AAR's Top 100

[jmc_bks]

Check out the interim list! Most of them are not among my favorites. In fact, there are only 21 on that list (out of 100) that I am tentatively including on mine. I've managed to compile a list of 71 books that are keepers, but I'm having a hard time ranking them.

The interim results seem very heavy on Lisa Kleypas, Julia Quinn, Judith McNaught, Julie Garwood, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Linda Howard and Nora Roberts. I'm a little surprised, given NR's backlist, that it isn't more skewed toward her...but maybe the sheer number results in scattered voting?

On my (incomplete) ballot, Nora Roberts has 10 entries (including 2 JD Robb books), Carla Kelly has 6, Suzanne Brockmann has 4, Mary Jo Putney and Jennifer Crusie have 3 each. Otherwise, no other author has more than two entries, and most have only one.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I bet you're right about NR -- she probably has the biggest backlist of anyone.

Are you going to post your list when you're done? Because I love reading them. :) I plan to put mine together this weekend, but I'm not sure how far I'll get. I bet it'll take longer than I realize.

-Jennie

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

I'm planning on posting my list :)

I need to sit down in my "reading room" and look at the books on the shelves. 'Cause I'm sure I'm forgetting some old favorites.

I'm also wrestling with non-romance books that contain romantic threads. I love Magic Study, but does it belong on the list, given its ending and focus on something other than the romance? Same for a variety of other books, including

[(Anonymous)]

See, I can't decide whether to do this, partly because I know my list would have huge blocks of the same authors over and over again. I could list probably twenty Heyers, and all of Mary Stewart's older stuff, and large numbers of books from authors like Brockmann and Judith Duncan - but it would look very fangirlish. But that's how I read - I reread often, so I've probably read most of my Heyers twenty or thirty times, and it would seem inaccurate not to include those as favourites.
But it might look like I was being stupid, and trying to skew the results.

Marianne McA

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Marianne McA,

I think most voters will probably have "author blocks" on their ballots. I'm sure that problem has been presented in the past, so AAR likely has a way to distinguish between ballot fraud and author blocks.

[bardsong.livejournal.com]

I don't have all that many romances that I'd consider keepers, since I only really started readingt more romance recently. And of that list so far, I've read probably a bit less than a quarter of them, but of those I've read, most (like the two Feehans I've read) would never make it onto my list.

It'll be interesting to see what the actual results are, though. And on another note, I do need to read Poison Study and Magic Study. I have them TBR, and they look like exactly the kind of fantasy I love, so I don't know what my problem is.

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

I loved Poison Study. Magic Study I liked, but not quite so much. Probably would've been better just to put it in the TBR and wait until Fire Study is published, then read them together.

Most of the books on the interim results are book that either I haven't read, am not interested in reading, or that I read and did not care for. The poll makes no pretense at being scientific, so it really ends up being a popularity contest. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a reminder to me that one woman's pleasure is another woman's poison.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey JMC, did you get my email?

I'm a little surprised, given NR's backlist, that it isn't more skewed toward her...but maybe the sheer number results in scattered voting?

That's exactly what happens. AAR addresses the different sizes of authors' back catalogs with their "listing of those authors who received the most votes (http://www.likesbooks.com/190.html)" (scroll way down). Overall, though, this isn't a representative kind of poll. It's fun, but I wouldn't over-interpret the results.

I only submitted 40-something books. I didn't submit any Jane Austen, etc. I have a pretty expansive definition of "romance", but after looking at the previous lists I thought the top 100 was really focused on genre romance. So it seemed strange to put classics up against, say, Stephanie Meyer and JR Ward.

Like Marianne McA, I tend to read by author. My list was heavy on a few authors, with some isolated books by others.

I browsed the previous "top 100"s hoping to add to my reading list, but so many of them are blockbusters that I didn't see many new names. I'd love to see the books that didn't make the top 100--that would be a great reading list.

RfP (http://www.readforpleasure.com)

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Hi, RfP.

I did receive your email and replied about a half hour ago. Sorry about the delay -- I'm having home email/internet problems.

I was intrigued to see Meyer's Twilight on the interim results. It hadn't occured to me to include it. As it is, I've got a list of 70 books, many of which are not straight genre romance. If I am strict about the definition of romance, the list will be reduced to 40-50.

The inclusion of classics and contemporary genre novels (Feehan next to the Brontes!) does cause me a bit of whiplash. I love Persuasion and would argue that in addition to being social commentary and a book of manners, it is also very much a romance. But it is very hard to compare it to Lover Unbound. Apples and oranges.

I would *love* to see the list of books that didn't make the cut. I get the feeling that there isn't going to be a significant change in the poll results (maybe more paranormal and more YA?) from the last go-round, and I wasn't all that impressed with that list. When I did a book by book run down of the last results, there were many that I'd read, but not many that I'd classify as keepers.

[(Anonymous)]

I did check out the interim results before I made up my own ballot, and let's just say my memory wasn't jogged too much. There's not a lot of similarity between that list and my own. But that's the way it goes with these things. I don't think my own taste is much in sync with the majority. I do like to see other individual ballots, though, because if I run into someone with similar tastes, I can always mine for titles I haven't read. That's the bonus part of this process for me.

AAR Rachel
http://grerp.blog-city.com