Along with a nice and accurate, but short, explanation of the tiers. The works listed early are the ones I favor relative to the others in the same tier.

It Does Not Deserve Rights: Ishmael (sorry Alvarez, but the gorilla gave me Neil DeGrasse Tyson vibes. Say that I’m privileging humanity all I want, but I will stand by my fervent hatred of this book. I rank John Steinbeck’s pro-euthanasia fantasy over this dribble).

I Respectfully Tolerate Them: The Crucible, The Things They Carried, Of Mice and Men, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (I feel like this is the unofficial “problematic faves” tier. It doesn’t mean that these works weren’t impactful in their own time or can’t still be enjoyed today, but reading them I felt that essential parts of the narrative’s worldview aged poorly, i.e. John Steinbeck’s pro-euthanasia fantasy. And since the worldview of a book is the basis for its themes and who the story is willing to develop, it means that these works, in my opinion, really suffer on their own merits).

Makes Sense They’re Classics: Julius Caesar, Siddartha, The Odyssey. (I find these to be the true neutral, and regard them in the way non-English people regard classic novels. Parts are genuinely moving, parts seem so divorced from contemporary standards for art that they are hard to engage with as a modern audience. A British actress I follow once said that Julius Caesar was her favorite Shakespeare play, which I found interesting because, though I’ve only read three of his plays, I think Julius Caesar is a bit bland by the Bard’s standards).

Uniquely Excellent: The Haunting of Hill House, Twelfth Night, The Importance of Being Earnest, Wuthering Heights, Brave New World, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, Cannery Row. (It’s my unofficial Whipple tier, I don’t know how she keeps doing this. I usually love these books because they have themes that I really resonate with, because they present interesting questions and tensions, or even because their words are written so wonderfully. But I also feel that these works are very much “favorites” in that I believe they stick in my mind because they have a lot of elements that I personally favor, and might not be universally applicable or endlessly nuanced.)

Actual Masterpieces: Romeo and Juliet, Invisible Man, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye. (These books are like the ones from the previous tier, but they are endlessly nuanced and readers can appreciate them even if they have wildly different interpretations of the text. Ambiguity is always the best thing about art, as arriving at a conclusion can make one feel like they’re part of the artistic process itself. To qualify for this rank, it also helps if every word in the work feels like it was written like magic, i.e. Romeo and Juliet and Invisible Man).