The Official FBG Top 70 Fiction Books of All Time - DEADLINE FOR LIST SUBMISSIONS EXTENDED TO MARCH 30, 2025 (1 Viewer)

[HellToupee]

I keep checking to see a list/lists

Lolz

I guess I should change the thread title to add clarity.
I'm still accepting lists and should probably extend the deadline. I didn't expect @Scoresman to abandon his duty; I thought for sure his TV countdown would be wrapping up soon and I didn't want to step on his toes.

How many books do you want?

70 - only fiction

70, the dickens you say!

 

[kupcho1]

I keep checking to see a list/lists

Lolz

I guess I should change the thread title to add clarity.
I'm still accepting lists and should probably extend the deadline. I didn't expect @Scoresman to abandon his duty; I thought for sure his TV countdown would be wrapping up soon and I didn't want to step on his toes.

How many books do you want?

Any number from 1-70

 

[krista4]

Oh, we got an extension?! I'm not telling OH. Maybe it will give me time finally to finish Infinite Jest.

 

[kupcho1]

Poor OH. He somehow deleted the Note he had with his initial list. So he recreated one last night. I know he has 80+ on there but that was just a quick list. This is going to be hard for him to cut down.

I'm working on a list again myself. I'm suffering through coming to terms with the fact I'm not well-read enough, at least when it comes to the classics.

There are classics on the overall list, but there's a good mix of other books as well.

Also, if you finishing IJ is what it takes to put it on your list, just let me know how much time you need and we'll extend the deadline.

 

[krista4]

Poor OH. He somehow deleted the Note he had with his initial list. So he recreated one last night. I know he has 80+ on there but that was just a quick list. This is going to be hard for him to cut down.

I'm working on a list again myself. I'm suffering through coming to terms with the fact I'm not well-read enough, at least when it comes to the classics.

There are classics on the overall list, but there's a good mix of other books as well.

Also, if you finishing IJ is what it takes to put it on your list, just let me know how much time you need and we'll extend the deadline.

I've read enough of the book multiple times that I've probably read an equivalent number of pages as the whole book. I have no good reason for never finishing, either - I love DFW (and he'd be high on my non-fiction list if we had one) and the book. I just always got pulled away to something else while reading it, then it became kind of an internal joke to me that I'll never finish it.

 

[Psychopav]

Poor OH. He somehow deleted the Note he had with his initial list. So he recreated one last night. I know he has 80+ on there but that was just a quick list. This is going to be hard for him to cut down.

I'm working on a list again myself. I'm suffering through coming to terms with the fact I'm not well-read enough, at least when it comes to the classics.

There are classics on the overall list, but there's a good mix of other books as well.

Also, if you finishing IJ is what it takes to put it on your list, just let me know how much time you need and we'll extend the deadline.

Deadline is still the 23rd I hope?

 

[kupcho1]

Deadline is still the 23rd I hope?

March 30th (see revised post title)

 

[Psychopav]

Deadline is still the 23rd I hope?

March 30th (see revised post title)

Even better

 

[Psychopav]

I'm in downtown Fort Worth this afternoon for a production of Les Miserables.

 

[krista4]

Oh, we got an extension?! I'm not telling OH. Maybe it will give me time finally to finish Infinite Jest.

Poor OH. He put some more time into his list last night and has 150ish entries now. He still will have more. I did have to share with him that we have an extension, because I felt too bad that he was struggling with his list.

Meanwhile, I re-started Infinite Jest yet again.

 

[Psychopav]

As I work through this project, I have to say that I am afraid the results will be very badly skewed by not including full series. There are several series of books which belong in my top 70 and I don't necessarily have one favorite vs. another. Many books I read when I was in my teens and twenties that I can't honestly remember the individual titles well enough to stack rank them. So do I just pick the first or the most memorable book to "represent" the series in my list? That's what I'm leaning towards.

Here's an example: the Timothy Zahn Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. These books belong on my list. But I'm shuked if I can recall which book was my favorite of the three (and this is a series I read more than once!). I can't remember which book had what happening to which characters at this point. I'm actually tempted to google reviews and see in what order they are generally regarded, then place them in that order.

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

 

[Don Quixote]

As I work through this project, I have to say that I am afraid the results will be very badly skewed by not including full series. There are several series of books which belong in my top 70 and I don't necessarily have one favorite vs. another. Many books I read when I was in my teens and twenties that I can't honestly remember the individual titles well enough to stack rank them. So do I just pick the first or the most memorable book to "represent" the series in my list? That's what I'm leaning towards.

Here's an example: the Timothy Zahn Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. These books belong on my list. But I'm shuked if I can recall which book was my favorite of the three (and this is a series I read more than once!). I can't remember which book had what happening to which characters at this point. I'm actually tempted to google reviews and see in what order they are generally regarded, then place them in that order.

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

I don’t think using Google to help remember what happened in what book is against the rules here.

I prefer the way it is set up. E.g., Go Set a Watchman was marketed as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. If series need to be ranked together, that probably means that they would be considered one; if so, I would not be able to rank To Kill a Mockingbird even if I wanted to because I have not read Go Set a Watchman.

 

[Psychopav]

As I work through this project, I have to say that I am afraid the results will be very badly skewed by not including full series. There are several series of books which belong in my top 70 and I don't necessarily have one favorite vs. another. Many books I read when I was in my teens and twenties that I can't honestly remember the individual titles well enough to stack rank them. So do I just pick the first or the most memorable book to "represent" the series in my list? That's what I'm leaning towards.

Here's an example: the Timothy Zahn Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. These books belong on my list. But I'm shuked if I can recall which book was my favorite of the three (and this is a series I read more than once!). I can't remember which book had what happening to which characters at this point. I'm actually tempted to google reviews and see in what order they are generally regarded, then place them in that order.

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

I don’t think using Google to help remember what happened in what book is against the rules here.

I prefer the way it is set up. E.g., Go Set a Watchman was marketed as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. If series need to be ranked together, that probably means that they would be considered one; if so, I would not be able to rank To Kill a Mockingbird even if I wanted to because I have not read Go Set a Watchman.

I think that's fair. Oh the other hand, I would hate for A Song of Ice and Fire to suffer because I feel that the whole series is a top 25 (for example), but my favorite is A Storm of Swords while yours is A Game of Thrones. Plus while the entire series deserves top 25 status, a Dance of Dragons doesn't, imo. In fact, the series as a whole doesn't deserve to take up two whole slots in my top 25.

So rather than pick one book over another, I'll probably just rank A Game of Thrones and not rank the others. So I'm personally going to go with a rule that, if none of the individual books necessarily rises to the level of TOP 70 for me, but the series as a whole does, I'll be ranking the first book instead of my favorite book.

 

[kupcho1]

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

You're having trouble fitting 3 books into a list of your 70 favorites?

I'm sorry you feel the parameters of the exercise are unfair and I hope you submit a list.

 

[Psychopav]

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

You're having trouble fitting 3 books into a list of your 70 favorites?

I'm sorry you feel the parameters of the exercise are unfair and I hope you submit a list.

It's not that the parameters are unfair, just want to make it clear how I plan to handle series.

 

[Ilov80s]

As I work through this project, I have to say that I am afraid the results will be very badly skewed by not including full series. There are several series of books which belong in my top 70 and I don't necessarily have one favorite vs. another. Many books I read when I was in my teens and twenties that I can't honestly remember the individual titles well enough to stack rank them. So do I just pick the first or the most memorable book to "represent" the series in my list? That's what I'm leaning towards.

Here's an example: the Timothy Zahn Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. These books belong on my list. But I'm shuked if I can recall which book was my favorite of the three (and this is a series I read more than once!). I can't remember which book had what happening to which characters at this point. I'm actually tempted to google reviews and see in what order they are generally regarded, then place them in that order.

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

I don’t think using Google to help remember what happened in what book is against the rules here.

I prefer the way it is set up. E.g., Go Set a Watchman was marketed as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. If series need to be ranked together, that probably means that they would be considered one; if so, I would not be able to rank To Kill a Mockingbird even if I wanted to because I have not read Go Set a Watchman.

You don’t want to read it. It shouldn’t have even been published.

 

[Don Quixote]

As I work through this project, I have to say that I am afraid the results will be very badly skewed by not including full series. There are several series of books which belong in my top 70 and I don't necessarily have one favorite vs. another. Many books I read when I was in my teens and twenties that I can't honestly remember the individual titles well enough to stack rank them. So do I just pick the first or the most memorable book to "represent" the series in my list? That's what I'm leaning towards.

Here's an example: the Timothy Zahn Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. These books belong on my list. But I'm shuked if I can recall which book was my favorite of the three (and this is a series I read more than once!). I can't remember which book had what happening to which characters at this point. I'm actually tempted to google reviews and see in what order they are generally regarded, then place them in that order.

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

I don’t think using Google to help remember what happened in what book is against the rules here.

I prefer the way it is set up. E.g., Go Set a Watchman was marketed as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. If series need to be ranked together, that probably means that they would be considered one; if so, I would not be able to rank To Kill a Mockingbird even if I wanted to because I have not read Go Set a Watchman.

You don’t want to read it. It shouldn’t have even been published.

Yeah, I’ve avoided it because everything that I read about it just felt like a money grab from folks taking advantage of her at the end of her life.

 

[shuke]

****, I have a lot of work to do.

 

[Ilov80s]

As I work through this project, I have to say that I am afraid the results will be very badly skewed by not including full series. There are several series of books which belong in my top 70 and I don't necessarily have one favorite vs. another. Many books I read when I was in my teens and twenties that I can't honestly remember the individual titles well enough to stack rank them. So do I just pick the first or the most memorable book to "represent" the series in my list? That's what I'm leaning towards.

Here's an example: the Timothy Zahn Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. These books belong on my list. But I'm shuked if I can recall which book was my favorite of the three (and this is a series I read more than once!). I can't remember which book had what happening to which characters at this point. I'm actually tempted to google reviews and see in what order they are generally regarded, then place them in that order.

It would be much easier, and more fair imo, for me to list the trilogy as taking up one slot of my 70.

I don’t think using Google to help remember what happened in what book is against the rules here.

I prefer the way it is set up. E.g., Go Set a Watchman was marketed as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. If series need to be ranked together, that probably means that they would be considered one; if so, I would not be able to rank To Kill a Mockingbird even if I wanted to because I have not read Go Set a Watchman.

You don’t want to read it. It shouldn’t have even been published.

Yeah, I’ve avoided it because everything that I read about it just felt like a money grab from folks taking advantage of her at the end of her life.

Yes she didn’t want it published obviously. It’s not just that it’s bad, it actually lessens TKAM. It portrays Atticus as a racist and much less of an admirable person which is a shame. It’s almost like making a Casablanca sequel where Rick joins with the NAZIs.

 

[krista4]

I currently have 82 on my list, with 15 being from female authors. Nearly 20% is definitely better than I do with music countdowns.

 

[kupcho1]

12 lists in so far.
Please have your list to me by midnight (whatever time zone you care to observe) Sunday March 30th

 

[Psychopav]

It helps tremendously that you aren't expected to stack rank your #'s 26-70. Only the top 25 need to be put in order.

I'm not wrong about that, am I?

 

[krista4]

It helps tremendously that you aren't expected to stack rank your #'s 26-70. Only the top 25 need to be put in order.

I'm not wrong about that, am I?

They are scored a point apart from 26-70.

 

[kupcho1]

It helps tremendously that you aren't expected to stack rank your #'s 26-70. Only the top 25 need to be put in order.

I'm not wrong about that, am I?

Scoring system is in post #1 of this thread.

 

[kupcho1]

I don't know if this will make people more or less likely to submit a list, but after all is revealed I'll be sharing the Google sheet with ...

• Tabulation table with the entire list of books submitted with average score, count and where each participant had the book ranked
• Individual tabs of each participants list of books
• Scoring table

I'm undecided at this point as to whether or not to share the spreadsheet in a post, or to distribute access via DM. I'm leaning toward putting the Google sheet in the post, but can be disuaded if any of the participants has an objection to sharing their list universally or even with the other participants (I suppose I can hide a sheet with a view only access given).

 

[krista4]

I don't mind if our lists are posted in full.

OH has today off so will be finalizing his list, I think.

50/50 on whether I send a real list or just send in my #1. I don't struggle with this in the music and TV countdowns, but I'm mixing in "greatest" too much with "favorite," when I want this to be the latter. I know my #1, so I put the rest into the ranking engine over the weekend. As I told OH, "Hey, I had no idea that [name of well-regarded book I expect will be in the overall top 10] was my second-favorite book. Did you?" Of course, it's not even though it came out on top. Somehow I can't get these rankings nailed down in my head.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

No worries for me - I fully admit that I have some trash on my list.

 

[Don Quixote]

I don't mind if our lists are posted in full.

OH has today off so will be finalizing his list, I think.

50/50 on whether I send a real list or just send in my #1. I don't struggle with this in the music and TV countdowns, but I'm mixing in "greatest" too much with "favorite," when I want this to be the latter. I know my #1, so I put the rest into the ranking engine over the weekend. As I told OH, "Hey, I had no idea that [name of well-regarded book I expect will be in the overall top 10] was my second-favorite book. Did you?" Of course, it's not even though it came out on top. Somehow I can't get these rankings nailed down in my head.

I’ve got a decent amount of stuff that shows up high in greatest lists in mine, but I find a decent amount of overlap with greatest and favorite when it comes to books. A lot of times I come to conclusion that a reason why some are so well-regarded after reading them (well, except for that whale book). That happens to me with movies too. Less with music and TV though.

 

[krista4]

A lot of times I come to conclusion that a reason why some are so well-regarded after reading them (well, except for that whale book). That happens to me with movies too.

I think this is where I am, too. And similar to you with movies as well. By the way, that whale book will undoubtedly be in OH's top three. I'm pretty sure I know his top three, but not the order.

 

[kupcho1]

OK, so maybe I should have stated this before, but when I gave the example for text submissions I wrote

TITLE by AUTHOR

That was only so that you would know to have a space around "by" so I could find and replace.

I did not want to receive submissions in ALL CAPS
I'll fix this first one, but please don't submit your list that way. Just the regular Title by Author if you need to submit it as text.

As always, thank you for your consideration.

 

[rockaction]

 

[rockaction]

I’m sorry. That’s amazing. Nothing like a bunch of literary nerds getting all literal.

 

[BLOCKED_PUNT]

By the way, that whale book will undoubtedly be in OH's top three.

Free Willy was a book?!?

 

[shuke]

No worries for me - I fully admit that I have some trash on my list.

Why are people concerned about this? I am absolutely submitting my favorites. I don't care if people judge me.

 

[rockaction]

Why are people concerned about this?

Because those of us that are absolutely trash-free will silently look down upon you and judge you for the wretched, teeming mass of rotting flesh you are?

 

[krista4]

No worries for me - I fully admit that I have some trash on my list.

Why are people concerned about this? I am absolutely submitting my favorites. I don't care if people judge me.

I didn't say I was concerned about it. Quite the opposite, what I said was that I found my list had too many "great" books and not enough of my true favorites, which is why I don't think it's right yet.

 

[scoobus]

I think my list will really just expose how much of a reader I'm not.

Shoulda gotten in the TV one haha.

 

[rockaction]

Shoulda gotten in the TV one haha

Yep. Same here. Middlebrow, thy name is rockaction.

 

[kupcho1]

I think my list will really just expose how much of a reader I'm not.

Shoulda gotten in the TV one haha.

Dude you submitted 30 books. I've read 25 of them and enjoyed every one.

I only had room for some of them on my list, but IMHO you're aces.

In other words, at least I've got a list from you already.

 

[Ilov80s]

My list has a high % of “great” books but part of that is because I’m not much of a big reader so most of what I’ve read have been notable novels because I didn’t really know what to read so I went to lists of best books to choose things. Then from there if I liked an author, I read more of their stuff so I’m pretty well versed with some famous “important” authors. Though I do have some pulp on there as well since I love noir movies and there’s some obvious connections there.

 

[scoobus]

I think my list will really just expose how much of a reader I'm not.

Shoulda gotten in the TV one haha.

Dude you submitted 30 books. I've read 25 of them and enjoyed every one.

I only had room for some of them on my list, but IMHO you're aces.

In other words, at least I've got a list from you already.

I think that's more the point I was making lol.

 

[Mrs.Marco]

Personally, I love how every book has its own readership no matter the genre.

 

[krista4]

I spent the better part of my morning correcting spelling and formatting on OH's list, which has now been submitted. I don't have any of the umlauts on other accents on there, though. How can someone so smart be such a dreadful speller?! Somehow he managed to get all the Russians spelled right, though.

I was wrong about his top three. My guesses came in at #1, #2, and #4.

On to my own list!

ETA: No plays on either of our lists. There's no way he could have gotten to 70 if we included plays.

 

[Dr_Zaius]

Just sent my list of 50 (complete with two plays ha ha). I was going to go for 70 but really felt like quality was starting to fall off by the 30s already so 50 seemed like the sweet spot.

 

[Eephus]

List is done.

They're all books I remembered enjoying at the time but I realize my memory is fallible about specifics after reading plot synopses of books I read a long time ago.

1 - 2020s
5 - 2010s
6 - 2000s
7 - 1990s
14 - 1980s
15 - 1970s
7 - 1960s
6 - 1950s
3 - 1940s
4 - 1930s
1 - 1920s
1 - pre-1900


@kupcho1 do you have a preferred delimiter for book;author?

 

[rockaction]

How can someone so smart be such a dreadful speller?!

I'm not that smart, but my spelling has gone way downhill as I get older. I could knock off words in spelling bees when I was younger, but now when I go to write and don't have an immediate spell check guide with red lines under it I'm lost. It's seriously gotten so bad that when I don't have that crutch I get a bit upset with myself over the decline in my spelling capability.

LOL. It would be embarrassing if anybody were a recipient of a handwritten note or paper, but I don't write either of those except on the rarest of occasions so I'm saved for the moment. But the last time I hand-wrote something important was for a class called Business Organizations in law school, and I kept spelling due diligence as "due dilligence" because of Dillinger Four (the punk band). I was just writing it and not realizing how dead wrong it was. And I was doing it interchangeably because I had other things on my mind. Professor must have thought I was a dumb-***.



Anyway, that was . Chatty Kathy here.

 

[kupcho1]

@kupcho1 do you have a preferred delimiter for book;author?

If you can send it as a table (Title Author) great
If not, Title by Author for text.

 

[Don Quixote]

I looked at mine by publication year to pull together some data like Eephus. A bit more to the biased to the present than I thought going in (some recency bias may be in effect), but looks like decent mix.

1600s	2​
1700s	1​
1800s	6​
1910s	1​
1920s	4​
1930s	3​
1940s	3​
1950s	3​
1960s	7​
1970s	1​
1980s	3​
1990s	2​
2000s	7​
2010s	16​
2020s	11​

 

[kupcho1]

OK, 18 lists submitted so far. I'd like to see at least 20.
Get 'em in. Deadline is the end of today.

 

[kupcho1]

BTW, I have lists from

• kupcho1
• timschochet
• turnjose7
• guru_007
• Dr. Octopus
• scoobus
• ilov80s
• chaos34
• TheBaylorKid
• Mrs.Marco
• Don Quixote
• Frostillicus
• Barry2
• Keith R
• OH
• Dr_Zaius
• Eephus
• krista4

I'm not going to bother @ing them since that doesn't seem to work in bulk.
If you think you submitted a list and don't see your name above, please submit it again.