On Nov. 4, this blog posted an article comprising a list of lists of best books of 2009, among them, Publishers Weekly's top 1o list. Soon after PW's posting of their list, a controversy ensued: a women's literary group pointed out that all the books were written by men. The list was based on literary merit rather than book sales. The New York Times carried a story about this top-10 literary book list controversy, which included more than 170 comments by readers at the time of posting of this FFO blog article. To PW's credit, they provided a link to the NYT article.

The comments were interesting and seemed to have been made preponderantly by women. The philosophical question that immediately arose was: should lists like these always include women? Or should the judges wear Justice-like blinders?