Lit Lists and Ranked Ratings
May 30, 2013 11:01 AM Subscribe
Christopher Pound combines and weights lists and ratings from Project Gutenberg, Goodreads, and elsewhere to produce novel sortings of familiar data—Shakespeare's plays by popularity, for example. The most successful fiction writers at Gutenberg, and the top thousand most popular works of fiction found there. The most highly rated films of 2012 and 2011. The most popular Sci-fi and fantasy sub-genres at Goodreads.
Pound also did some cool work with aleatoric language generation, archived here. (Proper to the hour: 300 randomly generated names for Vancian magic spells.)
Pound also did some cool work with aleatoric language generation, archived here. (Proper to the hour: 300 randomly generated names for Vancian magic spells.)
So I take it a romantic comedy set in an epic fantasy world would sell billions?
HiFantRomCom?
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:11 AM on May 30, 2013
HiFantRomCom?
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:11 AM on May 30, 2013
The most popular Sci-fi and fantasy sub-genres at Goodreads.
Oh great, now I'm despondent.
posted by GuyZero at 11:12 AM on May 30, 2013
Oh great, now I'm despondent.
posted by GuyZero at 11:12 AM on May 30, 2013
I like that six of the top ten of the top thousand fictional pieces at Gutenberg are old novels about women, three of which are by Jane Austen.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:12 AM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:12 AM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
HiRoFant Comedy?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:12 AM on May 30, 2013
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:12 AM on May 30, 2013
(basically, The Princess Bride with more dragons.)
posted by The Whelk at 11:14 AM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by The Whelk at 11:14 AM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
(basically, The Princess Bride with more dragons.)
Ha! I almost replied with Princess Bride, but thought, naw, not enough high fantasy. ;D
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:15 AM on May 30, 2013
Ha! I almost replied with Princess Bride, but thought, naw, not enough high fantasy. ;D
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:15 AM on May 30, 2013
So I take it a romantic comedy set in an epic fantasy world would sell billions?
Pretty sure that Aragorn/Legolas slash already has.
posted by GuyZero at 11:15 AM on May 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
Pretty sure that Aragorn/Legolas slash already has.
posted by GuyZero at 11:15 AM on May 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
Jane Eyre would kick Lizzy Bennet's ass though.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:28 AM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by shakespeherian at 11:28 AM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Jane Eyre would kick Lizzy Bennet's ass though.
Whoa.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:34 AM on May 30, 2013
Whoa.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:34 AM on May 30, 2013
yea, but Lizzy would cut her dead with rapier wit
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:50 AM on May 30, 2013
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:50 AM on May 30, 2013
That is the BEST LIST OF SPELLS.
Let's see, which ones should I memorize before venturing into the forbidding depths of the next contentious Metafilter thread?
Pankwiket's progressive steam
The spell of nice speech
Meryffwyd's suggestive cue
Valaz's frothy gibberish
The agency of perfect ridicule
Pergaratt's professorial hiss
Majnu's inadequate proverb
The spell of picturesque involution
Zuhaw's vicious mouthpiece
Gauend's disastrous disruption
Az-Khunu's didactic arrow
That ought to do it!
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:00 PM on May 30, 2013 [3 favorites]
Let's see, which ones should I memorize before venturing into the forbidding depths of the next contentious Metafilter thread?
Pankwiket's progressive steam
The spell of nice speech
Meryffwyd's suggestive cue
Valaz's frothy gibberish
The agency of perfect ridicule
Pergaratt's professorial hiss
Majnu's inadequate proverb
The spell of picturesque involution
Zuhaw's vicious mouthpiece
Gauend's disastrous disruption
Az-Khunu's didactic arrow
That ought to do it!
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:00 PM on May 30, 2013 [3 favorites]
Poor Coriolanus.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:09 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:09 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Goodreads ratings are so messed up. I recently read two YA novels that happened to have similar themes and tropes. One started out okay, but by the second half the author was just whipping melodramatic events at their characters (child abuse! finding baby skeletons in the wall!) until all was papered over with a "satisfying ending"; the other was a finely wrought, complex story with started off light and seemingly simple but towards the end had me holding my breath at the most profound scenes until it ended in a perhaps unsatisfying (for those looking for perfect closure) but utterly realistic ending. The former was rated 4.5/5 on Goodreads, the latter was rated as 3.8/5.
The second novel is Sprout by Dale Peck, if any one is interested. I'm not inflicting the first on anyone else.
posted by jb at 12:20 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
The second novel is Sprout by Dale Peck, if any one is interested. I'm not inflicting the first on anyone else.
posted by jb at 12:20 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Poor Coriolanus.
Yeah, Coriolanus deserves at least to switch positions with The Merry Wives of Windsor, 'cause that one should be down there with Pericles.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:24 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeah, Coriolanus deserves at least to switch positions with The Merry Wives of Windsor, 'cause that one should be down there with Pericles.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:24 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
With the NYT's Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made index as my starting point, I've been using Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb's yearly release filter to compile a list of every movie seen from start to finish. Counting back from present through 1989 (and with fifteen more years of movie watching to document), one thing has been made increasingly clear: I've seen way too many Sidney Lumet films.
posted by wensink at 12:31 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by wensink at 12:31 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Seriously, what is with Pericles. I'd never, ever seen it performed in Ontario but here in the Bay Area I've seen ads for it several times... Do Americans love Pericles or something?
posted by GuyZero at 12:32 PM on May 30, 2013
posted by GuyZero at 12:32 PM on May 30, 2013
For whatever reason, we just don't get Tyred of it.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:33 PM on May 30, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:33 PM on May 30, 2013 [5 favorites]
In 1946, W.H. Auden delivered a series of public lectures on each of Shakespeare's plays. Here's the entirety of the Merry Wives lecture:
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a very dull play indeed. We can be grateful for its having been written, because it provided the occasion of Verdi's Falstaff, a very great operatic masterpiece. Mr. Page, Shallow, Slender, and the Host disappear. I have nothing to say about Shakespeare's play, so let's hear Verdi.posted by Iridic at 12:55 PM on May 30, 2013 [6 favorites]
(He plays records for the remainder of the hour.)
I've seen way too many Sidney Lumet films.
I do not believe this is possible.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:57 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I do not believe this is possible.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:57 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'm idly wondering if the presence of George Meredith and Charlotte Yonge on the top 1K list is courtesy of desperate English professors trying to teach their books, given that said items have a terrible habit of going out of print the moment they're in print. (I like Meredith's fiction, but most people don't. Most other Victorianists don't.)
posted by thomas j wise at 1:07 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by thomas j wise at 1:07 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Strip out class assigned readings and I expect you would get more interesting results.
Possibly Ms Austen still at the top, though.
posted by IndigoJones at 1:26 PM on May 30, 2013
Possibly Ms Austen still at the top, though.
posted by IndigoJones at 1:26 PM on May 30, 2013
Where is 50 Shades of Grey? That is a favorite at my home, where we act it out, a chapter each night.
posted by Postroad at 1:31 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Postroad at 1:31 PM on May 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I find Merry Wives of Windsor hysterical--I keep wondering about the cultural life of king john though.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:19 PM on May 30, 2013
posted by PinkMoose at 8:19 PM on May 30, 2013
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posted by The Whelk at 11:08 AM on May 30, 2013