Book list less controversial

Its top vote-getter, Henry Adams' The Education of Henry Adams, isread less than James Joyce's Ulysses. It snubs writers with Hispanicand Asian backgrounds. And while recognizing Truman Capote's"nonfiction novel," In Cold Blood, it omits two Norman Mailer worksin that newfangled genre, Armies of the Night and The Executioner'sSong.

But for all that, the Modern Library's list of the 20th century's100 greatest nonfiction English-language books, announced Thursday,gives off only a whiff of controversy compared to the steep odor ofits stodgy 1998 fiction list (topped by Ulysses, but fleshed out bydozens of doze-worthy titles).

The Modern Library was widely criticized last year forunderrepresenting blacks, women and contemporary writers on itsfiction list. For nonfiction, a newly expanded and diversifiedselection committee voted Booker T. Washington's Up from Slaverythird in its ranking while naming two other works by AfricanAmericans to the top 20: Chicagoan Richard Wright's Black Boy (13)and James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son (19).Two books by women cracked the top 10: Virginia Woolf's feministclassic, A Room of One's Own (4), and ecologist Rachel Carson'sSilent Spring (5). Historian Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of Augustand Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas followedclosely behind at 16 and 20.Additionally, modern writers including Anne Lamott, Tobias Wolff,Annie Dillard and Tom Wolfe joined deep thinkers and cutting punditsof bygone eras including Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, MarkTwain, Bertrand Russell, Edmund Wilson and the Rev. Martin LutherKing Jr. Living Chicago legend Studs Terkel's oral history, Working,placed 54th.In addition to diversifying its selection committee, the ModernLibrary also guaranteed more variety on its nonfiction list bypermitting no writer to have more than one title on the list. Andeach committee member was allowed to add one book solely of his orher choice.The selection committee included Modern Library board chairmanChristopher Cerf; novelists A.S. Byatt, Charles Johnson, WilliamStyron, Gore Vidal, Caleb Carr and Carolyn See; historians ShelbyFoote, Daniel Boorstin, Ron Chernow, Edmund Morris, ArthurSchlesinger Jr., Elaine Pagels and John Richardson; poet MayaAngelou; paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould; memoirist Mary Karr;adventure writer Jon Krakauer, and Vartan Gregorian, head of theCarnegie Corp.Their No. 1 choice, The Education of Henry Adams, was publishedprivately in 1907. It is a highly personal reflection on history andsociology by a descendent of presidents John Adams and John QuincyAdams.Another reason the nonfiction list won't generate as muchcontroversy is the simple fact that the average reader is lessfamiliar with its selections than the fiction titles.If it raises interest in great books with no "names," the ModernLibrary will achieve one of its stated goals.