[tstenner]

That makes it sound like 50 shades of grey would have had a 50/50 chance of getting into the top 100 if it only was included in the wider selection

[hammock]

Obviously 50/50 if random. But even if not random, I estimate 50 Shades would be 500-100,000 times more likely to be a book of the century using a list of 200 with it in it, vs an unaided open ended survey.

[onli]

If the question is "which book stuck in your mind" maybe it would've had a good chance to be listed as #1?