Best non-fiction books of the twentieth century reports on some recent “100 Best” book lists:
Here is a left-wing list. Here is a National Review list, with Hayek and Robert Conquest near the top. Here are two Random House lists. The critics elevate Henry Adams, William James, and Booker T. Washington. The readers favor Ayn Rand, L. Ron Hubbard, and John Lott. The readers’ list has all kind of libertarian books, including David Boaz and Tibor Machan.
I find it deeply amusing that the top two books on the Random House reader’s list are The Virtue of Selfishness, by Ayn Rand, and Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. As a rule, the reader’s list is full of highly ideological texts — a surprisingly large number of libertarian texts, many left-wing texts, and a few conservative texts. Naturally, the National Review list is full of conservative texts, including many Christian works. The left-wing list seems almost laughable — at least to me.