Books of the Century by Le Monde (standardebooks.org)
60 points by zlu 3 days ago
rixed 2 hours ago
I find this other list more deserving of this title: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokklubben_World_Library
If only because it's less french oriented, but also maybe because it starts with one of my favorite.
throwforfeds an hour ago
The Stranger at #1 sort of tells me everything I need to know about the list. It's a fine book, and I ended up liking it a lot more when I went back and re-read it in French many years later, but #1 of the 20th century. Yeah, not even close.
I know this is primarily a Francophone list, but not having Toni Morrison or Cormac McCarthy or so many of the great Latin American authors on it makes me wonder how much makes it into French via translation.
zwaps an hour ago
Honestly, American lists are the same. Every decent English speaking author, plus some selections of other languages.
Any national worlds book list, and this explicitly includes US and UK lists, are heavily skewed and I mean ridiculously so
lo_zamoyski 21 minutes ago
This is one of the criticisms[0] of at least some Great Books curricula. The skew tends too strongly towards the Anglo-American and the “canon” is too rigidly held.
[0] https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2023/05/great-books-e...
onli 4 hours ago
What a strange list. Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect to be listed are missing. So I looked up the background and indeed it's based on strange methodology, citing wikipedia: "Starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French participants responded to the question, "Which books have stuck in your mind?" (Quels livres sont restés dans votre mémoire?"
Makes more sense like that.
kergonath 3 hours ago
> Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect to be listed are missing
Most of them make sense to me. I don’t know some of them but then I don’t know everything. The methodology can be discussed (and indeed, a pre-selection of 200 books is at the same time a lot and not that much), but none of these lists can be perfect.
Out of curiosity, which one would you remove from the list, and which ones would you add?
keiferski 2 hours ago
How is this strange? It’s pretty much what I’d expect from francophone readers. What were you expecting?
jdsnape 4 hours ago
Out of interest, why does that seem a strange methodology?
onli 3 hours ago
When reading "Books of the Century" I expected a list of the most important, most influential or just best books. Skewed towards the french perspective, given Le Monde as a source. But this was never the goal, just a "what stuck in your mind" question.
For example, 1984 is missing, and Louis Begley Wartime Lies. And I wouldn't have expected Ulysses in there given the french source, for me it was incomprehensible gibberish and I thought only the US ranks it high. But that gibberishness makes it certainly memorable, so given the question it fits.
rorytbyrne 2 hours ago
Guestmodinfo 2 hours ago
shakow an hour ago
jkingsbery 3 hours ago
Karuma 3 hours ago
mmooss 2 hours ago
keiferski 2 hours ago
hammock 3 hours ago
Starting with only 200 titles in the survey, for a final list of 100, seems off to me for starters. Every book surveyed has a 50% chance of making “book of the century”
tstenner 2 hours ago
lovegrenoble 3 hours ago
keiferski 2 hours ago
What would be interesting is to cross reference this list with an Anglophone one and pull out the writers that are big in France but almost unknown amongst the public in America. Céline is definitely one such example, I think.
specproc 2 hours ago
The sad thing is how many aren't available.
I'm not sure I saw any living authors there. I see no reason why copyright should extend beyond the lifetime of the author.
haunter 4 hours ago
This should have an 1999 in the title even if the site and ebooks published are newer
BiraIgnacio an hour ago
I'm happy to see so many philosophy or philosophy-adjacent books on that list. And I also wonder why that is.
orwin 4 hours ago
I don't think I would place all of them in any 'top' list, but all the books I have read, ~60%, are great read. Weird list though.
raffael_de 2 hours ago
pretty french heavy that list.
throwforfeds an hour ago
well, it is a french newspaper surveying french people
pcasca 4 hours ago
Infinite Jest?