Literary Lists of “Ten Best”

May 08

By Traci GardnerAmerican Lit, British Literature, classroom activity, Literature 5 Comments

Ten Street SignThe UK newspaper The Guardian has an ongoing series that focuses on “The 10 Best of” a variety of topics. They’ve covered a range of interests, including fashion, movies, comedy, politics, and music. Fortunately for those of us who teach literature, The Guardian feature has included these unusual literary lists of ten:

You’ll find that some of the lists are stronger than others. For instance, I was disappointed to find that the heroes from children’s fiction focused solely on white heroes, and the books about war failed to include Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. How could a list of best war books not include The Things They Carried?!

What the lists do extremely well however is demonstrate a great amount of creativity in topics. That’s certainly the only list of best pairs of glasses or best tattoos I’ve ever seen. Sometimes the lists are particularly relevant to current events, such as the best elections list published today. If you do nothing more than read through the lists, you’re bound to find a new text to add to your reading list—or a reminder of a text that would be enjoyable to revisit.

Come back tomorrow for a great year-end activity inspired by these literary lists!

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5 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. A Year-End Activity with Literary Lists of “Ten Best” | c h a n g e l o g
    May 10, 2010 @ 10:40:16

    [...] can use the literary lists of “Ten Best” from the UK newspaper The Guardian as the basis of a student-driven exam review activity that can [...]

  2. tengrrl
    May 14, 2010 @ 22:30:56

    Another list, this one a bit off-beat. May not be all the handy in the traditional classroom as is, but it could be used to inspire unusual lists. How about TV Show references in literature?

    Ten of the best visits to the cinema (2010-05-15)

  3. Designing an Image to Represent a Character | c h a n g e l o g
    May 20, 2010 @ 04:52:18

    [...] assignment can be easily linked to one of the Literary Lists of “Ten Best” from the UK newspaper The Guardian, which I wrote about earlier this [...]

  4. Even More Literary Ten Bests | c h a n g e l o g
    Jun 03, 2010 @ 23:04:19

    [...] I went searching for the literary lists of “Ten Best” from the UK newspaper The Guardian, I somehow missed dozens of interesting collections. These links [...]

  5. tengrrl
    Jun 04, 2010 @ 23:03:34

    Another new list! Ten of the best examples of rowing in literature | The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/05/ten-best-rowing-boat-literature