that book list

Will Baude at Crescat Sententia points out a problem with the latest literary meme "the list's bad tendency to list plenty of good authors, but without listing their best books." I certainly agree -- why Mill on the Floss and not Middlemarch or Daniel Deronda? Why An American Tragedy and not Sister Carrie? Etc etc. As I noted before, I'm not a fan of such lists when they're used in a prescriptive manner -- as in, "the best books" or "you must read these to be educated." But I like to see people on blogs actually commenting on the interest in reading Ibsen's other, less famous plays, etc. If the list game gets a few people to read a few more books -- well, that's never a bad thing. For myself, my list shows my gaps -- I haven't read the famous Faulkners; I'm saving Proust for my midlife crisis; and I'm weak on the Russians. I knew all that before -- but now the blogworld knows that too. Whatever that means.