On the meaning of 'best' ..... after thread discussion it seemed that the consensus was that each one of us was being asked to decide what best meant to us and then choose books that we had read, and so I presume you all decided upon your criteria as to what 'best' meant to you as well.
I determined my list by deciding that 'best' meant 'best talked to me about my country, my people and their thoughts and attitudes' at a given time in the 20th century (and were books that I had read). If those books were at some point recognised as well enough written to win an award (in their day) then good oh, but that didn't influence how they affected my decision to include them or not.
We were informed to name only one book per decade and that was the book that we intended to vote for.
By the thread 'rules' now that all the nominations are in, and the decades are compiled, we will be given the opportunity to vote, so now I need to either apply my 'best' formula to the nominations or decide upon a new formula. Should I follow my initial formula then I can only vote for my listed books; if not then I will vote according to my new idea of 'best'.
Part of my consideration is that there are many, many books listed that I have not read, and so I need to work out whether to read any of these books, and how many in a given time frame, in order to identify if I want to broaden my 'best' criteria.
It seems to me that each one of us will have similar considerations as to what constitutes 'best' at the time of voting, and that voters also will need to decide whether or not to continue with their initial idea of 'best' or redefine it. (Of course, there may be MR members who vote that haven't contributed a list, and they also will need to define what 'best' means to them.)
The highest number of votes per book, per decade, will of course determine a 'best winner' for that decade. But what is not, and can not be, determined is the criteria under which those books were chosen given that there is no apparent common form of 'best' criteria.
Anyway, all the best with your 'best' decision making.
