Welcome to the Library of 1000 Books. The goal of this rather large list is to read through the most popular books ever written. Here’s some quick answers to this list.
Q: When was this list generated?
A: Originally created in December 2017, the list has been updated a couple times through the years, either to add a book that became popular in the years after the list was created, or to remove a book after I read it, but have no intention of reviewing it. (Example: The original list had 10 or so children’s picture books, and it was difficult to write a longer review than the book.)
Q: Where did this list come from?
A: The list was generated by browsing Goodreads lists and finding over 1000 books that I’d never read, and had over 90k ratings. Goodreads doesn’t have a filtering system to show how many people have marked a book read, so I went by how many had rated the book. I then sorted all of the books by number of ratings and created the list.
Q: What are you reviewing criteria?
A: Here’s the criteria I have for each book:
What does the author use to describe scenery, wardrobe, objects? Does it form a mental picture?
Do the characters have depth and are they memorable? Do I feel any emotional response to them or their actions?
Is the plot simple or complex? How many subplots are there? Does the plot make sense?
Q: How do you split the books into groupings or smaller lists?
A: Some of the groupings/challenges/lists are from larger entities, like PBS’s Great American Read, or BBCs Big Read or Amazon’s Top 100. Others are grouped by some similarity, like my Halloween reads are all murder mysteries or about the supernatural, banned book week is entirely about banned books, and Reading Across America is a book for every state.
Library of 1000 Books 