Lists, curation and the power of brevity

Lists and guides can be a great way to find new books to read, films to watch and music to listen to. They’re also difficult to put together and seem to make people furious. As I write, the most recent list to have riled people was The Guardian’s top 100 novels of all time. The criticisms of the list are along these lines: “My favourite book isn’t on it.” “A book I hated is on it.” “Nobody really likes these boring books, they’re just being pretentious.” “The very idea of a list offends me, why must everything be counted and categorised?” Because this particular list is interactive and helps readers tot up how many of the books they’ve read, there’s also some anxiety around not having read enough of them or having read fewer of them than other people. And anyone who has read quite a few of them is, of course, lording it and showing off. Honestly, I think the list is fine. As critic and writer Andy Miller has pointed out, however you cut it, these are 100 worthy, interesting, notable…