Originally published at: This is the best book of the past 125 years, according to New York Times Book Review readers | Boing Boing
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Fun to see the crossover between this and the most hated lists. (Tolkien and Faulkner for example)
It is almost like the quality of a book is a matter of opinion and up to individual taste. 
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I guess they’ve never read O Lost or Gravity’s Rainbow. sheesh
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125 years. . .
Which means Moby Dick (publ. 1851) was “grandfathered out.”
So we don’t have to do the whole Moby-Dick-good-or-bad argument.
(phew)
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Not Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health?
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Ha Ha Ha Ha!
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The Fellowships of the Rings is a masterpiece of fictional world-building and creative linguistics, but as a novel it’s mediocre.
/runs and hides
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Interesting slice between critical and popular taste.
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or HUCK FINN.
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That’s what happens when every 6th-grade teacher in the country assigns the same book as required reading.
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Exactly.
TKAM is a piece of classist, outdated white-savior crap. Same for the movie (the popularity of which probably also bolsters that of the book).
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1984 is a great fiction novel to read, but I wouldn’t put in the top 5.
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I guess Scientology has dwindled to the point that they can no longer rig book polls. How sad!
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The sequel is even worse with the racism.
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Yeah, so I’ve heard. TKAM itself left me with no desire to read that posthumous sequel (that I guess is actually a prequel? Not that I actually care, etc.).
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Atticus comes out as a complete asshole and it paints the first book even worse than it already was. It is a horrible mashup of boisterous, forward feminine attitudes (Scout is so avant garde with her short hair…) and “they must be guided!” racism. You are not missing out.
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It was an early rough draft of the other book
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And there’s a very good reason it was never released while Lee was alive: it just isn’t any good.
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Well… they’re no “Clitsy Weldon”… but these are all quite good. 
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