SOURCE: "The Primal Need to Escape into the Mind of a Writer," in The New York Times, August 10, 1998, p. E2.

[In the following essay, Jefferson investigates the psychology of "best-books" list-making, drawing distinctions between public and private modes of reading.]

Why are we still ranting, dissenting, defending, brooding and quarreling—gloating when writers we love appear, ready to hurl thunderbolts when they don't—about the Moderns Library board's hubris-ridden list of what it considers the best novels published in English since our century began?

It isn't just the obvious sight of canons clashing. It's the fact that the literary industry is manipulating us exactly as the fashion industry does: imposing dictates that seem omniscient when they arc just the result of personal taste and a determination to maintain or regain an idealized status quo. And the result is to mingle the demands of public reading and the rewards...