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100 Best Nonfiction

Modern Library announced its list of the 100 Best Nonfiction books of the 20th century (published in English) last month at the opening night party of BookExpo America, the annual bookseller's convention in Los Angeles. The list was a follow-up to Modern Library's controversial and criticized list of 100 Best Novels last year, and efforts were taken this time to conduct a more rigorous voting process. The selections were made by members of Modern Library's editorial board including A. S. Byatt, Stephen Jay Gould, Elaine Pagels, and Carolyn See.

The board's list is led by Henry Adams' The Education of Henry Adams. Books on the list of scientific or technical interest include Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 5th place, James D. Watson's The Double Helix in 7th place, Lewis Thomas's The Lives of a Cell in 11th place, Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica (23rd), Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man (24th), Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson's The Ants (27th), Albert Einstein's Ideas and Opinions (35th), Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff (52nd), Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (69th), G. H. Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology (87th), Richard P. Feynman's Six Easy Pieces (88th), and James George Frazer's The Golden Bough (90th).

As it did last year for the century's best novels, Modern Library has set up a website where readers can vote for their own nonfiction favorites. Voting is partially regulated: a voter must register and receive a password in order to vote, and then may vote for up to ten different books each day, but nothing prevents voters from submitting the same ten books every day. Earlier in May the reader's list was dominated by titles by Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard -- even moreso than last year's best novels list was -- but recently the list has grown more diverse, though it is still led by Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness. L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics is currently in 9th place; Lawrence Sutin's Divine Invasions (about Philip K. Dick) is at 34th place; Samuel R. Delany's Silent Interviews is in 56th place.

100 Best Writers

Writer's Digest is seeking nominations for its compilation of the 100 Best Writers of the 20th Century, to be published in its October 19th issue. Readers are asked to submit the names of up to three writers and must provide a brief explanation of why each nominee deserves to be included. Final selections will be made by the Writer's Digest staff and an editorial advisory board, who will rate nominees on their influence in the writing world, the quality of their work, and the degree to which their writing exhibits originality and experimentation. The final list will rank the top ten in numerical order and then list the remaining 90 alphabetically. Nominations can be made from the magazine's website, and must be received by June 15th.