Almost exactly a year ago, I asked whether or not AAR should, as it typically does every five years, do a new Top 100 poll. As is the case with most questions, readers were split. They also made interesting suggestions.
People love top 100 lists. Put in Top 100 Romances in Google search (AAR comes in at third, after Amazon and Goodreads.) and you’ll see list after list. Are any of them definitive? No–how could they be? Are they evil? Some people think so. I’m not so sure. I see such lists as a source, not a final word, and as such things that may be mined for possible enjoyment.
We will be doing a Top 100 post this year. How, exactly, I’m still pondering. Feel free to offer suggestions! One place to start is to ask: What do you think does or doesn’t belong in a very best of romance novels list? What do you feel absolutely doesn’t?
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I’m not advocating that AAR go back to this per se because of the complexity and time involved. I offer the following only as clarification or additional data for consideration by others who are newer to AAR.
My first participation in the Top 100 poll was in 2008, so I can’t speak to how the results were created between 1998 and 2008. But in 2008 and until 2018, each person who wanted to vote submitted a ranked list of 100 (or fewer) titles + author. Someone (likely many someones) compiled/combined all those lists to get to a list of 100 titles, ranked in order from 1 to 100. (I believe the methodology was to award points for being mentioned at all on any list, how times it was on more than one list, and then where that title appeared in any given list. Very time-consuming and detailed methodology.)
But the result was AAR readers 100 favorite romances at that particular point in time.
My personal methodology is/was a stack of index cards, one for each title and author. I added cards over time – e.g. I clearly remember adding Beard Science by Penny Reid to the stack the year it was published. It wasn’t #1 in my list, but it was pretty high up. Each time the poll was run, I added any new cards I thought might qualify, and literally laid index cards in columns, across my kitchen counter. I shuffled card order, based on my feelings about and memory of each book at that particular point in time.
So yes, it is/was hard to knock a favorite down in any given compiled poll. If it was a “favorite” at any point it probably still is for any given reader. Even if a book doesn’t stand the test of time, it was a great read for someone at the time they read it and it is hard to not look back fondly on that good reading experience (although it may slowly sink lower on any given reader’s list).
Whatever Dabney and AAR decide to do with this year’s poll, it is an interesting exercise to try creating your own personal list of 100 favorites. I think I only submitted about 65 titles the first time I voted because I was too new to the genre to get to 100. It’s been interesting to see how MY list has changed over time, as well.
Thank you for this. It used to be a crazy amount of work, I know that.
If you need help data-crunching, some of us would be happy to help. Someone who enjoys reviewing might not enjoy data, making it a more onerous task, but there are plenty of people who love data!
I’d like to take you guys up on that. If you are interested in helping and/or shaping, you can email me at dabneygrinnan at allaboutromance dot com.
I am in favor of keeping classic romance novels in the Top 100 list, but do support leaving out classic romance literature, i.e. Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, and Jane Eyre. It seems unfair to rank Kleypas or Chase against Austen and Bronte.
It sounds like a logistical challenge but I think it would be wonderful. Suggestions: I thought maybe a first round that included books that got A reviews here from 2019-2022 plus books from the 2018 top 100 list but that looks like it would be around 700 books if I did my math right and I think that’s too many for a survey. Then I thought about a first round google form where readers type in nominations of their top 3 favorites but I think even that would not be manageable. Maybe have a blog where readers discuss a few of their top favorite book(s) they would like to see considered for the voting list? One thing that surprised me about the 2018 list is how many HRs there are.
I can’t wait to see what you come up with & am ready and willing to participate! That said, I will confess that I would love to see a list of each of the topics so far considered – ie; my top 100 favorites, my top 100 recs, my top 100 game changers … etc. Each topic would include slightly different titles from me. AAR has always provided the best reading suggestions for romance and I am so eager to see what I may have missed. I agree that this year’s poll must be very specific in what you are looking for. Your choice Dabney, and Thank You for all you do!
This is a tough one and I don’t envy you this task. When I look at some HR booktok, those women (always young and have started reading HR in the last 5 years or so) lean toward a couple of experienced authors who have broken through but mostly newly written books. I find those frustrating because I often feel like some of the older books did it better. So if you ask the younguns, they’re going to lean toward the Evie Dunmores and Elisa Bradens whereas I’m more inclined to include stuff by writers like Liz Carlyle who were more active in the late 90s early 2000s.
The other thing to consider is whether you want some churn on this list. Do you want to institute a Hall of Fame and retire books like Lord of Scoundrels and Devil in Winter so others can take their place at the top? Or is it better to keep the list as an every 5 year snapshot and see if those books still earn their top spots?
I don’t remember if I’ve participated in past lists but I definitely will this time around!
Oh – I like the Hall of Fame idea.
One of the GR groups I belong to has an HoF for romance narrators, and they vote in a new narrator every year so the HoF is growing slowly but surely. We could start out with a certain number of HoF books and then vote on a new one every year.
Not sure of the logistics, but I like it!
I guess I don’t understand why we would massage the list. It’s always just been AAR readers’ faves. Taking out their most long loved seems like then it’s not a Top 100 list. Why wouldn’t hall of fame winners still get to be on the Top 100 list?
I’m not being critical–I think I just don’t get this idea.
There are definitely two ways to look at it and it sounds like you guys may be having a discussion. You can look at your Top 100 list as an every 5 year snapshot of what the community considers the best romance novels and if the top 10 is similar to the one from 2018 or 2013, so be it, that’s what the community says. Or you could think about it this way: a book like Lord of Scoundrels has well-established bone fides as a beloved book. There’s an excellent chance it’s going to be ranked in the Top 2 or 3 in this year’s list as well. Does it serve the community to keep telling them about this book, or is it time to declare it an “AAR Classic” or some other term for a HoF and essentially say to the community, “we know, lots of you love that book, let’s hear about some others”. You’re still honoring those books, you’re just letting others in.
There’s no right way to look at it. Like you said, you guys need to decide what you want the list to say about 2023 in romance reading.
I think that, given my own experience of rediscovering romance after decades of not reading it, that having a list that simply lists the best, according to AAR readers, is a worthwhile thing.
Why wouldn’t hall of fame winners still get to be on the Top 100 list?
Maybe because not everyone is as convinced as you are that these are still the overall favorites of romance readers today. I’m not saying that there aren’t books on the list that will stand stand the test of time, but if you start with a list of top-heavy with older favorites, you risk leaving out the standout works of the last few years. There is no way to actually get a list anywhere close to “romance readers favorites as of 2023” without those romance readers getting to actually list their favorites, and not simply vote on someone’s preselected list of books.
What you are suggesting is to present us with a list of books selected because they were on the best of list before, and some other books (not sure how this is done or how many books you will put out for vote), and we vote on our favorites on that list. The fact that some books are grandfathered in gives them a good chance of being voted on again because we only have a select number to vote on, so, it’s biased. Example, of the 2018 list, I might vote for Lord of Scoundrels even though it’s not my favorite by that author, but it’s the one one the list. That could make Lord of Scoundrels seem more popular than it might be.
You may disagree with me, and that’s fine. I think you have a vision for what you want for AARs Top 100 list. You asked for opinions, I’ve given mine (more than once, sorry) and I’ll quit talking now.
Carrie, I haven’t figured out how to do the survey. I’m not sure where you’re getting this from but trust me, nothing is decided. I currently have zero idea how to best do this.
I’m sorry I misunderstood. You said you didn’t understand “why newer books had to be on the list,” and you said you would provide a “starter list”, and I guess I made assumptions.
Understandable. I do think we will probably have a list to start from but what that is is utterly up in the air.
I can’t not read lists like this, even if the choices on them amaze me. But when I started reading romance, I found your lists invaluable for introducing me to the genre, and each new list sends me to a new author to at least try.
That said, I don’t think I could make a list of 100 favorites. I don’t have than many. There are only 20-30 authors on my keeper shelves, though most of them are represented by more than one book. That’s probably because my reading is kind of limited to historicals, and I like them to be historical, not wallpaper.
All of this is a meandering way to say that I hope you continue, using whatever criteria you decide on.
I’m not too interested in these lists since, as they have said, they are quite subjective and, like many books that I like, are not usually there, let’s add that I prefer to read romances with a level of warmth like Mimi Matthews (on a personal level, I would put books by her on my top 100 list) or Christian romance then…unlikely too many books will represent my tastes as the market has gotten hotter these days.
I guess the level of subjectivity I have seen personally, on a romance subreddit most of the female readers were crazy about a book called Lemonade by
Nina Pennacchi, of 2015.
They talked about the book so much that I had to go look and uh…imagine pride and prejudice if Darcy was a very manipulative and unscrupulous really tragic childhood guy who decides to rape the unworthy object of his affections when he is unable to contain himself I ended up thinking “I think they call this a bodice ripper.”
On the other hand, lists on inspirational romance blogs often contain books by Grace Livingston Hill, Francine Rivers, and Becky Wade.
I would rather read a list of the 100 most influential romance books of all time, it would be interesting to see that, it would also give space to see several books that have marked milestones in different genres after the whole market has gone from having a scarce supply to a huge one in every subgenre.
As others have noted, defining your terms is crucially important in constructing a survey. Just the phrase “Top 100 Romances” could mean different things to different people. Before you even construct the survey, you need to define what you are searching to find.
For example, Rolling Stone Magazine recently came out with its list of the “The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.” They made it clear that they used a different methodology from their previous list, and they defined “Greatest Singer” in a specific way. Their definition: “In all cases, what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy.”
They ended up choosing artists such as Bob Dylan, who most would agree does not have the loveliest singing voice, while leaving off Celine Dion, who does. You can look at their methodology and criteria and maybe understand why that happened, and it does make some sense based on their criteria. Because “beautiful voice” is not on the list.
Back to romance: if you are trying to construct a canon of books everyone “should” read to get a feel for the history and sweep of romance and its genres, then you may want to survey more of an “expert panel” with knowledge and expertise and depth in their reading of romance, including a historical perspective. That would be a very different proposition from simply surveying people and asking them to name their favorite romance novels and tallying the results. Or providing a list of titles and asking them to select from that list.
We’ve always asked our readers. I think it would be a very different list if we asked, oh, all our present and past reviewers. I don’t see changing that. The bigger question is how do we do the survey? I think we would provide a starting list of some kind.
Providing a starting list means it will be “Which Are The Best Romances On This List,” not the 100 Top Romances. It’s not the 100 Top Romances if you are already starting with a pre-selected list.
I just went and looked at the 2018 Top 100 list. I’ve read around 40-45 of the books listed, and of those, less than 10 would be in my top 100 books. that means, of the other 30-35 books on the list, I would have to chose which of those were worth voting for even though they are not favorites, or simply only vote for 8 or 9 books, period. Do you see my problem with starting with a list based on past lists? it’s very limiting, and assumes the lasting power of older titles instead of seeing what the majority of readers actually think.
If that’s how you want to do it, that’s fine. Just call it what it is: a tally of favorites from highly curated list of romance books.
If it is a reader survey, then I would argue that you are not seeking to create a romance “canon” but a ranking of favorites from a pregenerated list, as CarrieG has said. How the list is generated will be important.
For example, will AAR staff create the list? What criteria do you use for inclusion/exclusion? How long should the list be?
If you come up with, say 200 books, then will you ask readers to rank them? I can’t see anyone being able/willing to rank that many books. Select their top 10? Constructing a good survey is not easy, but it can be a fun exercise and generate conversation.
I may be misremembering, but I think in the past AAR provided a list of books and you voted for your favorites on the list, as many or as few as you wanted. then the votes were tallied and the 100 books with the most votes were included.
It was always a completely free choice – no pre-lists supplied.
The last time we did it that way was ten years ago–it was overwhelming.
I agree that it’s important to be clear about what the list is intended to be – and it’s always been a list of reader favourites rather than a list of genre milestones. Using your “Greatest Singer” analogy, it’s the “beautiful voice” rather than the “greatest innovator/legacy” etc. That said, it is obviously possible for a favourite book to be a favourite precisely because it IS innovative, so one doesn’t preclude the other – but innovation isn’t the main focus.
That’s exactly the reasoning I was going for— you need to be clear what you are asking the readers to do. I might have a list of my own personal favorites, but if you ask me to give someone who is new to romance a list of the best romance books in order to introduce them to the genre, I might not pick all my favorites and instead give them a more diverse introduction.
And that leads to the question of whether AAR seeks to create a diverse list? If so, diverse in what ways— genres, tropes, authors, color and ethnicity, sexuality, country, etc. Going back to the Rolling Stone list, they sought to increase diversity not only in terms of race but also different types of music and from different parts of the world. With all their new and improved criteria, the latest list was very different from the previous list.
But the Rolling Stone editors made that choice. They didn’t poll readers. AAR has always polled readers.
If we, the staff, were to make OUR list, I’m sure it would be different than the readers’ list. There should be a place in the world for both, no?
Absolutely! It would be fun to have both and see how they differ.
I think there are romance books that everyone should try, or have a good reason for not trying, that gains 1-4 books a year, and presumably loses the same amount of old books.
My bookmarks of all the old AAR lists are some of my most valuable romance book possessions.
I think as long as you are specific about what you are asking for and how you describe the poll result, you will be ok. For example, am I being asked to list my favorite romances of all time? or the romances I think someone new to the genre should read? or the romances I think best represent the genre at this moment in time? I would have different answers to each of those questions.
Also, how you choose to conduct the poll is important. The 2018 creation process was very different from how previous lists/polls were generated, and the resulting list was starkly different from previous lists. I’m not expressing an opinion about which way is better. Just pointing out there was a pretty big difference between 2018 and the other years methodologies, and it is important to be transparent about that fact particularly since the name of the poll did not change.
I honestly have a love/hate feeling about any list like this. OTOH, I love to look and them and see what I’ve read. OTO, the books I love to read usually aren’t on them because I’m kind of a quirky romance reader. So, eh, I have no idea.
Also, one of the terms that comes up a lot whenever this topic is brought up is the word “canon”. I sometimes think it must mean something different to me because I have a hard time applying it to romance as a genre. There is simply too much variety. But canon to me is an “in universe” thing. Then again I’m not an academic, just a reader.
And as a reader, there is one hard and fast rule in romances, i.e. the HEA or whatever one wants to call it. Over the years how that rule is applied to the genre has changed, though. A happily ever after from a book that was written in the 1970s or earlier would not satisfy me today. I know because I still have some of them in my collection and when I look back at them all I can do is wonder where the rest of the story is. Were some of them favorites? Yeah, when I read them. But whether any of them should go on an overall top 100 list? I have no idea. All I do know is what I like to read now and they aren’t going to make a top list either.
So, yeah, I have no idea.
There will not be a single book on the list that does not have an HEA!
Yeah, I know that although that might not have been clear in what I rambled. (Fighting a cold today.). But really it’s all the other parameters that give me a headache. I honestly do not know how to choose for a list like this.
That rules out some great romances in which the relationship develops over several books…
Any romance novel has to end happily. What books are you thinking about?
Most recently, The Will Darling Adventures by KJ Charles.
An older example: The Bronze Horseman/Tatiana and Alexander by Paullina Simons.
Books that probably won’t be on the list but are also two-part romances: Deeper and Harder by Robin York, and Asking for It/Begging for it by Lilah Pace.
Not the same thing, but My Beautiful Enemy by Sherry Thomas is a richer and more compelling book if you read The Hidden Blade first.
Hmmmmm….. I would not call the Simons’ books romances. I guess if a book ends with an HFN, it might count. But if a book ends in tragedy, even if that tragedy is redeemed in the next book, it would not, to me, qualify as a romance.
June makes a good point; there are some terrific same-couple series out there in which the relationship develops over several books and the HEA doesn’t happen until the final one. June has already cited the Will Darling Adventures, I’ll add Nicky James’ Valor and Doyle series; there isn’t even an HFN at the end of book one – the leads have hooked up a couple of times and don’t expect it to go anywhere (although readers know it will because Nicky James is a romance writer!) but there’s so much character exposition that you need in order to understand the characters and where they’re coming from that it would be inadvisable to read the rest of the books without reading that one first. C.S. Poe’s Memento Mori series is another excellent example – we know the leads are perfect for each other but there’s no HEA at the end of either book (book 2 is definitely an HFN) – but you need to read book one in order to fully appreciate book two. I could name others, but you get my drift. I would find it impossible to choose any one book from those sets because you need all of them for the romance to work properly.
We could put sets in but that is a big door to open.
I agree – but it also risks excluding some excellent books. I’m not sure what the answer is, I just wanted to clarify what I understood June’s meaning to be.
I also think it’s the Top 100 books. And they have to be romances. Series just aren’t really that. There are series that DO have HFNs/HEAs in each book and they’d qualify. We could do another poll for best series!
Although I agree that to qualify as a romance, a book must end with an HEA or HFN, there are books that are notable exceptions. The first one that always jumps into my mind is Taylor Fitzpatrick’s m/m hockey “romance”, THROWN OFF THE ICE. It follows so many of the romance tropes and setups (age-gap, virgin MC, slow-burn, angst) until the devastating, heartbreaking ending—when you realize the bulk of the story, until the last few pages, has been the MCs’ HEA. True, THROWN OFF THE ICE doesn’t qualify as a “romance”, but it’s one of the best love stories I’ve ever read and probably the book I’ve reread the most over the past few years. As Orson Welles once observed, a happy ending depends on where you stop the story.
A love story is not a romance novel.
Thus, Wuthering Heights, Love Story, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Gone with the Wind, Eleanor and Park, and Thrown off the Ice are, to me, love stories, but not romance novels.
As long as the criteria are clear it doesn’t bother me either way. What I call series standalones – where the books are connected by family/friendship groups but each story works separately – are different to the kinds of stories where the relationship develops across a series. I’d find it hard to choose a favourite from a series like that, and would end up either including every book or none of them.
Personally, I’d love a compilation of great series. I’ve been stuck putting the 5th novel of the Adrien English series in my submissions of Top 100 in the past. It stands alone, sort of, but it doesn’t compare to the sweep of reading the entire series.
Exactly, which is why I couldn’t choose a single title from a series like that – and that one book doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you’ve read the previous ones.
Just to be pedantic — this also speaks to what has been said here about names and criteria: Is it the Top 100 Romance NOVELS, or just the Top 100 Romances? If we’re going to exclude the sorts of series we’re talking about here, then we should make clear people are voting for individual novels. That would include “series standalones” where each book features a different couple, but not same-couple series where the romance is developed over a longer period.
I would have no objection to voting for a separate list of series that, taken as a whole, are romances. I can think of several possible sub-types.
Multi-volume arcs simply take more than one book to reach a HEA/HFN, but all the books need to be read for the complete story.
Stories that I call mid-course corrections end a book with an apparent HEA/HFN, then have one or more sequels that somewhat diminish the original HEA/HFN by introducing new problems. JAK did a couple duologies like that years ago.
I think mid-course corrections probably arise in two different ways: forethought and afterthought. If it was forethought, the author planned multiple volumes before finishing the first volume. If it was afterthought, the author wrote the first volume and then later decided to write a sequel.
It’s always been just novels.
The other day, I read a Rotten Tomatoes list of the 30 Greatest movies of all time (their headline, not mine). The list did include some of the great classic movies, including It Happened One Night, Casablanca, The Godfather, Citizen Kane, and Rebecca, but the list was dominated by movies made in the last 5 to 10 years. They left out a lot of great movies made in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. While I liked most of the newer movies listed (Wonder Woman, Black Panther, BlackKlansman, A Quiet Place, etc.), I’m not so sure most of these movies will hold up well 20, 30, or more years from now. There is a difference between “popular” and “great”. So, I’m sorry Wonder Woman, I liked you alot but you weren’t a “great” movie. Tastes change, themes change, techniques and technologies change, and so on.
As for the romance canon, I’m old enough to have read and loved some of those gothics and bodice rippers from the 1970s. I still consider some of the older books classic romance, even if definitions have changed (Katherine will always be a romance to me). Any top 100 list will always be heavily influenced by what is popular at the time the list is made. Does that mean these lists shouldn’t be published? No, I just take such a list for what it is: a snapshot of the time it was made. People reading the list will have different opinions about the rankings, what was put on the list, and what was left off. For myself, I’ll read the list to see if there are any books on there that I haven’t read yet and wonder if I should add them to my ever growing tbr pile.
I finally just watched A Quiet Place. Not. All. That. A lot of lists are really just marketing tools. I wouldn’t want that for AAR.
That’s why I wouldn’t trust a top 100 romances list put out by a bookseller like Amazon. Independent review sites like AAR have more credibility regarding what books people really love. Like BevBB, I’m a quirky reader and I know that what appeals to me isn’t necessarily going to make any best of lists. But the lists let us readers know what’s out there that we may have missed. So thank you for the hard work involved in putting the list together.
Any time I think about voting for favorites, the number of times I have reread a book is a major factor. Unfortunately, using “most reread” automatically biases results against more recent books. The other bias in my own romance voting is toward funniest.
I do wonder why we think newer books have to be on the Best List. If the reason is that, in decades past, romance wasn’t diverse, that is an issue. But other than that, I’m not sure I see a problem.
Re-readability is crucial to me, too. I can’t even begin to consider something – in whatever format it might be – to be a favorite if I haven’t read it, watched it or played it a lot. One of the reasons I don’t review is I literally can’t decide how I feel about them the first time. They need to prove themselves to me.
So shouldn’t a list like this be biased against more recent books by its very nature of being the top whatever? Newer ones haven’t stood that test of time. If a list of recent entries is needed, give them their own list.
The Top 100 Romance books is going to change radically depending on whose choosing the book. Amazon’s list will likely be money driven, for example, and An AAR list is going to only reflect the audience here, which probably skews older than some other places. Romance readers on GR, for example, are probably spread out across a larger demographic if the GR Choice Awards are any indication. So any Top 100 has limited value, but is certainly fun to peruse.
I think the HEA or HFN is essential to the Romance genre as a whole. (I guess you could argue for a subgenre like “romantic tragedy”, like Romeo and Juliet.) because of that, I don’t think books like Wuthering Heights should be allowed. (I’m iffy about Jane Eyre, to be honest, but at least there is a “yes they end up together” ending, even if it doesn’t feel very happy.)
I also agree with Bona, there is a difference between “canon” and “classic,” or favorite. Are we wanting the best books (those with generational appeal) or the foundational books (those that made an impact on the genre, but don’t necessarily stand the test of time with modern readers). The Best of lists are going to reflect how people feel the day they vote. A decade ago I might have voted for books I no longer find enjoyable, so the Best of lists needs to be able to change and grow, where a Canonical list might stay very similar year to year.
Years ago I watched an MTV show about songs that changed the music industry. Interestingly enough, many of these songs were not objectively good songs and most people nowadays have never heard of them, but they contained a musical innovation that changed how people did things. Some of the old skool romances are like this. Few people want to read them now, but in their time they were revolutionary.
I’d also like to know how the books to be voted on will be chosen, because that will have a huge impact on the final list. It might be unwieldy to ask readers for their own Top 25 or 50 books, but it would reflect a broader range of readers. If we start with the lists from previous years there could be a definite bias towards older books.
And why is that bad? Because it makes the list not diverse enough? And if that’s the reason, doesn’t it follow that, down the road, diverse romances will populate the list?
I don’t think it’s bad, per se, but I do think it’s limiting.
I agree with nblibgirl, whatever you do is fine, just be specific about what you are seeking to find out in the poll. Is it the recommended books every romance reader should read? Is it the most influential romances, regardless of how they’ve aged? Or is it simply everyone’s favorite romances? For example, my favorites list would have some Austen and Heyer, then would probably skip to books written in the past 20 years.
It is just AAR readers’ top 100. Nothing more.
And yet, in music, the mediocre songs from Boomers are now the most popular in the world.
If you were to play the average American the songs David Crosby wrote, they’d recognize far fewer of them than the big hits that CSN sang written not by Crosby. And yet he is lauded for his song writing. Most great art isn’t popular but that doesn’t mean those popular songs aren’t in the canon.
I will say that dismissing books that have been loved for years doesn’t work for me. I am currently re-reading The Great Gatsby which is so smart and gorgeously written. Just because it’s almost a hundred years old and written by a somewhat disastrous man doesn’t mean it isn’t utterly deserving of veneration. I feel as though many classic romances are like that as well.
If they are still loved, they won’t be dismissed. But because something was loved 1 or 2 decades ago doesn’t mean it will be loved now by a majority of readers. If the Top 100 is a reflection of what readers of today consider the best books, then artificially inserting books that no longer hold popular appeal seems odd. I agree that books shouldn’t be dismissed for PC reasons. But they can certainly be dismissed for lack of interest by those currently reading the genre. That is why the idea of a list of canonical titles is also a good idea in order to preserve the titles that are foundational, but no longer hold appeal for many readers.
There are so many factors involved in choosing what would constitute “canonical” romances. We wouldn’t be able to overlook bodice rippers (to me, SWEET SAVAGE LOVE is a watershed book, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to read it today), not to mention the slew of gothics and historical fiction that came down the turnpike in the 1960s & 1970s. As to whether anyone still considers that early “canon” favorite reading..,well, let’s just say that’s doubtful at best. In other words, let’s not even put WHITNEY, MY LOVE into consideration, lol.
Agreed. Whitney, My Love was on my mind reading this post. I think there is a difference between Best Of and Most Influential.
I make a difference between canon and classics. Canon for me is something of academical interest: those books relevant for the history of the genre, like ‘The flame and the flower’. I don’t think readers need a canon.
Classics are different. Those are the books that find new readers in different generations, even if they are not important to the genre in the sense that they have not changed anything. And many of them are long-runners, ignored in its moment but beloved years and decades later. ‘Mackenzie’s mountain’ would be a classic.
I think the Top 100 is more a classic list. It should include those books beloved by generations of readers. So it’s a very helpful list for readers that start reading this genre.
I’m a fan of your Top 100 list. I started my blog reading and reviewing your 2013 Top 100. I discovered authors that I would never have tried otherwise, like Meljean Brook or Joanna Bourne. I love those books.
I had some problems with 2018 Top 100. I felt that a few books did not really belong there. I have my own hypothesis about how they achieved to be there but I’m not really certain why it happened.
I have thought a lot about it.
Alas, I still don’t know how to have a real and sincere list of the Top 100 most beloved books in the romance genre. So I’m very interested in seeing how you plan it this year. I wish you a lot of luck with that!
P.D. Now you do it each five years, but remember that in the past it was each 2-3-4 years: 1998, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013. I know because I have studied those lists as well, looking for oldies but goldies.