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Fan of Fiction: Updating the Best Novels Meta-Lists

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I’ve added four recent “best novels” lists to the Best Novels meta-lists. As you will see, the definition of “novel” is flexible. Some listers have included books that don’t fit within the most strict definitions of the form, such as, for example, A Thousand and One Nights, a collection of stories with a framing story. Here are the links:

Best Novels of All Time – Ranked
Best Novels of All Time – Chronological

Here are the top 10 novels:

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Colombia, 1967). By Gabriel García Márquez (on 25 lists)
The Great Gatsby (US, 1925). By F. Scott Fitzgerald (on 24 lists)
Lolita (USSR/US, 1955). By Vladimir Nabokov (on 22 lists)
Anna Karenina (Russia, 1877). By Leo Tolstoy (on 21 lists)
Madame Bovary (France, 1856). By Gustave Flaubert (on 20 lists)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (US, 1884). By Mark Twain (on 20 lists)
Don Quixote (Spain, Pt. 1: 1605; Pt. 2: 1615). By Miguel de Cervantes (on 19 lists)
Wuthering Heights (UK, 1847). By Emily Bronte (on 19 lists)
Moby-Dick (US, 1851). By Herman Melville (on 19 lists)
Crime and Punishment (Russia, 1866). By Fyodor Dostoyevsky (on 19 lists)

The Best Novels lists contain 297 books (or, in some cases, series of books). The great majority of the novels on the list were originally written in English. If you’re looking for more diversity, check out the Best Literature lists.  For your convenience, I’ve included a list of the 239 novels (or, in some cases, works of prose fiction that may not meet the definition of a novel) on the Best Literature list that are not on the Best Novels list (in chronological order):

  1. The Panchatantra (linked stories) (India, c. 300 BCE) – Vishnu Sharma (attrib.)
  2. Satyricon (Roman Empire, c.27-66 CE) – Petronius
  3. The Golden Ass (Roman Empire, c. 158-180 CE) – Apuleius
  4. Water Margin (Outlaws of the Marsh) (China, c. 1296-1372) – Shi Nai’an (attrib.)
  5. The Decameron (linked stories) Italy, 1350-1353) – Giovanni Boccaccio
  6. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (China, c. 1380-1400) – Luo Guanzhong
  7. The Book of the City of Ladies (Italy/France, 1405) – Christine de Pizan
  8. Le Morte d’Arthur (linked stories) (England, 1485) – Thomas Malory
  9. Utopia (England, 1516) – Thomas More
  10. Journey to the West (Monkey) (China, c. 1540-1560) – Wu Cheng’en
  11. The Heptameron (linked stories) (France, 1558) – Marguerite de Navarre
  12. The Plum in the Golden Vase (China, 1600) – Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng
  13. New Atlantis (England, 1623-1626, pub. 1627) – Francis Bacon
  14. Simplicius Simplicissimus (Germany, 1668) – Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelhausen
  15. The Princess of Cleves (France, 1678) – Madame de La Fayette
  16. Oroonoko (England, 1688) – Aphra Behn
  17. Manon Lescaut (France, 1731) – Abbé Prévost
  18. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (Great Britain, 1740) – Samuel Richardson
  19. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews (Great Britain, 1742) – Henry Fielding
  20. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (novella) (Great Britain, 1759) – Samuel Johnson
  21. The Castle of Otranto (Great Britain, 1765) – Horace Walpole
  22. Jacques the Fatalist (France, 1765-1780) – Denis Diderot
  23. The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (Great Britain, 1771) – Tobias Smollett
  24. Evelina (Great Britain, 1778) – Fanny Burney
  25. Dangerous Liaisons (France,1782) – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
  26. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (Germany, 1796) – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  27. Castle Rackrent (UK, 1800) – Maria Edgeworth
  28. Sense and Sensibility (UK,1811) – Jane Austen
  29. Mansfield Park (UK, 1814) – Jane Austen
  30. Waverley (UK, 1814) – Walter Scott
  31. Ivanhoe (UK, 1820) – Walter Scott
  32. Melmoth the Wanderer (Ireland, 1820) – Charles Maturin
  33. The Betrothed (Italy, 1827) – Alessandro Manzoni
  34. The Wild Ass’s Skin (France, 1831) – Honoré de Balzac
  35. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (France, 1831) – Victor Hugo
  36. Louis Lambert (France, 1832) – Honoré de Balzac
  37. The Girl with the Golden Eyes (France, 1833) – Honoré de Balzac
  38. Eugénie Grandet (France, 1833) – Honoré de Balzac
  39. The Pickwick Papers (UK, 1837) – Charles Dickens
  40. A Hero of Our Time (Russia, pub. 1840, revised 1841) – Mikhail Lermontov
  41. The Deerslayer (US, 1841) – James Fenimore Cooper
  42. Ursule Mirouet (France, 1841) – Honoré de Balzac
  43. A Christmas Carol (UK, 1843) – Charles Dickens
  44. A Harlot High and Low (France, 1847) – Honoré de Balzac
  45. Mary Barton (UK, 1848) – Elizabeth Gaskell
  46. Hard Times (UK, 1854) – Charles Dickens
  47. North and South (UK, 1854-1855) – Elizabeth Gaskell
  48. The Warden (UK, 1855) – Anthony Trollope
  49. Barchester Towers (UK, 1857) – Anthony Trollope
  50. Little Dorrit (UK, 1857) – Charles Dickens
  51. Adam Bede (UK, 1859) – George Eliot
  52. First Love (Russia, 1860) – Ivan Turgenev
  53. The Woman in White (UK, 1860) – Wilkie Collins
  54. The Mill on the Floss (UK, 1860) – George Eliot
  55. Our Mutual Friend (UK, 1864) – Charles Dickens
  56. The Last Chronicle of Barset (UK, 1867) – Anthony Trollope
  57. Thérèse Raquin (France, 1867) – Émile Zola
  58. Phineas Finn (UK, 1869) – Anthony Trollope
  59. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (France, 1870) – Jules Verne
  60. Through the Looking Glass (and What Alice Found There) (UK, 1871) – Lewis Carroll
  61. Erewhon (UK, 1872) – Samuel Butler
  62. Around the World in Eighty Days (France, 1873) – Jules Verne
  63. Far from the Madding Crowd (UK, 1874) – Thomas Hardy
  64. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (US, 1876) – Mark Twain
  65. L’Assommoir (France, 1877) – Émile Zola
  66. Ben-Hur (US, 1880) – Lew Wallace
  67. Nana (France, 1880) – Émile Zola
  68. The Red Room (Sweden, 1880) – August Strindberg
  69. Little Novels of Sicily (Italy, 1883) – Giovanni Verga
  70. Treasure Island (UK, 1883) – Robert Louis Stevenson
  71. The Bostonians (US/UK, 1886) – Henry James
  72. Kidnapped (UK, 1886) – Robert Louis Stevenson
  73. The Mayor of Casterbridge (UK, 1886) – Thomas Hardy
  74. Fortunata and Jacinta (Spain, 1887) – Benito Pérez Galdós
  75. The People of Hemsö (Sweden, 1887) – August Strindberg
  76. The Maias (Portugal, 1888) – José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
  77. The Master of Ballantrae (UK, 1889) – Robert Louis Stevenson
  78. News from Nowhere (UK, 1890) – William Morris
  79. The House by the Medlar Tree (Italy, 1890) – Giovanni Verga
  80. Hunger (Norway, 1890) – Knut Hamsun
  81. Billy Budd (novella) (US, c. 1891, pub. 1924) – Herman Melville
  82. Diary of a Nobody (UK, 1892) – George & Weedon Grossmith
  83. The Time Machine (UK, 1895) – H.G. Wells
  84. Effi Briest (Germany, 1896) – Theodor Fontane
  85. Misericordia (Spain, 1897) – Benito Pérez Galdós
  86. The Invisible Man (UK, 1897) – H.G. Wells
  87. The Way of All Flesh (UK, c. 1899) – Samuel Butler
  88. The Kreutzer Sonata (novella) (Russia, 1899) – Leo Tolstoy
  89. The Confusions of Young Törless (Germany, 1906) – Robert Musil
  90. The Secret Agent (Poland/UK, 1907) – Joseph Conrad
  91. Anne of Green Gables (Canada, 1908) – Lucy Maud Montgomery
  92. The Old Wive’s Tale (UK, 1908) – Arnold Bennett
  93. Under Western Eyes (Poland/UK, 1911) – Joseph Conrad
  94. Zuleika Dobson (UK, 1911) – Max Beerbohm
  95. Death in Venice (novella) (Germany, 1912) – Thomas Mann
  96. Le Grand Meaulnes (France, 1913) – Henry Alain-Fournier
  97. Kokoro (Japan, 1914) – Natsume Soseki
  98. The Metamorphosis (novella) (Austria-Hungary/Czechoslovakia, 1912, pub. 1915) – Franz Kafka
  99. The Magnificent Ambersons (US, 1918) – Booth Tarkington
  100. The Forsyte Saga (three novels and two stories) (UK, 1906-1921) – John Galsworthy
  101. The True Story of Ah Q (novella) (China, 1921-1922) – Lu Xun (Lu Hsun)
  102. Siddhartha (Germany/Switzerland, 1922) – Hermann Hesse
  103. A Lost Lady (US, 1923) – Willa Cather
  104. The Counterfeiters (France, 1925) – André Gide
  105. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (UK, 1926) – Agatha Christie
  106. Amerika (Czechoslovakia, 1911-1914, pub. 1927) – Franz Kafka
  107. Steppenwolf (Germany/Switzerland, 1927) – Hermann Hesse
  108. Lady Chatterley’s Lover (UK, 1928) – D.H. Lawrence
  109. Nadja (France, 1928) – André Breton
  110. Les Enfants Terribles (Frances, 1929) – Jean Cocteau
  111. Point Counter Point (UK, 1928) – Aldous Huxley
  112. The Good Earth (US, 1931) – Pearl Buck
  113. The Radetzky March (Austria, 1932) – Joseph Roth
  114. Tobacco Road (US, 1932) – Erskine Caldwell
  115. Young Lonigan (US, 1932) – James T. Farrell
  116. Miss Lonelyhearts (US, 1933) – Nathanael West
  117. Man’s Fate (France, 1933) – André Malraux
  118. The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (US, 1934) – James T. Farrell
  119. The Postman Always Rings Twice (US, 1934) – James M. Cain
  120. Judgment Day (US, 1935) – James T. Farrell
  121. The Book of Disquiet (Portugal, 1935) – Fernando Pessoa
  122. Rickshaw Boy (China, 1937) – Lao She
  123. Murphy (Ireland, 1938) – Samuel Beckett
  124. Brighton Rock (UK, 1938) – Graham Greene
  125. And Then There Were None (UK, 1939) – Agatha Christie
  126. And Quiet Flows the Don (USSR, 1928-1940) – Mikhail Sholokhov
  127. The Third Policeman (Ireland, 1939-1940) – Flann O’Brien
  128. The Tartar Steppe (Italy, 1940) – Dino Buzzati
  129. Our Lady of the Flowers (France, 1942-1943) – Jean Genet
  130. The Bridge on the Drina (Yugoslavia, 1945) – Ivo Andrić
  131. The Berlin Stories (two novellas) (UK, 1945) – Christopher Isherwood
  132. Pippi Longstocking (Sweden, 1945) – Astrid Lindgren
  133. Titus Groan (UK, 1946) – Mervyn Peake
  134. The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Nigeria, 1946) – Amos Tutola
  135. Doctor Faustus (Germany, 1947) – Thomas Mann
  136. The Makioka Sisters (Japan, 1948) – Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
  137. Snow Country (Japan, 1948) – Yasunari Kawabata
  138. Cry, the Beloved Country (South Africa, 1948) – Alan Paton
  139. The Kingdom of This World (Cuba, 1949) – Alejo Carpentier
  140. The Man with the Golden Arm (US, 1949) – Nelson Algren
  141. A Town Like Alice (UK, 1950) – Nevil Shute
  142. The Family Moskat (Poland/US, 1950) – Isaac Bashevis Singer
  143. Gormenghast (UK, 1950) – Mervyn Peake
  144. The Opposing Shore (France, 1951) – Julien Gracq
  145. Foundation (USSR/US, 1951) – Isaac Asimov
  146. From Here to Eternity (US, 1951) – James Jones
  147. Day of the Triffids (UK, 1951) – John Wyndham
  148. Lucky Jim (UK, 1953) – Kingsley Amis
  149. The Long Goodbye (US, 1953) – Raymond Chandler
  150. The Lost Steps (Cuba, 1953) – Alejo Carpentier
  151. Bonjour Tristesse (France, 1954) – Françoise Sagan
  152. I’m Not Stiller (Switzerland, 1954) – Max Frisch
  153. The Quiet American (UK, 1955) – Graham Greene
  154. The Talented Mr. Ripley (UK, 1955) – Patricia Highsmith
  155. The Fall (France, 1956) – Albert Camus
  156. Seize the Day (US, 1956) – Saul Bellow
  157. The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Brazil, 1956) – João Guimarães Rosa
  158. The Wapshot Chronicle (US, 1957) – John Cheever
  159. A Death in the Family (US, 1957) – James Agee
  160. Voss (Australia, 1957) – Patrick White
  161. The Baron in the Trees (Italy, 1957) – Italo Calvino
  162. Jealousy (France, 1957) – Alain Robbe-Grillet
  163. The Once and Future King (UK, 1958) – T.H. White
  164. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (US, 1958) – Truman Capote
  165. Titus Alone (UK, 1959) – Mervyn Peake
  166. Henderson the Rain King (US, 1959) – Saul Bellow
  167. Solaris (Poland, 1961) – Stanislaw Lem
  168. The Woman in the Dunes (Japan, 1962) – Kobo Abe
  169. Cat’s Cradle (US, 1963) – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  170. V. (US, 1963) – Thomas Pynchon
  171. Arrow of God (Nigeria, 1964) – Chinua Achebe
  172. Dune (US, 1965) – Frank Herbert
  173. The Magus (UK, 1966) – John Fowles
  174. The Crying of Lot 49 (US, 1966) – Thomas Pynchon
  175. The Fixer (US, 1966) – Bernard Malamud
  176. The First Circle (USSR, 1968) – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  177. Myra Breckenridge (US, 1968) – Gore Vidal
  178. The Godfather (US, 1969) – Mario Puzo
  179. Them (US, 1969) – Joyce Carol Oates
  180. The Left Hand of Darkness (US, 1969) – Ursula K. Le Guin
  181. The Sea of Fertility (four novels) (Japan, 1964-1970, pub. 1969-1971) – Yukio Mishima
  182. Deliverance (US, 1970) – James Dickey
  183. The Ogre (France, 1970) – Michel Tournier
  184. Angle of Repose (US, 1971) – Wallace Stegner
  185. Watership Down (US, 1972) – Richard Adams
  186. The Siege of Krishnapur (UK, 1973) – J.G. Farrell
  187. The Conservationist (South Africa, 1974) – Nadine Gordimer
  188. Dog Soldiers (US, 1974) – Robert Stone
  189. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (UK, 1974) – John Le Carré
  190. Humboldt’s Gift (US, 1975) – Saul Bellow
  191. The Periodic Table (Italy, 1975) – Primo Levi
  192. The Shining (US, 1977) – Stephen King
  193. The Sea, the Sea (UK, 1978) – Iris Murdoch
  194. The Ghost Writer (US, 1979) – Philip Roth
  195. The Executioner’s Song (US, 1980) – Norman Mailer
  196. So Long, See You Tomorrow (US, 1980) – William Maxwell
  197. Obasan (Canada, 1981) – Joy Kogawa
  198. So Long A Letter (Senegal, 1981) – Mariama Bâ
  199. The Women of Brewster Place (US, 1982) – Gloria Naylor
  200. The Life and Times of Michael K. (South Africa, 1983) – J.M. Coetzee
  201. Ironweed (US, 1983) – William Kennedy
  202. The Accidental Tourist (US, 1985) – Anne Tyler
  203. Nervous Conditions (Zimbabwe, 1988) – Tsitsi Dangaremba
  204. Oscar and Lucinda (Australia, 1988) – Peter Carey
  205. The Alchemist (Brazil, 1988) – Paulo Coelho
  206. A Prayer for Owen Meany (US, 1989) – John Irving
  207. The Power of One (South Africa/Australia, 1989) – Bryce Courtenay
  208. Like Water for Chocolate (Mexico, 1989) – Laura Esquivel
  209. Billy Bathgate (US, 1989) – E.L. Doctorow
  210. Get Shorty (US, 1990) – Elmore Leonard
  211. Possession (UK, 1990) – A.S. Byatt
  212. A Thousand Acres (US, 1991) – Jane Smiley
  213. Mao II (US, 1991) – Don DeLillo
  214. The English Patient (Canada, 1992) – Michael Ondaatje
  215. The Secret History (US, 1992) – Donna Tartt
  216. Operation Shylock (US, 1993) – Philip Roth
  217. The Stone Diaries (US/Canada, 1993) – Carol Shields
  218. The Shipping News (US, 1993) – E. Annie Proulx
  219. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (UK, 1994) – Louis De Bernières
  220. The Rings of Saturn (Germany, 1995) – W.G. Sebald
  221. A Fine Balance (India/Canada, 1995) – Rohinton Mistry
  222. Mason & Dixon (US, 1997) – Thomas Pynchon
  223. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials II) (UK, 1997) – Philip Pullman
  224. The God of Small Things (India, 1997) – Arundhati Roy
  225. The Hours (US, 1998) – Michael Cunningham
  226. Waiting (China/US, 1999) – Ha Jin
  227. The Human Stain (US, 2000) – Philip Roth
  228. The Blind Assassin (Canada, 2000) – Margaret Atwood
  229. Blonde (US, 2000) – Joyce Carol Oates
  230. The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials III) (UK, 2000) – Philip Pullman
  231. Life of Pi (Canada, 2001) – Yann Martel
  232. The Namesake (India/US, 2003) – Jhumpa Lahiri
  233. The Kite Runner (Afghanistan/US, 2003) – Khaled Hosseini
  234. The Known World (US, 2003) – Edward P. Jones
  235. Gilead (US, 2004) – Marilynne Robinson
  236. The Book Thief (Australia, 2005) – Markus Zusak
  237. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Dominican Republic/US, 2007) – Junot Diaz
  238. Station Eleven (Canada, 2014) – Emily St. John Mandel
  239. The Underground Railroad (US, 2016) – Colson Whitehead

 

The Guardian’s List of Best Novels – And Mine.

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The Guardian newspaper recently published its latest list of 100 Best Novels of All Time. I’ll be adding the list to my own meta-list of best novels. The Guardian‘s list was created by soliciting ranked lists of 10 best novels from authors, critics, and academics from around the world. I’ve read 72 of the 100 books on the list.

The list is ranked (Middlemarch is No. 1), although to me the exercise of deciding whether, for example, Ulysses is better than In Search of Lost Time, or whether Emma is better than Persuasion is a colossal waste of time. Here’s an analogy: the cream always rises to the top of the milk bottle; the cream layer constitutes only a tiny percentage of the bottle’s contents. Therefore, relative to the entire bottle, every bit of cream in that thin layer is equal, for all practical purposes. Why engage in the trouble of deciding that one bit of cream is a little better than another? Similarly, if we choose 100 books out of the hundreds of thousands of books ever published, the miniscule differences in quality among the top 100 are far outweighed by the difference between the top 100 and the remaining thousands. But listers seem to love to rank their lists, so I’m clearly in the minority here.

I tried to make my own list of 100 favorite novels, but could only get it down to 125. Regular readers of Make Lists, Not War may know that, while I love reading “top [insert number here] lists,” I hate making them. I find it too painful to whittle down the list to reach an arbitrary number. As I’ve said before, I think it makes more sense to rate every book I read (or movie I see, album I listen to, etc.) on a 1-5 or 1-10 scale. My “top” books (movies, music, …) list then consists of every item that received a top score. There is no arbitrary cutoff number. Then we have no worries about ranking (they’re all 10/10!) and no painful winnowing of the favorites to 10, 25, or 100. If you want to see the full list of my five-star books, go HERE. The reduced list of my 125 favorite novels, which is a subset of the Five-Star Books list, follows (unranked, in chronological order). I apologize in advance for the lack of contemporary fiction. I have been engaged in a massive reading project (based on my own lists, of course) since 2011 and have been moving chronologically (so far I’ve made it to the 1920s), so I have read almost no fiction published in the past 15 years or so. (When I take breaks from my reading list, I tend to opt for recent nonfiction instead of fiction.) I hope to remedy this shameful gap soon. Also, I cheated a little by including trilogies and quartets as single entries, to keep the total down. NOTE: If the book is also on the Guardian‘s list, I’ve added an asterisk:

  1. The Tale of Genji. Murasaki Shikibu (Japan, 1021)
  2. Gargantua and Pantagruel. François Rabelais (France, 1532)
  3. Don Quixote. Miguel de Cervantes (Spain, 1605, 1615)*
  4. Gulliver’s Travels. Jonathan Swift (Ireland, 1726)
  5. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Henry Fielding (Great Britain, 1749)
  6. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Laurence Sterne (Ireland, 1759)*
  7. Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone) – Cao Xueqin and Guo E (China, 1763-1764)
  8. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen (UK, 1813)*
  9. Emma. Jane Austen (UK, 1815)*
  10. Ivanhoe. Walter Scott (UK, 1819)
  11. The Red and the Black. Stendhal (France, 1830)
  12. Le Père Goriot. Honoré de Balzac (France, 1835)
  13. Cousin Bette. Honoré de Balzac (France, 1846)
  14. Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë (UK, 1847)*
  15. Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë (UK, 1847)*
  16. Moby-Dick. Herman Melville (US, 1851)*
  17. Notes from Underground. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1861)
  18. Great Expectations. Charles Dickens (UK, 1861)*
  19. Fathers and Sons. Ivan Turgenev (Russia, 1862)
  20. Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1866)*
  21. The Last Chronicle of Barset. Anthony Trollope (UK, 1867)
  22. The Idiot. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1869)
  23. War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1869)*
  24. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. George Eliot (UK, 1871)*
  25. The Brothers Karamazov. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1878)*
  26. Anna Karenina. Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1878)*
  27. The Return of the Native. Thomas Hardy (UK, 1878)*
  28. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain (US, 1884)
  29. The Maias. Eça de Queirós (Portugal, 1888)
  30. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy (UK, 1891)
  31. Jude the Obscure. Thomas Hardy (UK, 1895)*
  32. Dracula. Bram Stoker (Ireland, 1897)*
  33. Lord Jim. Joseph Conrad (UK, 1900)
  34. Sister Carrie. Theodore Dreiser (US, 1900)
  35. Kim. Rudyard Kipling (UK, 1901)
  36. The Wings of the Dove. Henry James (US/UK, 1901)
  37. The Ambassadors. Henry James (US/UK, 1903)
  38. The Golden Bowl. Henry James (US/UK, 1904)*
  39. Nostromo. Joseph Conrad (UK, 1904)
  40. The House of Mirth. Edith Wharton (US, 1905)
  41. Sons and Lovers. D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1915)
  42. The Good Soldier. Ford Madox Ford (UK, 1915)*
  43. The Rainbow. D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1915)*
  44. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. James Joyce (Ireland, 1916)
  45. The Magnificent Ambersons. Booth Tarkington (US, 1918)
  46. Women in Love. D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1920)
  47. Siddhartha. Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1922)
  48. Ulysses. James Joyce (Ireland, 1922)*
  49. The Magic Mountain. Thomas Mann (Germany, 1924)*
  50. The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald (US, 1925)*
  51. Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf (UK, 1925)*
  52. The Trial. Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia, 1925)*
  53. The Castle. Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia, 1926)
  54. In Search of Lost Time. Marcel Proust (France, 1913-1927)*
  55. Steppenwolf. Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1927)
  56. To the Lighthouse. Virginia Woolf (UK, 1927)*
  57. Death Comes for the Archbishop. Willa Cather (US, 1927)
  58. Orlando: A Biography. Virginia Woolf (UK, 1928)*
  59. Look Homeward, Angel. Thomas Wolfe (US, 1929)
  60. The Sound and the Fury. William Faulkner (US, 1929)*
  61. As I Lay Dying. William Faulkner (US, 1930)
  62. Light in August. William Faulkner (US, 1932)
  63. Independent People. Halldór Laxness (Iceland, 1934)
  64. The Book of Disquiet. Fernando Pessoa (Portugal, 1935)
  65. Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner (US, 1936)
  66. U.S.A. John Dos Passos (US, 1930-1936)
  67. Nausea. Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1938)
  68. At Swim-Two-Birds. Flann O’Brien (Ireland, 1939)
  69. The Glass Bead Game. Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1943)
  70. All the King’s Men. Robert Penn Warren (US, 1946)
  71. Under the Volcano. Malcolm Lowry (UK, 1947)
  72. Cry, the Beloved Country. Alan Paton (South Africa, 1948)
  73. Intruder in the Dust. William Faulkner (US, 1948)
  74. The Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger (US, 1951)
  75. Memoirs of Hadrian. Marguerite Yourcenar (France, 1951)
  76. Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison (UK, 1952)*
  77. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable: A Trilogy. Samuel Beckett (Ireland/France, 1951-1953)
  78. Lucky Jim. Kingsley Amis (UK, 1954)
  79. Lord of the Flies. William Golding (UK, 1954)
  80. The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien (UK, 1954-1955)
  81. Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov (USSR/US, 1955)*
  82. The Inheritors. William Golding (UK, 1955)
  83. A Death in the Family. James Agee (US, 1957)
  84. The Tin Drum. Günter Grass (Germany, 1959)
  85. The Alexandria Quartet. Lawrence Durrell (UK, 1957-1960)
  86. Catch-22. Joseph Heller (US, 1961)*
  87. A Clockwork Orange. Anthony Burgess (UK, 1962)
  88. The Golden Notebook. Doris Lessing (UK, 1962)*
  89. Cat’s Cradle. Kurt Vonnegut (US, 1963)
  90. V. Thomas Pynchon (US, 1963)
  91. Giles Goat-Boy. John Barth (US, 1966)
  92. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel García Marquez (Colombia, 1967)*
  93. Invisible Cities. Italo Calvino (Italy, 1972)*
  94. Breakfast of Champions. Kurt Vonnegut (US, 1973)
  95. Gravity’s Rainbow. Thomas Pynchon (US, 1973)
  96. Ragtime. E.L. Doctorow (US, 1975)
  97. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Tom Robbins (US, 1976)
  98. Song of Solomon. Toni Morrison (US, 1977)*
  99. So Long, See You Tomorrow. William Maxwell (US, 1979)
  100. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Italo Calvino (Italy, 1979)
  101. Still Life with Woodpecker. Tom Robbins (US, 1980)
  102. Midnight’s Children. Salman Rushdie (UK/India, 1981)*
  103. The White Hotel. D.M. Thomas (UK, 1981)
  104. Money: A Suicide Note. Martin Amis (UK, 1984)
  105. White Noise. Don DeLillo (US, 1985)
  106. World’s End. T.C. Boyle (US, 1987)
  107. Beloved. Toni Morrison (US, 1987)*
  108. The New York Trilogy. Paul Auster (US, 1987)
  109. Oscar and Lucinda. Peter Carey (Australia, 1988)
  110. Mating. Norman Rush (US, 1991)
  111. Infinite Jest. David Foster Wallace (US, 1996)
  112. The God of Small Things. Arundhati Roy (India, 1997)*
  113. American Pastoral. Philip Roth (US, 1997)
  114. White Teeth. Zadie Smith (UK, 1999)*
  115. Atonement. Ian McEwan (UK, 2001)
  116. Austerlitz. W.G. Sebald (Germany, 2001)*
  117. Middlesex. Jeffrey Eugenides (US, 2002)
  118. The Known World. Edward P. Jones (US, 2003)*
  119. Never Let Me Go. Kazuo Ishiguro (UK, 2005)*
  120. Europe Central. William T. Vollmann (US, 2005)
  121. What Is the What. Dave Eggers (US, 2006)
  122. The Inheritance of Loss. Kiran Desai (India/US, 2006)
  123. The Road. Cormac McCarthy (US, 2006)*
  124. There But For The. Ali Smith (UK, 2011)
  125. The Neapolitan Novels: My Brilliant Friend*, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child. Elena Ferrante (Italy, 2011-2014)

Thumbs Down: My Least Favorite Films of the 21st Century (so far)

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There’s nothing quite as infuriating as someone hating something you love. It feels personal in a way that’s different than someone loving something you hate. So it is with some trepidation that I have compiled a list of my least favorite films of the 21st Century so far.  I rate every movie I see from 1-10 and this list consists of every movie since 1/1/2000 (I know, actually a year before the 21st Century began…) that I gave a rating of 5 stars or less.

Please don’t be offended if I didn’t share your love for a favorite film. These aren’t facts; they’re just opinions. And hey, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I need to give that film another chance. I probably won’t, but maybe I should. Maybe I was just having a bad day. Or maybe this is a truly terrible film. We may never know the answer, but I can live with that uncertainty. I hope you can too.

You’ll notice that certain types of films tend to crop up on my “least favorite films” list. For example, I find most modern comedies to be awful. Even if they provide some laughs, they come at the expense of credible characters, coherent scripts, and emotional richness.  I find that so many comedies in the past 30+ years are little more than SNL-type skits that someone padded out to 90 minutes. It might have been funny as five minutes on TV show, but sitting through a feature-length movie is a chore. Other frequent fliers are: overrated animated films that hope we’ll overlook the lack of substance because it’s cute and clever; by-the-numbers rom-coms; by-the-numbers action flicks; and science fiction films that, upon serious examination, make no sense (I can only suspend my disbelief so far – Chris Nolan, Wachowskis, I’m looking at you…).

Anyway, here’s the list (in chronological order, as per usual):

  1. Meet the Parents (US, 2000) Dir: Jay Roach
  2. Scary Movie (US, 2000) Dir: Keenen Ivory Wayans
  3. Bamboozled (US, 2000) Dir: Spike Lee
  4. The Matrix Reloaded (US, 2003) Dir: Lilly Wachowski & Lana Wachowski
  5. The Matrix Revolutions (US, 2003) Dir: Lilly Wachowski & Lana Wachowski
  6. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (US, 2003) Dir: Gore Verbinski
  7. Gothika (US, 2003) Dir: Mathieu Kassovitz
  8. Spanglish (US, 2004) Dir: James L. Brooks
  9. National Treasure (US, 2004) Dir: Jon Turteltaub
  10. The Village (US, 2004) Dir: M. Night Shyamalan
  11. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (US, 2004) Dir: Adam McKay
  12. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (US, 2004) Dir: Brad Silberling
  13. Collateral (US, 2004) Dir: Michael Mann
  14. Spider-Man 2 (US, 2004) Dir: Sam Raimi
  15. The Stepford Wives (US, 2004) Dir: Frank Oz
  16. King Kong (New Zealand/US, 2005) Dir: Peter Jackson
  17. Wedding Crashers (US, 2005) Dir: David Dobkin
  18. The Upside of Anger (US, 2005) Dir: Mike Binder
  19. Notes on a Scandal (UK, 2006) Dir: Richard Eyre
  20. Happy Feet (US/Australia, 2006) Dir: George Miller
  21. The Break-Up (US, 2006) Dir: Peyton Reed
  22. The Mist (US, 2007) Dir: Frank Darabont
  23. Ratatouille (US, 2007) Dir: Brad Bird
  24. Live Free or Die Hard (US, 2007) Dir: Len Wiseman
  25. Next (US, 2007) Dir: Lee Tamahori
  26. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (UK/US, 2007) Dir: Tim Burton
  27. Evan Almighty (US, 2007) Dir: Tom Shadyac
  28. WALL·E (US, 2008) Dir: Andrew Stanton
  29. The Hangover (US, 2009) Dir: Todd Phillips
  30. Taking Woodstock (US, 2009) Dir: Ang Lee
  31. Up (US, 2009) Dir: Pete Docter
  32. Avatar (US, 2009) Dir: James Cameron
  33. He’s Just Not That Into You (US/Germany, 2009) Dir: Ken Kwapis
  34. Inception (US/UK, 2010) Dir: Christopher Nolan
  35. Source Code (US/France, 2011) Dir: Duncan Jones
  36. Cedar Rapids (US, 2011) Dir: Miguel Arteta
  37. House at the End of the Street (US, 2012) Dir: Mark Tonderai
  38. The Equalizer (US, 2014) Dir: Antoine Fuqua
  39. The Endless (US, 2017) Dir: Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
  40. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (US/UK, 2020) Dir: Jason Woliner
  41. A Man Called Otto (US, 2022) Dir: Marc Forster
  42. Hundreds of Beavers (US, 2022) Dir: Mike Cheslik
  43. Saltburn (UK/US, 2023) Dir: Emerald Fennell
  44. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (US, 2025) Dir: Christopher McQuarrie

Game On: Introducing the Best Video Games Meta-List

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Over the years since I began the Make Lists, Not War website, I’ve received a number of requests to publish meta-lists on particular topics of interest to readers.  As a result of these requests, I’ve created meta-lists of the best essays of all time, the best novels of all time, and the best hip hop songs of all time, among others.  The most frequently-requested meta-list is the best video games of all time.  It’s taken me a few years to get around to making such a list, but it is finally complete.  You can access it through the link below:

The Best Video Games of All Time: Ranked

One of the reasons I hesitated about making a video game list is my lack of knowledge of gaming and gaming culture. With a couple of exceptions, I haven’t played any video games since the 1980s.  But the beauty of the meta-list concept is that I don’t need any expertise in the subject matter.  All I need is the ability to find “best video games” lists and combine them into a meta list.  There were plenty of such lists to be found on the Internet.  I chose the 15 lists below to create this meta-list.

The Original Source Lists:

  1. Time Magazine (2016)
  2. Slant (2020)
  3. IGN (2021)
  4. Games Radar + (2021)
  5. Business Insider (2022)
  6. USA Today (2022)
  7. Popular Mechanics (2022)
  8. British GQ (2023)
  9. Empire (2023)
  10. Digital Trends (2023)
  11. Parade (2023)
  12. IMDB (2024)
  13. Wikipedia Meta-List (accessed 1/24)
  14. WatchMojo (n.d., accessed 1/24)
  15. Gadget Mates (n.d., accessed 1/24)

The three top vote-getters were on 14 of the lists.  No video game was on all 15 lists.  I included every video game that was listed on three or more lists in the published meta-list.  My feeling is that including items that are only on one or two lists makes for a much longer, and ultimately less useful list.

My own personal experience with video games is very limited.  It begins with the game of Pong, which we played on my television as a child.

Arcade games I played in the late 1970s and early 1980s included Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Centipede.

I also recall a favorite arcade game that allowed two players to cooperate to shoot down aliens – it was unusual in that it required players to work together as a team instead of compete against each other, but I don’t recall the name of it.  (If anyone knows, leave me a comment below!)  I also recall playing Donkey Kong on a friend’s computer in the 1980s and maybe something involving Mario.  I’m pretty sure I played Tetris at least once, but I was never a big fan.  I played Wii Sports with my nephew once in 2006 or 2007, and either Guitar Hero or Rock Band once with a friend.  And that’s about the extent of my gaming experience.

The Best of 2023: Movies, TV, Music & Books

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Once again, I have compiled meta-lists of the best of the year in film, television, music, and literature.  I began undertaking this project over 20 years ago when I decided that, with limited time to read books, watch movies and TV shows, and listen to music, I wanted to reduce my chances of encountering dreck and increase the percentage of that I would encounter gems.  The solution I chose to this problem was to collect the opinions of multiple critics when they issue their end-of-year “best of” lists.  While the method is not foolproof (I do occasionally find critical faves that I don’t like, and I also sometimes run across items I rate highly that the critics didn’t like so much), it has been a success overall.  One of the best aspects of this method is that it gets me outside my comfort zone.  By collecting and collating these lists, creating the meta-lists that are linked below, I have expanded my horizons and encountered works of art that I might not have found if I had stayed within the recommendations of friends and family, or of just one favored critic.  Why go by the recommendations of one random person when you have at your fingertips the critical consensus of over a dozen experts?

Here are the links to this year’s lists:

Best Films of 2023
Best TV Shows of 2023
Best Music of 2023
Best Books of 2023

The New Golden Age: A TV Meta-List Update

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There seems to be a critical consensus that we are living in a new golden age of television.  The quality of TV productions now rivals film, and actors and actresses now migrate between TV and film frequently and without stigma.  So it made sense to me that it was time to update the meta-lists of Best TV Shows of All Time, which I last updated in 2019.  The new updated lists have lots of additional TV shows, most of them from the last decade.  The top three shows of all time (in a tie) remain the same: The Simpsons, The Sopranos, and The Wire.

Here are links to the lists:

Best TV Shows of All Time – Ranked
Best TV Shows of All Time – Chronological

Oddly, the lists I found to create the meta-list do not contain any foreign language TV shows, even though there is quality television being made all over the world.  I hope that “best tv shows” listers of the future will remedy this glaring omission.

Speaking of omissions, quite a few  of my favorite TV shows (including productions from France, Germany, Poland, and Israel) didn’t make the list, so I’m providing Make Lists, Not War readers with my own list of favorites that didn’t make it onto the meta-lists (listed chronologically, of course):

  1. The Ernie Kovacs Show (CBS: 1952-1954; DuMont 1954-1955, ABC 1961-1962)
  2. The Outer Limits (ABC: 1963-1965)
  3. Get Smart (NBC: 1965-1969; CBS: 1969-1970)
  4. Nova (PBS: 1974- )
  5. Kolchak: The Night Stalker (ABC: 1974-1975)
  6. SCTV (Global 1976-1979, CBS 1980-1983, Superchannel 1983-1984)
  7. Austin City Limits (PBS: 1976- )
  8. Fernwood 2 Night/American 2-Night (Syndication: 1977-1978)
  9. Nature (PBS: 1982- )
  10. Eyes on the Prize (PBS: 1987, 1990)
  11. The Kids in the Hall (CBC TV/HBO: 1988-1993; CBC/TV/CBS: 1993-1995; Amazon Prime Video: 2022)
  12. Dekalog (Poland, 1989) (also released as a film)
  13. The Civil War (PBS: 1990)
  14. The Ben Stiller Show (Fox: 1992-1993, Comedy Central: 1995)
  15. Pride & Prejudice (BBC: 1995)
  16. Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (Comedy Central: 1995-2002)
  17. Mad TV (Fox: 1995-2009)
  18. Jazz (PBS: 2001)
  19. Joan of Arcadia (CBS: 2003-2005)
  20. Extras (BBC/HBO: 2005-2007)
  21. The Comeback (HBO: 2005, 2014)
  22. Flight of the Conchords (HBO: 2007-2009)
  23. Shtisel (yes Oh/Netflix: 2013-2021)
  24. Lovesick (Channel 4: 2014-2015; Netflix: 2016-2018)
  25. Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent) (France 2/Netflix: 2015- )
  26. Love (Netflix: 2016-2018)
  27. Unorthodox (Netflix: 2020)
  28. Feel Good (Channel 4/All 4/Netflix: 2020-2021)

Getting Up To Speed: A Meta-List Update Report

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I’ve updated a number of the meta-lists, using original source lists I obtained from various sources, including books, magazines, and websites.  I’ve updated several of the film lists and the literature (book) lists.  I added three new film lists, including a best 100 films from Stephanie Zacharek at Time magazine, and about 10 new best literature lists.  The literature lists hadn’t been updated in almost 10 years.  Here are the links to the updated lists:

MOVIES
Best Films of All Time – Ranked
Best Films of All Time – Chronological
Best Films of All Time – By Director
Best of the 21st Century (So Far)  (Note: Only the movies section of this list has been updated.)

LITERATURE
Greatest Works of Literature – Ranked
Greatest Works of Literature – Chronological
Greatest Works of Literature – By Author
The Big Literature List: A Meta-Meta List

Some may be wondering, why make lists of the greatest literature and not the greatest books?  I have actually given this quite a bit of thought.  I do have some lists that reference books, but the category of literature gives me an opportunity to include bodies of work, not just specific books. In many cases (esp. for writers known best for their poems, essays or short stories), people making “best of” lists will simply list the author’s entire body of work, without singling out any particular poem, story or essay.  There are often multiple collections of the author’s work in the genre, but instead of randomly selecting one of these collections as a “best book”, I thought it made more sense to reference the works as bodies of work (thus the italicized items in the literature lists).  (Although when listers do reference a specific collection/compilation, I have included it.)  Because these bodies of work aren’t books as such, I’ve used the more encompassing term “literature” for these lists (even though I’m aware that the algorithms and search terms might be looking for “best books”).

The Art of the Metaverse: Updating the Visual Arts Meta-Lists

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I’ve updated the visual arts meta-lists by adding lists of best works of art from four additional art books.  This brings the total number of original source lists to over 34. The books are:

Jo Marceau & Ray Rogers, eds., Art: A World History (1998)
Phaidon Publishing, Art in Time: A World History of Styles and Movements (2014)
Phaidon Publishing, The Art Book (revised edition, 2020)
Robert Cumming, Art: A Visual History (2020).

The result of adding these four new lists is that many of the artworks have moved up or down in the rankings, and several dozen new artworks are now on three or more original source lists. Here are the updated lists:

Best Works of Art of All Time – Ranked: Part 1 (artworks on 6 or more original source lists)
Best Works of Art of All Time – Ranked: Part 2 (artworks on 4 or 5 original source lists)
Best Works of Art of All Time – Ranked: Part 3 (artworks on 3 original source lists)

And for those who prefer their art in chronological order:

Art History 101 – Part 1: Prehistoric Era – 399 CE
Art History 101 – Part 2: 400 CE – 1399 CE
Art History 101 – Part 3: 1400-1499
Art History 101 – Part 4: 1500-1599
Art History 101 – Part 5: 1600-1799
Art History 101 – Part 6: 1800-1899
Art History 101 – Part 7: 1900-Present

Some statistics about the meta-list:  There are nearly 700 separate entries, and many more artworks because some entries include a series of works.  There are 54 artists with three or more works of art on the list:

Artists with THREE works of art on the meta-list
Praxiteles (Greece, 4th Century BCE)
Antonello da Messina (Italy, 1430-1479)
Andrea Mantegna (Italy, 1431-1506)
Sandro Botticelli (Italy, 1445-1510)
Tintoretto (Italy, 1518-1594)
Frans Hals (Netherlands, 1582-1666)
Antoine Watteau (France, 1684-1721)
Jacques-Louis David (France, 1748-1825)
Caspar David Friedrich (Germany, 1774-1840)
Théodore Géricault (France, 1791-1824)
Eugène Delacroix (France, 1798-1863)
Gustave Courbet (France, 1819-1877)
Edgar Degas (France, 1834-1917)
Marcel Duchamp (France, 1887-1968)
Salvador Dali (Spain, 1904-1989)
Francis Bacon (Ireland, 1919-1992)
Jasper Johns (US, 1930- )

Artists with FOUR works of art on the meta-list
Fra Angelico (Italy, c. 1395-1455)
Paolo Uccello (Italy, 1397-1475)
Giorgione (Italy, 1473-1474/1477-1478-1510)
Hans Holbein the Younger (Germany, 1497-1543)
Nicolas Poussin (France, 1594-1665)
J.M.W. Turner (UK, 1775-1851)
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (France, 1780-1867)
Édouard Manet (France, 1832-1883)
Auguste Rodin (France, 1840-1917)
Paul Gauguin (France, 1848-1903)
Gustav Klimt (Austria, 1862-1918)
Umberto Boccioni (Italy, 1882-1916)

Artists with FIVE works of art on the meta-list
Jan van Eyck (Belgium, 1380/1390-1441)
Donatello (Italy, 1386-1466)
Giovanni Bellini (Italy, 1430-1516)
El Greco (Greece, 1541-1614)
Caravaggio (Italy, 1571-1610)
Diego Velázquez (Spain, 1599-1660)
Johannes Vermeer (Netherlands, 1632-1675)
Paul Cézanne (France, 1839-1906)
Claude Monet (France, 1840-1926)
Georges Seurat (France, 1859-1891)
Henri Matisse (France, 1869-1954)
Jackson Pollock (US, 1912-1956)

Artists with SIX works of art on the meta-list
Piero della Francesca (Italy, 1415-1492)
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italy, 1598-1680)
Francisco Goya (Spain, 1746-1828)

Artists with SEVEN works of art on the meta-list
Albrecht Dürer (Germany, 1471-1528)
Michelangelo (Italy, 1475-1564)
Raphael (Italy, 1483-1520)
Peter Paul Rubens (Belgium, 1577-1640)
Pablo Picasso (Spain, 1881-1973)

Artists with EIGHT works of art on the meta-list
Leonardo da Vinci (Italy, 1452-1519)
Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands, 1853-1890)

Artists with NINE works of art on the meta-list
Titian (Italy, 1488/1490-1576)
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlands, c. 1525/1530-1569)
Rembrandt (Netherlands, 1606-1669)

I know what you’re thinking.  All those men… – where are the women?  Here are the 12 women artists on the meta-list. Each has one work of art on the list.

  1. Artemisia Gentileschi (Italy, 1593-1656)
  2. Berthe Morisot (France, 1841-1895)
  3. Mary Cassatt (US, 1844-1926)
  4. Käthe Kollwitz (Germany, 1867-1945)
  5. Hannah Höch (Germany, 1889-1978)
  6. Frida Kahlo (Mexico, 1907-1954)
  7. Meret Oppenheim (Germany, 1913-1985)
  8. Helen Frankenthaler (US, 1928-2011)
  9. Bridget Riley (UK, 1931- )
  10. Eva Hesse (Germany, 1936-1970)
  11. Judy Chicago (US, 1939- )
  12. Cindy Sherman (US, 1954- )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank You, Next: The Best of 2021

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I’ve published meta-lists of the best films, albums, TV shows, and books of 2021.  I made these lists by combining numerous “best of” lists I found online.  Here are the links:

Best Films of 2021
Best TV Shows of 2021
Best Music of 2021
Best Books of 2021

The most popular and the most critically-acclaimed rarely line up and 2021 was no exception.  There was very little overlap between the bestselling films, books and music and the critics’ favorites.  An exception was television, where the critics and audiences seemed to appreciate the same shows.

For example, the top grossing movies globally were:

  1. Spider-Man: No Way Home (US, Jon Watts)
  2. The Battle at Lake Changjin (China, Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark & Dante Lam)
  3. Hi, Mom (China, Jia Ling)
  4. No Time to Die (UK/US, Cary Joji Fukunaga)
  5. F9 (US, Justin Lin)
  6. Detective Chinatown 3 (China, Chen Sicheng)
  7. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (US, Andy Serkis)
  8. Godzilla vs. Kong (US, Adam Wingard)
  9. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (US, Destin Daniel Cretton)
  10. Eternals (US, Chloé Zhao)

But the top critically-acclaimed films were:

1. Licorice Pizza (US, Paul Thomas Anderson)
2. Drive My Car (Japan, Hamaguchi Ryūsuke)
3. The Power of the Dog (UK/US/New Zealand, Jane Campion)
4. Dune (US, Denis Villeneuve)
5. The Souvenir Part II (UK, Joanna Hogg)
6. The French Dispatch (US, Wes Anderson)
7. Summer of Soul (US, Ahmir Khalib Thompson)
8. The Worst Person in the World (Norway, Joachim Trier)
9. Petite Maman (France, Céline Sciamma)
10. The Velvet Underground (US, Todd Haynes)
11. The Card Counter (US, Paul Schrader)
12. Annette (France, Leos Carax)
13. The Green Knight (US/Canada, David Lowery)
14. The Lost Daughter (US, Maggie Gyllenhaal)

The most popular songs of the year were:

  1. Save Your Tears — The Weeknd ft. Ariana Grande
  2. MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) — Lil Nas X
  3. Levitating — Dua Lipa feat. Da Baby
  4. Blinding Lights — The Weeknd 
  5. drivers license — Olivia Rodrigo
  6. good 4 u — Olivia Rodrigo
  7. Kiss Me More — Doja Cat ft. Sza 
  8. Stay – The Kid Laroi ft. Justin Bieber
  9. Positions – Ariana Grande
  10. Peaches – Justin Bieber ft. Daniel Caesar & Giveon

But the most critically-acclaimed albums were:

  1. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra – Promises
  2. Tyler, the Creator – Call Me if You Get Lost
  3. Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
  4. Low – Hey What
  5. Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
  6. Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
  7. Olivia Rodrigo – Sour
  8. The Weather Station – Ignorance
  9. Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee
  10. Turnstile – Glow On

For books, the story was similar.  Here are the year’s bestsellers (book published in 2021):

  1. Dog Man: Mothering Heights. By Dav Pilkey
  2. The Four Winds. By Kristin Hannah
  3. American Marxism. By Mark R. Levin
  4. The Last Thing He Told Me. By Laura Dave
  5. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. By Charlie Mackesy
  6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Big Shot. By Jeff Kinney
  7. A Court of Silver Flames. By Sarah J. Maas
  8. The Judge’s List. By John Grisham
  9. Twelve and a Half. By Gary Vaynerchuk
  10. The Real Anthony Fauci. By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The list of top critically-acclaimed books is very different:

1, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty.  By Patrick Radden Keefe
2. Harlem Shuffle. By Colson Whitehead
3. Detransition, Baby. By Torrey Peters
4. Great Circle. By Maggie Shipstead
5. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir.  By Michelle Zauner
6. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.  By Clint Smith
7. A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance.  By Hanif Abdurraqib
8. Crossroads.  By Jonathan Franzen  
9. Hell of a Book. By Jason Mott
10. Cloud Cuckoo Land. By Anthony Doerr
11. No One Is Talking About This. By Patricia Lockwood
12. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.  By Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
13. Klara and the Sun.  By Kazuo Ishiguro
14. The Prophets.  By Robert Jones Jr.
15. Afterparties: Stories. By Anthony Veasna So

My Kid Could List That: Introducing the Updated Art Lists

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I’ve updated the Best Works of Art lists, both the ranked (with the artworks on the most lists at the top) and chronological versions. (The chronological version, in seven parts, is called Art History 101.) I’ve added a number of new lists to the meta-list and also changed the formatting somewhat. Hope you enjoy.

Here are the links:
Best Works of Art of All Time – Ranked, Part 1
Best Works of Art of All Time – Ranked, Part 2
Best Works of Art of All Time – Ranked, Part 3

Art History 101, Part 1 (Prehistory-399 CE)
Art History 101, Part 2 (400 CE – 1399)
Art History 101, Part 3 (1400 – 1499)
Art History 101, Part 4 (1500 – 1599)
Art History 101, Part 5 (1600 – 1799)
Art History 101, Part 6 (1800 – 1899)
Art History 101, Part 7 (1900 – Present)

I’ve done a little analysis of the entire artworks meta-list. There are a total of 555 artworks (actually more because some entries encompass series or artworks with multiple versions). There are artworks from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America, although the vast majority are from Europe.

Here are the artists with the most works of art on the meta-list:

9 works of art
Rembrandt (The Netherlands, 1606-1669) paintings, prints

8 works of art
Michelangelo (Italy, 1475-1564) sculptures, paintings, architecture
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (The Netherlands, c. 1525/1530-1569) paintings

7 works of art
Leonardo da Vinci (Italy, 1452-1519) paintings, drawings
Raphael (Italy, 1483-1520) paintings
Titian (Italy, 1488/1490-1576) paintings
Vincent van Gogh (The Netherlands, 1853-1890) paintings, prints

6 works of art
Albrecht Dürer (Germany, 1471-1528) paintings, prints
Francisco Goya (Spain, 1746-1828) paintings, prints

5 works of art
Jan van Eyck (Belgium, before 1390/1395-1441) paintings
Piero della Francesca (Italy, c. 1415-1492) paintings
Peter Paul Rubens (Germany, 1577-1640) paintings
Diego Velázquez (Spain, 1599-1660) paintings
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italy, 1598-1680) sculpture, architecture
Claude Monet (France, 1840-1926) paintings
Pablo Picasso (Spain, 1881-1973) paintings, sculpture, collage
Jackson Pollock (US, 1912-1956) paintings

4 works of art
Donatello (Italy, c. 1386-1466) sculpture
Giovanni Bellini (Italy, c. 1430-1516) paintings
El Greco (Greece, 1541-1614) paintings
Caravaggio (Italy, 1571-1610) paintings
Johannes Vermeer (The Netherlands, 1632-1675) paintings
J.M.W. Turner (UK, 1775-1851) paintings
Édouard Manet (France, 1832-1883) paintings
Paul Cézanne (France, 1839-1906) paintings
Auguste Rodin (France, 1840-1917) sculpture
Georges Seurat (France, 1859-1891) paintings
Henri Matisse (France, 1869-1954) paintings, sculptures, prints

3 works of art
Phidias (Greece, c. 480-430 BCE) sculpture
Paolo Uccello (Italy, 1397-1475) paintings
Andrea Mantegna (Italy, c. 1431-1506) paintings
Hans Holbein the Younger (Germany, c. 1497-1543) paintings
Tintoretto (Italy, 1518-1594) paintings
Frans Hals (Belgium, c. 1582-1666) paintings
Jean-Antoine Watteau (France, 1684-1721) paintings
Théodore Géricault (France, 1791-1824) paintings
Paul Gauguin (France, 1848-1903) paintings, sculpture
Salvador Dali (Spain, 1904-1989) paintings; sculpture

Yes, it’s mostly men. Dead white men. I’m sorry. The contemporary art lists are more diverse. But there are a few works by women on the meta-list.

Works by Women Artists
Unknown Women Embroiderers: The Bayeux Tapestry (c. 1045)
Artemisia Gentileschi: Judith Beheading Holofernes (1611-1613)
Rosa Bonheur: Ploughing in the Nivernais (1849)
Mary Cassatt: The Child’s Bath (c. 1891)
Frida Kahlo: The Two Fridas (1939)
Helen Frankenthaler: Mountains and Sea (1952)

The artworks span many centuries. Here are the results by time period:

Artworks by Time Period:
28,000 BCE – 1000 BCE:  44
999 BCE – 1 BCE:               52
1 CE – 999 CE:                     35
1000-1099:                            4
1100-1199:                          13
1200-1299:                            6
1300-1399:                          10
1400-1499:                          77
1500-1599:                          61
1600-1699:                          54
1700-1799:                          29
1800-1899:                          81
1900-1999:                          79
2000-Present:                       1