50 Most Influential Books of the Last 50 (or so) Years. In compiling the books on this list, the editors at SuperScholar have tried to provide a window into the culture of the last 50 years.
Ideally, if you read every book on this list, you will know how we got to where we are today. Not all the books on this list are “great.” The criterion for inclusion was not greatness but INFLUENCE. The 100 Best Books of All Time. Many publishers have lists of 100 best books, defined by their own criteria.
This article enumerates some lists of "100 best" books for which there are fuller articles. Among them, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (Xanadu, 1985) and Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels (Grafton, 1988) are collections of 100 short essays by a single author, David Pringle, with moderately long critical introductory chapters also by Pringle. Www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html.