📚 Blind Reaction to Reader's Digest's 100 Best Books of All Time! 📚

[@cafeaulivre]

What would be your number 1? Did you agree with my assesments? let me know down below and we'll talk the best books some more!

[@michellehyland3675]

Pride and Prejudice.

[@cafeaulivre]

@@michellehyland3675 At least it was in there already :p

[@michellehyland3675]

@@cafeaulivre Yes indeed. Anna Karenina number one. Wow.

[@southernbiscuits1275]

I agree with your criticism of this list. However, something you may not know about Reader's Digest is that it panders to a very low class of readers which is bereft of sophistication. I am not surprised by the low number of serious works of literature here.

[@janinetozer]

This was hilarious, Bart. Torturous for you, however. Totally agree with you. I cried out loud at no.4 with despair. 😫 One of my all-time favourites at no.2. Love love love Pride & Prejudice, but agree, Emma is superb. It seems like the list was all over the place. Such nonsense. Was 50 shades in the top 100? Haha. By the way, did I ever tell you that it is the vest friend of a good friend of mine who wrote it, with a firmly planted tongue in her cheek, laughing all the way to the bank now.

[@cafeaulivre]

I bet they must be laughing, they probably even know their book is bad 🤣

[@duffypratt]

According to Readers Digest, only 7 of the top 100 books were written before 1900. 12 between 1900 and 1950. And 81 have been written in the past 75 years. So, in the first 2500 years, mankind produced approximately one of this quality every 360 years. Then from 1900-1950, the rate increased to one every four years. And over the last seventy five years, it’s a bit more than one per year. But it’s worse. The only “book” to make the cut before 1800 was Hamlet, which is just after 1600. So, for the first 2000 years, literature produced nothing in the same league as Valley of the Dolls. Then one from 1600 to 1800. Then, from 1800 to 1900, there was one such ‘top 100” book every 18 years or so. Not only pro-American bias, but tremendously strong recency bias.

[@cafeaulivre]

I suspect a ‘marketing target audience group’ bias myself tbh…or a very drunk editor 🤣

[@michaeldornan7737]

Nice to know you'll be staying in KZbin!!!

[@cafeaulivre]

I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been on there though 😬

[@anotherbibliophilereads]

I looked at the complete 100 title list. Some inspired choices and some puzzling choices. All over the map. War and Peace is superior to Anna Karenina , IMHO. To use a phrase that is probably a bit outdated, I think the creators of the list were smoking crack.

[@cafeaulivre]

If they were, Dr Seuss would have been high up on the list ;)

[@michaelmccarty]

Poor Bart! It was painful watching you go through this! 😆 It is a most perplexing list!!!

[@cafeaulivre]

It is…something 🤣

[@LazDigSurf]

Don't forget that Reader's Digest is geared toward those that haven't master staying within the lines when colouring

[@cafeaulivre]

🤣

[@zetectic7968]

Typical US popular list. Catcher in the rye is there as well as Mockingbird. Reminds me of my school days when require reading was Golding's Lord of the Flies & Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie. I can't pick a #1 as I'm not well read & not good at literary criticism. I read or saw on YT that Beloved is not a well written book, just popular. 1984 & Brave New World are well down the list & On the road is there 🥱 Oh God, there is Harry Potter when Earthsea (which obviously influenced Rowling) by Ursula K Le Guin is not. Why no Primo Levi If this is a man/The Truth. Why pick Fellowship when Tolkien wanted LOTR to be 1 book but it was post WW2 paper shortage that caused it to be publish in 3 volumes plus The Two Towers is better than Fellowship. That number 70 is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro underscores that the list is one of popularity & familiarity more that great works of literature.

[@petergibson2035]

The Readers Digest does not think and caters for those who do not think. That explains their list.

[@cafeaulivre]

🤣

[@shisharma]

Completely agree with your The little prince statement , but what's wrong with this list I'm unable to digest it😭

[@cafeaulivre]

It feels like they were having a meeting and then an editor walked in and said: ‘make sure to include some non-fiction as well’ , then five minutes later, they did the same for poetry 🤣

[@2134yanto]

Was this list actually voted for by readers? Or just compiled by one person etc? For me only 4 of the top 15 would make my top 100! And although absolutely love Stephen King, I completely agree with you re The Shining being there

[@cafeaulivre]

I don’t think it was voted…I so hope it was not voted 🤣

[@monicai.3034]

Your reactions are priceless. 😀 Don't like the list either. Also, I finished Claire Keegan - Small things like these. It was absolutely amazing. Short story but amazing. Best book? No 1 for me? Karamazov Brothers.

[@cafeaulivre]

That’s a great contender for the first spot. And I think Small Things Like These might be one of my next reads

[@starlasell5698]

When you hit #5! 😅😂😅

[@cafeaulivre]

I’m still shocked 🤯

[@starlasell5698]

@@cafeaulivre I would have to agree!

[@tyghe_bright]

I always wonder what criteria are used in creating such a list. I looked this list up and they don't talk about their methodology. It seems so random. (And putting nonfiction and fiction, poetry and prose, children's and adult books all on the same list is weird.) I would put Valley of the Dolls on a "best trashy reads" list, but not on a best books list!

[@cafeaulivre]

It would be a great list to make though 🤣

[@tmtb80]

Victor Frankel's book is not a memoir. He actually wrote his book before the Holocaust. But, it was taken from him and destroyed when he was taken to the camp. So, he rewrote it while there and after survivng, thus proving his theory correct. He was already a psychologist prior to the N a z i s control in Vienna.

[@veronicagarcia2025]

I don't know why people still refer to Cold Blood as the first true crime book actually the real first true crime book ever was Operation Massacre by Argentine journalist Rodolfo Walsh (1957). Don't get me wrong, I think both works are great but I think that Walsh's work did not get enough recognition. This list should be name popular books not best books and still be controversial cause the lack of international names from differents country, most of the books are from Europe and USA (not much from Latin America, Asia, Africa, etc). The list didn't mention a lot of Classic (which time they are talking about 🤔).... Great video

[@cafeaulivre]

I think they could have done a better job in getting the brief right: are we talking fiction or non-fiction, prose or poetry, … It’s a bit of a mess 😳

[@aiscahill]

These lists always baffle me, but I generally just put it down to all of us having different tastes. I’ve read and enjoyed a few of these but don’t feel overly enthused by the list as a whole. I know it’s a very controversial opinion, but Pride and Prejudice was one of my least enjoyable reading experiences of all time. I hated it 😂

[@cafeaulivre]

Emma! Try Emma 😉

[@aiscahill]

@@cafeaulivre I will. Thanks, Bart ☺️

[@Jordan-calver1993]

I love Stephen King and I think The Shining is a pretty great haunted house story but the 5th greatest of all time? I think Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House beats The Shining.

[@cafeaulivre]

I agree: Jackson absolutely beats the Shining and even then I’m not sure she would score as high in the list for me.

[@Jordan-calver1993]

@@cafeaulivre Oh no, I totally agree that 5th is a very high position for either work as great as they both are.

[@amysmith1044]

Your comments about 50 shades made me laugh😂😂😂

[@cafeaulivre]

I was genuinely afraid it was going to pop up in the list 🤣

[@JamesRuchala]

This is the strangest list ive seen. Wish i knew what the methodology was.

[@cafeaulivre]

I don’t think there was one tbh 😋

[@kathleensmith]

Who the heck came up with this list!!! I agree possibly the list is more American biased, BUT.,.. Valley of the Dolls, you have got to be kidding!! Also, if American focused , where are Steinbeck or Hemingway ??? I am not sure I would pick Tolstoy as number one ? It was a great novel, but the best of all time, I am not sure. I can’t think of which novel would be at the top of a list, maybe Don Quixote?

[@cafeaulivre]

Exactly, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Angelou, … you could make a top ten purely out of US authors alone already!

[@joycejarrard6958]

Reader's Digest used to have more class. They used to publish classic books, and those titles didn't include the junk on this list. I understand American cultural bias, but this is nuts.

[@cafeaulivre]

I have no idea how they even came up with with this list

[@VTimmoni]

For the record I would have told you to avoid the Readers Digest list. I feel your pain and it is more than justified. The list is garbage and I'm sorry it was inflicted upon you.

[@cafeaulivre]

At this point, Im just glad there was no 50 shades or twilight on there 🤣

[@VTimmoni]

@@cafeaulivre Fair point. I tried to read the Twilight books for a bet. I barely finished the second book and happily lost the bet.

[@Graceandres3]

The placement of Valley of the Dolls is ridiculous.

[@cafeaulivre]

That was the silliest one for me too 😋

[@tommcmillan2300]

Definite American bias. Even then they missed many good American works. There also seems to be some confusion about the difference between “best” and “important.” All the President’s Men is important from a historical viewpoint but hardly great literature. Even then, there are more important history books by American authors, such as Richard Hofstadter or Perry Miller.

[@cafeaulivre]

I was indeed thinking about how would I make such a list and the first things I came up with was to split fiction and non-fiction, as well as poetry and prose. I’d rank them by literary merit (whatever that means in the end)

[@charlieuliginosa2494]

This rather dispiriting list only really reveals to us the reading tastes of Readers Digest readers, who are in all honesty a middle-brow, commercial, American bias readership. It's a piece of silly nonsense, forget about it.

[@cafeaulivre]

I wasn’t going to allow it to dictate my next reads 😉

[@willieluncheonette5843]

If one were to count the 5 best novels of all time, 5 would have to be Russian, leaving only 5 for the rest of the world.

[@cafeaulivre]

Which five Russians would you pick then?

[@ednorton47]

This is obviously some sort of woke-influenced list. Could not watch beyond 3:51 minutes.

[@cafeaulivre]

It’s just a bad taste list…nothing to do with woke