Yes, I find lists of "best books" to be irresistible. And yes, they make me crazy.
Recently, Parade magazine asked novelist Ann Patchett to come up with a list of the 75 best books of the past 75 years. She did so, with the help of colleagues at her Nashville bookstore.
(Modestly, Patchett did not include any of her own books on the list, although "Bel Canto" almost certainly should have been there.)
The normal thing with such lists is to tote up how many books one has read, and then to start picking the list apart. How many women and writers of color? Not enough! Why this title when everyone knows his other book was better? Ridiculous! What's missing? Lots of things I liked!
And then we start arguing, smugly, at where the list fails and why our list would be so much better.
But the thing is, Patchett's list is a pretty good list.
She thought broadly, boldly including poetry, fiction, nonfiction and history, as well as a "how-to" book (by Stephen King, "On Writing"), a graphic novel ("Maus," by Art Spiegelman) and a cookbook (Julia Child, of course).
She includes children's books ("Charlotte's Web" and "Where the Wild Things Are"), populist books ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") and serious histories (the three-volume "The Civil War: A Narrative," by Shelby Foote, "The Guns of August," by Barbara Tuchman).