How it works

The lists decide the rankings: we add no votes or opinions of our own. A book is only measured against lists it could have appeared on, so a 2019 novel isn’t marked down for missing a 1998 poll.

Below are the rules in full, with every weight and threshold, so you can check our working and disagree with it if you like.

Every book is scored only against the lists it could have appeared on. A list of 21st-century novels can't include Middlemarch, so Middlemarch isn't marked down for missing it. Each book page shows the plain count behind its score: the number of lists it's on, out of the lists it was eligible for.

The weights and thresholds below are the ones the rankings use.

A book's weighted hit rate is the points it earned, divided by the most it could have earned from the lists it was eligible for. Its three sub-scores use the same sum for critics' lists, for prizes, and for readers' and booksellers' lists taken together.

Staying power counts the decades of list-making a book appears in. A list made once counts in the decade it was published; a prize that runs every year counts in the decade of that year's award.

The Best of the Best 100 is simpler: books are ranked by how many source lists they're on, without the eligibility adjustment. Ties go to the book on more kinds of list, then to the one with the better average rank on ranked lists. We review the list before each update, and every manual change is logged below.