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I am both attracted and repelled by the idea of reading all the books on a "Best 100" list. I read about such a project recently at Bookslut and it's been discussed elsewhere as well. . . and of course the thought has struck me in the past. Leaving aside the contents of such a list for the moment, the question is what the point would be. I read a lot of books, and many of them would never appear on the top 100 of the century list; of course I miss uot on a lot. And reading the same stuff a lot of others have read does give you some kind of increased general knowledge about the shared cultural heritage.

But then again, I don't tend to read books that I get recommended by people I don't know, even if a lot of people recommend them. Unless I know people's tastes, how can I tell if they will coincide with mine? And when I do read books I hear about in that way, I am disappointed more often than not. So what is there to say that my reading pleasure from going through any kind of Top 100 list would be greater than what comes of reading 100 books by authors I know I like, or that Johan or Stina or Ulrika or those people in the Good Books game I usually agree with taste-wise have read and liked? Or why would I necessarily be getting more new thoughts or widen my understanding of the world by reading what others perceive to be the best books of the century or whatever; there will always be millions of works that aren't even in the running because they are too obscure, or written by the wrong kind of author or something.

If I should embark on a project like that, it would be to read 'classics', or possibly to read something by each Nobel Prize winner. For even if those are not necessarily the best books in the world nor necessarily the ones that would give me the most, at least that would mean I could discuss them and know what I was talking about. Yes, I could envision doing something like that—but I don't really expect I'll be doing it any time very soon.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 12:22 0 comments