Musing Mondays: The Best of the Best of the Best

Today’s Musing Mondays (hosted by just one more page…) is as follows: Last week I had you all to suggest your top 5 books – and I was surprised by just how different all your choices were! There’s no real question this week, except to look over the list and consider it. Do you agree with the choices? Is it more worth of a “Best Book” title?

The full list can be found HERE. The top books (the 11 with multiple votes) are as follows:

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee (6)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (3)
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (3)
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (3)
Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling (3)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (3)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (2)
Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins (2)
The Shining by Stephen King (2)
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (2)

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (2)

By way of reminder, here are what I consider to be the Top 5 Best Books on my list (in no particular order):

1. The Shining by Stephen King
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
5. Libra by Don DeLillo

(I’m excited to have two in the top 11 … and am more than a little curious as to who else chose The Shining as one of their books … And I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to see that Lee’s seminal novel is the number one choice among Rebecca’s respondents, it truly is one of the greatest American books ever written.)

And just a reminder of what I look for in books: (1) a kick-ass story (which includes things like language use, expert handling of prose, complex character development … all that kind of “nuts and bolts” stuff), (2) a book that deal with its social situation … writing can be a political act, and good books are written in reaction to society, (3) they are shocking and make the reader examine what he or she believes and (4) they are complex and, to trot out the old cliché, like a fine wine get better and better with age.

Looking at the compiled list on Rebecca’s page … I think that there are many books on that list that I could easily make my list given my criteria. Then, there are others that—as of right now—would never make the list: Jane Eyre, for example. Romeo and Juliet for another. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for yet another. Nothing against those who chose those books … they’re just not what I look for in a book.