author/journalist · 6/10 picks in the top 100
"I'm not a huge fan of lists and even less of ranking, though I realise that the internet loves both. Lists have a way of falsely reifying what – for me anyway – are always somewhat instinctive and arbitrary choices. I could as easily have picked 10 different novels, and when I think back on this list, I will likely have trouble remembering which ones I chose. For that reason, I've limited my list to novels written in English; widening the field beyond that felt too overwhelming, and also raises issues of translation, etc, that complicate things unnecessarily. Also, given that the purpose of this project – which I thoroughly applaud – is to help guide your readers toward novels they might not have encountered, I've tilted my choices toward the past, even the distant past, and suggested some books that I know are less often read in our era of scrolling and choppy concentration. Quasi-arbitrary though my choices may be, I have zero doubt that they will doubly and triply reward the effort required to read them. "
| # | Title | Author | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middlemarch | George Eliot | #1 |
| 2 | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | #9 |
| 3 | Clarissa, Or, the History of a Young Lady | Samuel Richardson | |
| 4 | Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison | #37 |
| 5 | The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman | Laurence Sterne | #19 |
| 6 | To the Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf | #4 |
| 7 | The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison | #75 |
| 8 | Underworld | Don DeLillo | |
| 9 | Barchester Towers | Anthony Trollope | |
| 10 | The House of Mirth | Edith Wharton |
Voters with the most books in common.