Extract from ABC News
Oscar Wilde questioned the value of best-of lists. (Supplied)
All best-of lists, from the annual Triple J Hottest 100 to the decennial Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time, spark debate.
ABC Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books, set to count down in October, promises to be no different.
Voting for the poll is underway, with readers invited to choose up to 10 titles they hope will appear in the list of the nation's favourite Australian books of all time.
Throughout history, best-of lists have inspired public discourse about the diversity of the literary canon and the books valued by society.
Best-of lists are not without their critics. The Australian writer Rosalind Moran, for one, has argued they are subjective, reductive and performative, demonstrating how we are drawn to "the contemporary language of productivity and completism".
Yet best book lists, however imperfect, play a role for writers and readers in driving sales and animating literary culture.
The American author Jennifer Egan, for instance, has described how the "turning point" for her bestselling novel A Visit from the Goon Squad was its appearance on the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2010 list.
In the struggle for attention in the digital age, best-of lists can also help readers discover books.
Literary lists help bring books and readers together. (Getty Images: Leo Patrizi)
Although about 22,000 new books are published here each year, Australians are reportedly reading less than ever before. In a saturated information landscape, best-of lists introduce readers to the books others hold dearest to their hearts.
While reading might be declining, the number of best book lists appears to be rising. From BuzzFeed to Goodreads to BookTok, the internet is replete with lists recommending books to readers.
One website has even created a meta-list through an algorithm that aggregates 759 best-of lists to offer a "definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books".
'A hundred good books'
As the mass market for reading grew in the 19th century, so did curated lists aimed at guiding readers to the best books in a crowded field.
The cultural influence of these lists extended to the publishing industry and educational sector, with book series marketed as "classics" and "great books" courses established at universities.
One of the most discussed lists was made by British politician and polymath Sir John Lubbock.
In 1886, Sir John gave a talk to the Working Men's College in London where he recommended "a hundred good books".
After the Pall Mall Gazette published his list as "the hundred best books", what started as a private lecture evolved into a public debate about literary taste and cultural value in Victorian society.
The newspaper ran a month-long column, The Best Hundred Books by the Best Hundred Judges, in which public figures such as poet and critic Matthew Arnold, UK prime minister William Gladstone and polymath John Ruskin commented on Sir John's list.
The debate fascinated readers: the column was reprinted as a special edition, selling more than 40,000 copies within a few weeks.
Oscar Wilde was one writer who responded to the list.
With his typical wit, Wilde criticised the idea of a best book list altogether, suggesting that a list of "The Worst Hundred Books" would be more useful in "an age which reads so much that it has no time to admire, and writes so much that it has no time to think".
Australian books on best-of lists
After The Observer published a list in 2003 of the 100 greatest novels of all time, literary editor Robert McCrum noted that "[f]or reasons I have yet to fathom, it excited special notice in Australia".
One reason could be that the list featured a lone Australian entry: Peter Carey's 1998 Booker Prize-winning novel Oscar and Lucinda. (Nobel laureate JM Coetzee, who moved to Adelaide in 2002 and became an Australian citizen in 2006, appears at number 84 with his 1980 novel Waiting for the Barbarians.)
Australian writers have fared little better on recent lists.
When the Guardian published its list of the top 100 books of the 21st century in 2019, Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) and Helen Garner's This House of Grief (2014) were the nation's only representatives.
Helen Garner's This House of Grief came in at number 88 in ABC Radio National's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century. (Darren James)
No Australian titles made the 2024 New York Times list of this century's best books, which was created by polling hundreds of writers, editors, critics, academics and librarians.
Yet the opinions of experts are not always consonant with those of readers. When the publication repeated the exercise with a popular vote, the Reader's Pick list featured 61 books that did not appear on the original list, including Markus Zusak's The Book Thief (2005) at number 33.
And what of Australian books on the meta-list of the greatest books? Christina Stead's 1940 novel The Man Who Loved Children is the highest ranked, at number 453.
Valuable discussion
More than 280,000 people voted last year in ABC Radio National's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century.
Despite the countdown's international scope, 26 Australian authors made the list, with Trent Dalton's Boy Swallows Universe (2018) crowned the nation's most popular book of this century.
Trent Dalton had two titles in the Top 100 Books of the 21st Century. (Supplied: HarperCollins)
The result inspired thoughtful commentary on the books included and excluded. Author and academic Melanie Saward, for one, noted that the list contained few titles by First Nations writers and felt it "lacked the diversity reflecting our country".
Whatever the result, the Top 100 Australian Books is certain to prompt important conversations about the writing championed by the nation.
As reflected throughout history, this is perhaps the most vital role of best book lists: in his response to critics 140 years ago, Sir John wrote that "[m]y most sanguine hopes have been realized by the valuable discussion which has taken place".
Voting for the Top 100 Australian Books closes on October 1. The countdown will take place on Radio National on October 17 and 18.
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