the list's bad tendency to list plenty of good authors, but without listing their best books.To me that is a good tendency in the list. I think that it would be a shame if the list just put their better works, because part of what I like to see in fellow readers is that they don't just read the best books by an author and scurry to the next book in the cannon. I attempt to read a wide sample of each author I admire. When I see what other people have read on this list I know that they are true readers because they, presumptively, have read the better works too.
Will does claim that the choices on this list are the more popular books by the authors. The problem I have with that is popular is so often defined by what social group you are in. With my group of friends the popular plays by Ibsen are not Ghosts or Doll's House but the much better Enemy of the People. We would start with that play and then move on to read other plays by Ibsen. When I started reading E.M Forster, I didn't not start with A Room with a View but started with A Passage to India and moved on to other novels by him.
I think that the real problem with this list is you have to know a little about the person completing it. If you know they are a discerning reader then it'll show you if they are also a reader who goes through an authors catalog. If you aren't as familiar with the blogger completing it then it tells you very little. I do like that some people are putting authors in italics when they have read other novels from that writer.
