

100 Best English Nonfiction Books of Twentieth Century - tokenadult
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnonfiction.html

======
Brushfire
This list is somewhat dated. After looking through the editor's top 100, many
of these are indeed very good. However, a cursory glance through the 'Readers'
list reveals some strange/unexpected list members, that might suggest
strange/skewed sample population.

Things that immediately stood out as different:

\- 3 Rand books in the top 6? Really?

\- 2 Scientology / Anti Psychology books near the top (#2, #11)

A look at the fiction list reveals the same bias:

Top 10 from the 'Novels List'

    
    
      ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
      THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
      BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
      THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
      TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
      1984 by George Orwell
      ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
      WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
      MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
      FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
    

There are still gems in these lists, I'm just surprised that many of these
made the list, especially some of the high ranking ones. Something seems off.

~~~
Tichy
I'm thinking someone might have gamed the system. Not sure who is eligible to
vote, but an organization might be able to encourage it's members to
participate in the poll?

~~~
electromagnetic
7 top 10's shared between Ayn Rand and Hubbard, there's no question if someone
gamed the system it's guaranteed.

The readers version of the non-fiction list is so bizarre it obviously isn't a
random poll. Like 80% of the list are political and exceptionally odd choices
too.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm not from the US, but I've never heard of most
of the books on the list and I'm well red. The books I have heard of are the
political ones, most of which people I know would never dream of touching. I
just have serious disbelief that so many Americans would read books from Rand
and Hubble, yet in the fiction list there's like two mentions of genuinely
famous writers.

The Radcliffe's Rival 100 is what I expect to see from a public list where
Rand's publications are somewhere in the list, not clustered at the top. I
mean _why_ are all the classics like in Radcliffe's list missing from the
public list when these are books everybody has read. I read a lot of these
books in school, and I know lots of them are taught in american schools so
_why_ aren't they on the list?

I mean for fucks sakes, honestly why isn't there a book like Winne-the-Pooh in
the public list?

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run4yourlives
The "readers" are obviously not well read. Two Ayn Rand books and the ever
popular "Dianetics" in the top three?

Laughable.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
you'll find most "best of" lists of this sort include a lot of heavily
ideological stuff. this is because these are the works that have the most
memorable impact and actually change people's opinions. Whether you find such
works valuable depends largely on where you're coming from when you read it.

for example dianetics: the kind of person who will read and recommend it is
the kind of person who was already against psychology to begin with. people
use popular non-fiction for confirmation bias and appeal to majority bias.

~~~
electromagnetic
I studied psychology, I guess thats why I see dianetics as a laughable farce.

~~~
unalone
You should never assume that mass opinion knows anything. Even when it does,
it tends to be shallow and misguided.

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Eliezer
Checked both lists for "Godel, Escher, Bach". Since it's not present in either
list, we can conclude that we should pay attention to neither.

~~~
xayide
Although the Board's list does include Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman.

~~~
tokenadult
I would be interested in hearing nominations by HN readers of good English
nonfiction books published in the twentieth century. Presumably, the selection
bias in this voluntary response poll would include the interest predilections
of HN readers, but that's a selection bias that might very likely choose some
books that I would like.

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tokenadult
How the two lists on the submitted link were compiled:

<http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100best.html>

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dkarl
A somewhat useless list -- who cares about the 100 Best? I care about which
book I'll learn the most from right now. I forced myself through a bunch of
classics in high school without learning much from them. Eventually I realized
that I can judge what I'm getting out of something by my level of interest. If
I can't get interested in a book, despite working hard to find something of
interest in it, then I'm wasting my time.

The best books to read aren't necessarily the best books. For example, I just
happened to pick up _Creation_ by Gore Vidal while halfway through _Cultures
and Organizations: Software of the Mind_ which I happened to pick up after a
painful breakup caused by incompatible cultural assumptions. It was a happy
coincidence, reading exactly the books I needed at the time and getting the
most out of each as a result.

What's the point of lists like this if reading is so personal and context-
dependent?

Also, number 24 is _The Mismeasure of Man_ , which isn't a particularly good
book -- just a popular book on an important subject. How many other books on
the list are mediocre books that address noble topics? By the number of noble
topics addressed, I would guess quite a few.

~~~
xayide
I spent four relatively enjoyable years sequencing DNA in the lab and on the
computer. I met James Watson one time. The Double Helix is one of the most
boring books that I’ve ever read. I’ll add this one to the list of popular,
mediocre books that address noble topics.

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unalone
It's worth mentioning that this is a very old list, and one that's been mocked
since pretty much the day it was published. Their methodology meant that
popular books were placed higher than any one critic thought they deserved.
Case in point for fiction: Brave New World was considered by most critics to
have some value, but nobody would have considered it for a Top 10 position.

Probably the only correctly-placed book in the fiction list was _Ulysses_.
Several mindblowing pieces were completely ignored for the sake of name
recognition, both in the original and the Radcliffe list.

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shader
Most of the top 30 look like a recommended reading list from Mises.org. Not
that they're bad books, it's just an interesting coincidence.

