespeare made it) and novels (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy).

There are British authors (Jane Austen), American authors (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Russian authors (Anton Chekhov) and French authors (Marcel Proust). There are comics (Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G.Wodehouse), fantasy/sci-fi (The War with the Newts by Karel Capek) and mysteries/thrillers (The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris).

In all, there are 544 books listed in The Top Ten. That means, that if you start now, and read one book per week, it will take you eleven and a half years to read them all. So get cracking - there's no time to waste! ( )