what makes a good book and does anyone know any good websites for literary criteria ?

Question

what makes a good book and does anyone know any good websites for literary criteria and professional literary critics

Answer 1

Well, many theories are set up for what makes a book good:
1)Popularity - how many people have read it (which is the lamest reason for calling a book good)
2)Subject Matter - story line, is it offensive or not? does the story flow? can the story be applied to today's world?
3)Opinion - kinda like Ebert & Roper for the book world (http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html) gives a good example of how opinion of people differ.
4)Audience - books meant for children are more likely to be better liked by children, while books meant for women (such as romance novels) are more likely to be better liked by women.
Mostly, you cannot go by someone else's word alone. Books are meant to touch some people, but very few books are universal.

(www.overbooked.com) is a fairly good site. It gives a list of different sites to check out for literary criteria. Just click on the link marked Reader's Advisory Resources.