The 100 Greatest British Novels

[KEV67]

As worked out by foreign book critics and academics for the BBC in 2015:

linky

What did you think? I thought it was quite an interesting and varied selection. For me it had four too many books by Virginia Woolf. I have read all the top twenty except for The Waves by V.W. My favourite remains Great Expectations. Next might be Tom Jones. I have read forty-six overall.

[Bel-ami]

I've only read 20 of these, but have quite a few on my TBR list.

 

I agree totally - there are 4 too many books by Virginia Woolf! I battled through To The Lighthouse and won't ever read any more.

[France]

I've read quite a lot of those, however whoever compiled the list doesn't appear to be able to count! The Chronicles of Narnia comprises seven books, the Forsythe Saga three and A Dance to the Music of Time is a 12 book series!

Sorry to be pedantic!

 

And the list was compiled by book critics, probably by the same sort of person who says they will be reading Proust on holiday when in fact they have the latest Lee Child (on the Kindle of course so they can't be caught out).

Edited September 8, 2022 by France

[willoyd]

Well I have to disagree with both Bel-ami and Kev: those Woolf books thoroughly deserve to be in the top 100 IMO. I'd also agree with the no.1 being Middlemarch.  Personally, Bleak House rates above Great Expectations, which I rate below David Copperfield too.  Dombey and Son as the 4th best Dickens? Not a chance! I think they got Hardy wrong too - I much prefer Far From the Madding Crowd to Mayor of Casterbridge.  And as for Emma being down at 19 - ridiculous!  An interesting and reasonably fair list, even if I have inevitably some (sometimes strong!) disagreements! 

 

On those series, France, doing that, they are generally perceived as complete entities. They may strictly be separate books, but they are complete wholes. After all, Lord of the Rings is 3 separate volumes, as is His Dark Materials. I would certainly nominate Dance to the Music of Time or The Forsyte Saga as one title.  I actually don't think you'd catch most of the people who chose those books reading Lee Child - but then I can't abide his books, and certainly wouldn't let him anywhere near my Kindle!

 

I've read exactly half the books.

Edited September 6, 2022 by willoyd

[Madeleine]

The Forsyte Saga is actually 9 books in total!

[Bel-ami]

These lists always lead to some disagreements! But they can be fun and act as a reminder or as an introduction to books to be read.

 

I must get round to reading Middlemarch...and where on the list are Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss? 🙂

[Hayley]

On 9/6/2022 at 4:49 PM, France said:

however whoever compiled the list doesn't appear to be able to count! The Chronicles of Narnia comprises seven books, the Forsythe Saga three and A Dance to the Music of Time is a 12 book series!

 

21 hours ago, willoyd said:

they are generally perceived as complete entities. They may strictly be separate books, but they are complete wholes.

Agree that I've seen them listed like this before (or at least the Chronicles of Narnia), so it does seem t be generally accepted... but I also agree with France that it seems a bit of a cheat! Some of the Chronicles of Narnia books are very clearly better than others, for example! And I personally prefer to ignore the existence of the last one 😅

 

21 hours ago, willoyd said:

Dombey and Son as the 4th best Dickens? Not a chance!

Thoroughly agree with this statement though 

[Madeleine]

I agree, the last Narnia book is awful.

[France]

On 9/7/2022 at 1:47 AM, willoyd said:

 

 

I actually don't think you'd catch most of the people who chose those books reading Lee Child - but then I can't abide his books, and certainly wouldn't let him anywhere near my Kindle!

 

I've read exactly half the books.

Ahem! I've read both Lee Child and a lot of the books on that list too!

 

I would respectfully disagree about counting those series as one book - the Chronicles of Narni

[France]

On 9/7/2022 at 1:47 AM, willoyd said:

 

 

On. I would certainly nominate Dance to the Music of Time or The Forsyte Saga as one title.  I actually don't think you'd catch most of the people who chose those books reading Lee Child - but then I can't abide his books, and certainly wouldn't let him anywhere near my Kindle!

 

I've read exactly half the books.

Ahem! I've read 46 on the list that I'm sure off including several of the books in A Dance to the Music of Time and a lot of Lee Childs so I think there's a good chance you would find book critics happily indulging in trash even though they won't admit it.  I had a very interesting discussion with an editor at Mills and Boon once about the demographics of their readers and there was an astonishingly high proportion of graduates who read more than one M & B a week even though the general perception if that it's the barely educated who read those books.

 

I would respectfully disagree about counting some of those series as one title, The Lord of the Rings is obviously one work split up into three volumes, none of them are complete entities in their own right, however His Dark Materials is three entirely separate books which are linked but still stand alone. You might well ask why Trollope is listed for Barchester Towers and not for the whole of the Barchester chronicles. Old Filth is the beginning of a trilogy that's linked just as closely as the three parts of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. Etc, etc.

 

 

[Madeleine]

I don't think the Dark Materials could be read as stand alones, especially the last one -  I don't think you'd be able to read that without having read the first two.  

[Raven]

1 hour ago, Madeleine said:

I don't think the Dark Materials could be read as stand alones, especially the last one -  I don't think you'd be able to read that without having read the first two.  

 

Agreed, they are not stand alone books, it's one story told over three volumes - like The Lord of the Rings.

 

It's a pretty predictable list, but I've only read four and one third of the books listed,

 

[willoyd]

On 9/8/2022 at 10:23 AM, France said:

Ahem! I've read 46 on the list that I'm sure off including several of the books in A Dance to the Music of Time and a lot of Lee Childs so I think there's a good chance you would find book critics happily indulging in trash even though they won't admit it.  I had a very interesting discussion with an editor at Mills and Boon once about the demographics of their readers and there was an astonishingly high proportion of graduates who read more than one M & B a week even though the general perception if that it's the barely educated who read those books.

 

I didn't say Lee Child was trash!  One person's 'trash' is very much another person's pleasure.  I just don't like Lee Child (or most other so-called thrillers) - more to do with the genre than the author..  I'm not a great crime reader either, although there are very distinct exceptions (Donna Leon being one).  I also have a massive penchant for Georgette Heyer - not quite M&B, but regarded by many as not far off.  So you're probably right (my dislike of those sort of books got in the way of appreciating others would)!  But whilst I really enjoy these writers, individual books don't really live with me in the same way that, say, Middlemarch does, but then I can't read those sorts of books all the time (like a very rich pudding, I enjoy them in smaller doses).

 

Raven says it's predictable.  The thing about this list is it isn't an individual's list, it's a distllation/average of a larger number of views, so yes, agree, it's likely to be that.  For instance, my list would be topped by JL Carr's 'A Month In The Country', a book I think is every bit as good as many of those listed. But it won't feature on many people's lists.  What this represents are books that are widely highly regarded.   I do agree though with Bel-ami: where's Silas Marner and Mill On The Floss?!

 

I think the thing about conflating those volumes is it stops them dominating a list.  I remember when the BBC (I think it was) polled a list of favourites, and a high proportion of the list was dominated by individual Harry Potter volumes.  Basically people were saying they liked Harry Potter. In the same way, I list the Aubrey-Maturin series of books (Patrick O'Brian) as one on my list of favourites.  And one does that recognising that some volumes are better than others.  (And yes, that last Chronicle is pretty awful!).  I loved the Barchester chronicles, but Towers did stand out for me.  I remember His Dark Materials as one series, effectively one continuous novel.

 

Best thing about these lists though is the discussion about them, and often the list of books that aren't included!

 

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by willoyd

[lunababymoonchild]

On 9/8/2022 at 10:23 AM, France said:

Ahem! I've read 46 on the list that I'm sure off including several of the books in A Dance to the Music of Time and a lot of Lee Childs so I think there's a good chance you would find book critics happily indulging in trash even though they won't admit it.  I had a very interesting discussion with an editor at Mills and Boon once about the demographics of their readers and there was an astonishingly high proportion of graduates who read more than one M & B a week even though the general perception if that it's the barely educated who read those books.

If my experience of University is anything to go by - and I started when I was 27 - I watched a lot of the soap opera Neighbours when at University. I was so tired studying and needed a break and Neighbours wasn't hard to follow and deadly dull (IMHO) not to mention short. I left it feeling refreshed and ready to carry on. If your taste is Mills and Boon then that's your taste but if it's popular with graduates then it's probably because they are easy to read,  distracting and not time consuming.

 

Lists are always divisive and while I like reading them I don't pay any attention to them.  How many on that list have I read? Dunno and I don't care. As it turns out I am reading Jack Reacher (the first book) at my father's recommendation, he loves them and is reading the same book on paper at my recommendation! I'm about 10 chapters in and it's not what I'd call the greatest read I've ever had but it's not bad enough for me to abandon it either, so I will finish it even although at more than 500 pages long it's quite a time commitment. I doubt I'll read the whole series, then again I never know.

Edited September 10, 2022 by lunababymoonchild
correct dodgy typing

[KEV67]

Surprised I Claudius was not on the list. I read it in my early 20s and I thought it was a superb book, as was Claudius the God. I think George MacDonald Fraser was an underrated writer. IMO Mr American was his best book in literary terms, but he wrote lots of great books.

[KEV67]

Regarding Lee Child, I have always found his books enjoyable, although literature, I dunno. Still, crime fiction gets pretty fanciful these days.

[Hayley]

I just checked and I've read 25. Some of my favourites are in there - I love David Copperfield (although I do think Bleak House is technically the better book, as in the most impressive demonstration of Dickens' writing), The Woman in White, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and His Dark Materials. 

 

I think the latter should be read in order to really understand what's happening and why, but I do remember the last book having a very different feel to it because of the different settings.