Board 8 > B8's Top 100 Books *interest gauge/logistics*

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/110189.B8_s_Top_100_Books

there's nothing on there.

A couple years ago, I ran a "B8 top books" project. I kind of want to do it again considering everyone on this board is old now and possibly has read more than last time. Maybe publish it somewhere for future purposes. Originally I wanted to put a static list on goodreads but I guess only admins and such can make a list static and I'm not too big a fan of the listopia system. And not a lot of people here use goodreads so it wouldn't be entirely representative if I just leave the list in the link as the "official" one.

Just trying to gauge interest and ideas on how to aggregate such a list other than the standard weighted submissions like the listopia system.

Also, thoughts on the types of books to include. I think most prose (fiction, nonfiction) should be fair as well as poetry collections and drama. Graphic novels I think are fine for the most part but every time this comes up I always (irrationally?) worry that they're just going to end up dominating the lists. and whether this includes other comic books/manga.

That's a very good number 1 choice

(Yeah sure I could be down)
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reading

oh I didn't see this

I'd be up for a top books project

out of curiosity, do you have the old list saved?
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First off, thanks to everyone who participated. We had a whopping 18 total lists which was more than I was expecting to be honest.

However, as you may have foreseen, the variances in everyone’s lists make a list like this a bit hard to do. We had a total of 263 titles but only 60 with at least two list appearances. So this is B8’s Top 60 Books list.

Unfortunately while I would love to do write ups and a slow, grueling list reveal, I’ve gotten way too behind on my schoolwork because I am a lazy a******.

Thanks again for participating and maybe we can get a more substantial list sometime in the future. Keep on reading!


1.Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell (168; 9 lists)
2.Harry Potter (series) – J.K. Rowling (140; 7 lists)
3.The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien (130; 7 lists)
4.A Song of Ice and Fire (series) – George R.R. Martin (106; 6 lists)
5.Animal Farm – George Orwell (87; 6 lists)
6.Brave New World – Aldous Huxley (76; 6 lists)
7.Lord of the Flies – William Golding (62; 6 lists)
8.Catch-22 – Joseph Heller (100; 5 lists)
9.Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky (99; 5 lists)
10.The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (94; 5 lists)
11.Slaughterhouse-Five – Vonnegut (92; 5 lists)
12.Ender’s Game – Card (90; 5 lists)
13.Hamlet – Shakespeare (67; 5 lists)
14.To Kill a Mockingbird – Lee (69; 5 lists)
15.The Count of Monte Cristo – Dumas (87; 4 lists)
16.The Wheel of Time (series) – Jordan (81; 4 lists)
17.Foundation (series) – Asimov (55; 4 lists)
18.Kafka on the Shore – Murakami (54; 4 lists)
19.The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoevsky (54; 4 lists)
20.Good Omens – Pratchet/Gaiman (64; 3 lists)
21.Dune – Herbert (60; 3 lists)
22.American Gods – Gaiman (56; 3 lists)
23.The Stranger – Camus (54; 3 lists)
24.The Great Gatsby – Fitzgerald (53; 3 lists)
25.The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time – Haddon (47; 3 lists)
26.King Lear – Shakespeare (47; 3)
27.Of Mice and Men – Steinbeck (47; 3)
28.Stranger in a Strange Land – Heinlein (43; 3)
29.Macbeth – Shakespeare (43;3)
30.Fahrenheit 451 – Bradbury (41; 3)
31.The Odyssey – Homer (38; 3)
32.Beowulf (24; 3)
33.The Sound and the Fury – Faulkner (23; 3)
34.Ficciones – Borges (51; 2)
35.Watership Down – Adams (51; 2)
36.Holy Bible – Various (47; 2)
37.The Stand – King (47; 2)
38.Ender’s Shadow – Card (47; 2)
39.Fight Club – Palahniuk (36; 2)
40.Lolita – Nabokov (36; 2)
41.A Good Man is Hard to Find – O’Connor (35; 2)
42.Candide – Voltaire (34; 2)
43.The Catcher in the Rye – Salinger (34; 2)
44.The Time Traveler’s Wife – Niffenegger (32; 2)
45.Cat’s Cradle – Vonnegut (32; 2)
46.Julius Caesar – Shakespeare (31; 2)
47.Frankenstein – Shelley (31; 2)
48.The Dark Tower (series) – King (30; 2)
49.The Chronicles of Narnia – Lewis (29; 2)
50.Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Dick (29; 2)
51.The Little Prince – Saint-Exupéry (29; 2)
52.Notes from the Underground – Dostoevsky (26; 2)
53.The Metamorphosis – Kafka (26; 2)
54.Flowers for Algernon – Keyes (20; 2)
55.Othello – Shakespeare (18; 2)
56.The Firm – Grisham (17; 2)
57.The Dresden Files (series) – Butcher (14; 2)
58.Battle Royale – Takami (10; 2)
59.Animorphs (series) – Applegate (9; 2)
60.Starship Troopers – Heinlein (8; 2)

I'd be interested in participating!
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tag with main

I actually think the listopia system would be good for submissions. (You can submit any size list up to 100. Your #1 pick gets 100 points, your #2 gets 99, etc.) I like that system because people who want to make big lists can do it, but people who don't have time to make such a big list can just submit, like, their top 5 books, and still have it weighted pretty heavily.

Fiction/nonfiction/poetry/plays all seem like good inclusions. I don't have strong opinions about graphic novels, but for consistency, if you allow them I think you should allow all comics and manga.
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well the listopia method is pretty much the same way i did it last time. i might have weighted the top choices of users' lists more heavily but it was the same principle and i wasn't too happy with how the overall project turned out and the biggest reasons were the small number of lists submitted and the lack of commonality between a lot of the individual titles. And the overall result didn't really feel like a collective representation of the board which I wanted. I may have been overly optimistic/idealistic. I mean, a title only needed two people to list it to make it on to the final version.

What I'm thinking now: do away with rankings and points. Maybe have like a top ten but other than that, it will just be a compilation list. It won't be as arduous (I think) to compile all the submissions, add up points and whatnot.

It's mostly reliant on how many people are interested. I don't feel right calling it "B8's top list" when less than 10 people participate. I'll be pretty disappointed if we can't at least break last time's numbers.

I would be more receptive of the straight points system method if a higher sample size was guaranteed.

I feel like we've got a larger book community on b8 these days, so there should be more commonality (also another reason I think big lists are good). But it's up to you.
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I mean I want to read a little more before compiling a list, including finishing all of those fantasy series

I think I have read about 75% of that list just by looking at it but it's pretty standard
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