{"id":26457,"date":"2020-07-01T10:58:36","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T15:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=26457"},"modified":"2020-06-28T09:14:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-28T14:14:19","slug":"brian-j-on-the-best-and-worst-books-of-the-20th-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/01\/brian-j-on-the-best-and-worst-books-of-the-20th-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian J. On The Best and Worst Books of the 20th Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has produced a list of the 50 Worst Books of the 20th Century<\/a> and the 50 Best Books of the 20th Century<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As is my wont, I took these to be a quiz and looked to see how many of each I’ve read.<\/p>\n

On the worst books, it’s 1.something; I read John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage<\/em> in middle school, and I started Paul Tillich’s The Courage To Be<\/em> in 2016<\/a> but did not finish it (and have since put it back in the stacks instead of leaving it lying around).<\/p>\n

Of the best books, I’ve only read one: Strunk and White’s Elements of Style<\/em> (which, as you know, gentle reader, is one of my favorite books to give away as well–whenever I find it at a book sale, I pick it up and give it to someone).<\/p>\n

I would double my scores on both if I I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X<\/em> as it appears on both the best and the worst list.<\/p>\n

I don’t see many on my to-read shelves from the worst list except the aforementioned books (I picked up a copy of Profiles in Courage<\/em> since I borrowed Mrs. Pickering’s copy in middle school). As to the best, I have Churchill’s history of World War II and Copleston’s History of Philosophy, but these are both series of books and not single volumes. I probably have the C.S. Lewis book The Abolition of Man<\/em> around in one of the omnibuses and might have the Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what that says about me as a reader, but it does track more and more with the more modern lists.<\/p>\n

(Link via the world-famous Ace of Spades Book Thread<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has produced a list of the 50 Worst Books of the 20th Century and the 50 Best Books of the 20th Century. As is my wont, I took these to be a quiz and looked to see how many of each I’ve read. On the worst books, it’s 1.something; I read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-quizzes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26457"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26459,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26457\/revisions\/26459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}