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Those “100 Best Novels of All Time”

Posted in Literature with tags , , on May 17, 2026 by telescoper

As it does from time to time, The Grauniad has compiled a list of what it claims are the best somethings. This time it was novels. The full list with an explanation of how the list was compiled, clickable links to comments and pictures of the book covers can be found here, but I’ve reproduced a simplified version below:

1. Middlemarch – George Eliot
2. Beloved – Toni Morrison
3. Ulysses – James Joyce
4. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
5. In Search of Lost Time – Marcel Proust
6. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
7. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
8. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
9. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
10. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
11. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
13. Emma – Jane Austen
14. Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
15. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
16. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
17. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
18. Persuasion – Jane Austen
19. Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
20. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
21. The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
22. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
23. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
24. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
25. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
26. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
27. The Trial – Franz Kafka
28. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
29. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
30. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
31. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
32. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
33. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
34. Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
35. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
36. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
37. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
38. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
39. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
40. Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
41. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
42. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
43. Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson
44. Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
45. The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
46. The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
47. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
48. The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
49. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
50. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
51. My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
52. The Golden Bowl – Henry James
53. The Transit of Venus – Shirley Hazzard
54. Orlando – Virginia Woolf
55. The Waves – Virginia Woolf
56. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
57. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
58. Disgrace – J. M. Coetzee
59. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
60. Howards End – E.M. Forster
61. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
62. Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
63. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
64. The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
65. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
66. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
67. The Man Without Qualities – Rubert Musil
68. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
69. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
70. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
71. Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
72. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
73. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
74. Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
75. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
76. Dracula – Bram Stoker
77. The Rainbow – DH Lawrence
78. A House for Mr Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
79. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
80. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
81. Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
82. The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
83. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
84. The Talented Mr Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
85. The Vegetarian – Han Kang
86. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
87. The Line of Beauty – Alan Hollinghurst
88. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
89. The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
90. Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
91. Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman
92. Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
93. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
94. The Known World – Edward P. Jones
95. The Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
96. Pedro Páramo – Juan Rulfo
97. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
98. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
99. The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
100. My Ántonia – Willa Cather

Such lists are a bit silly, except for the fact that they might encourage people (including myself) to read more books, which is a good thing. I wouldn’t compile a ranking myself as I don’t think of books in terms of league tables. “Best” according to what criterion? I don’t see how you can sensibly compare very different types of novel or novels from very different eras. Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist counting how many books on the list I have read. If you want to know the answer, it is 42. I’ll let you guess which ones.

I have read the Number 1 novel, Middlemarch and, although I thought it was very good, it surprises me to find it at the top of the list, above Ulysses The highest-ranked book I haven’t read is No. 2, Beloved. There are several others on the list that I’ve never even heard of let alone read. The only book on the list that I did at school was No. 78. A House for Mr Biswas, which I didn’t think was all that great. I’ve been meaning to read Tristram Shandy (No. 19) but I think I’ll get that out of the library rather than buying it.

To save you counting, here are the authors with multiple entries:

5 – Virginia Woolf
4 – Jane Austen
4 – Charles Dickens
3 – Henry James
3 – Toni Morrison
2 – James Baldwin
2 – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 – Gustave Flaubert
2 – Thomas Hardy
2 – Kazuo Ishiguro
2 – Franz Kafka
2 – Thomas Mann
2 – Cormac McCarthy
2 – Vladimir Nabokov
2 – W.G. Sebald
2 – Leo Tolstoy

I haven’t read anything by either Sebald or McCarthy or Flaubert. Among the omissions that surprised me are The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway, The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I’m not saying that any or all of these would be on my list, just that I’m surprised they don’t appear on the Guardian‘s.

If anyone would like to comment – perhaps with other notable omissions or novels that are on the list but you feel shouldn’t be – please feel free to do so through the box below.

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The Columbine – Jones Very

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on May 10, 2026 by telescoper
Columbine (Aquilegia Vulgaris)
Still, still my eye will gaze long fixed on thee,
Till I forget that I am called a man,
And at thy side fast-rooted seem to be,
And the breeze comes my cheek with thine to fan.
Upon this craggy hill our life shall pass,
A life of summer days and summer joys,
Nodding our honey-bells mid pliant grass
In which the bee half hid his time employs;
And here we'll drink with thirsty pores the rain,
And turn dew-sprinkled to the rising sun,
And look when in the flaming west again
His orb across the heaven its path has run;
    Here left in darkness on the rocky steep,
    My weary eyes shall close like folding flowers in sleep.

by Jones Very (1813-1880)

P.S. In the picture (from my garden), the colour of the flowers looks a bit strange – probably because it was very sunny. In reality they look more purple.

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Belial Speaks…

Posted in Poetry, Television with tags , , , , , , on April 7, 2026 by telescoper

This is an excerpt from Book 2 of Paradise Lost by John Milton. Belial (a fallen angel) is speaking at a “Consultation” held in Pandemonium chaired by Satan (i.e. a meeting of the local Governing Authority):

I should be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope
Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.
First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable: oft on the bordering Deep
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,
Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
With blackest insurrection to confound
Heaven’s purest light, yet our great Enemy,
All incorruptible, would on his throne
Sit unpolluted, and th’ ethereal mould,
Incapable of stain, would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate
Th’ Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;
And that must end us; that must be our cure—
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry Foe
Can give it, or will ever? How he can
Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence or unaware,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger whom his anger saves
To punish endless? “Wherefore cease we, then?”
Say they who counsel war; “we are decreed,
Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse?” Is this, then, worst—
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What when we fled amain, pursued and struck
With Heaven’s afflicting thunder, and besought
The Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed
A refuge from those wounds. Or when we lay
Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames; or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? What if all
Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Or racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse.
War, therefore, open or concealed, alike
My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile
With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye
Views all things at one view? He from Heaven’s height
All these our motions vain sees and derides,
Not more almighty to resist our might
Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.
Shall we, then, live thus vile—the race of Heaven
Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here
Chains and these torments? Better these than worse,
By my advice; since fate inevitable
Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
The Victor’s will. To suffer, as to do,
Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust
That so ordains. This was at first resolved,
If we were wise, against so great a foe
Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.
I laugh when those who at the spear are bold
And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear
What yet they know must follow—to endure
Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,
The sentence of their Conqueror. This is now
Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,
Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit
His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,
Not mind us not offending, satisfied
With what is punished; whence these raging fires
Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.
Our purer essence then will overcome
Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;
Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed
In temper and in nature, will receive
Familiar the fierce heat; and, void of pain,
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
Besides what hope the never-ending flight
Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
Worth waiting—since our present lot appears
For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe.

I’ve posted this here not only because it seems topical, but also because it contains a phrase associated with a TV drama series that I’ve been watching on DVD. Feel free to offer a guess of the name of the series through the comments box.

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The first Day’s Night had come – Emily Dickinson

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , on April 1, 2026 by telescoper 
The first Day's Night had come—
And grateful that a thing
So terrible—had been endured—
I told my Soul to sing—

She said her Strings were snapt—
Her Bow—to Atoms blown—
And so to mend her—gave me work
Until another Morn—

And then—a Day as huge
As Yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face—
Until it blocked my eyes—

My Brain—begun to laugh—
I mumbled—like a fool—
And tho' 'tis Years ago—that Day—
My Brain keeps giggling—still.

And Something's odd—within—
That person that I was—
And this One—do not feel the same—
Could it be Madness—this?

by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

(A discussion of the connection between this poem and an April Fool’s Day prank that went terribly wrong, can be found here.)

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March – William Cullen Bryant

Posted in Maynooth, Poetry with tags , , on March 27, 2026 by telescoper
Magnolia and Daffodils in St Joseph’s Square Maynooth
The stormy March is come at last, 
With wind and cloud, and changing skies, 
I hear the rushing of the blast, 
That through the snowy valley flies. 
 
Ah, passing few are they who speak, 
Wild stormy month! in praise of thee; 
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, 
Thou art a welcome month to me. 
 
For thou, to northern lands, again 
The glad and glorious sun dost bring, 
And thou hast joined the gentle train 
And wear’st the gentle name of Spring. 
 
And, in thy reign of blast and storm, 
Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, 
When the changed winds are soft and warm, 
And heaven puts on the blue of May. 
 
Then sing aloud the gushing rills 
And the full springs, from frost set free, 
That, brightly leaping down the hills, 
Are just set out to meet the sea. 
 
The year’s departing beauty hides 
Of wintry storms the sullen threat; 
But in thy sternest frown abides 
A look of kindly promise yet. 
 
Thou bring’st the hope of those calm skies, 
And that soft time of sunny showers, 
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies, 
Seems of a brighter world than ours.

by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

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From the Study Break…

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth, Poetry with tags , , , , , on March 22, 2026 by telescoper

So now after a half-term mid-semester study break, including one day of actual holiday, that was both pleasant and eventful it will soon be time to return to the fray, at least for 9 working days. A full week of lectures, labs and tutorials starts tomorrow but the following week end a day early, on Thursday 2nd April, because 3rd April is Good Friday. Campus is closed then, as it is on Easter Monday and there are no lectures for the rest of that week. I’ll miss a lecture on Good Friday. I’m sure the students will be distraught, but that’s the way of things.

Anyway, with the Eastertide coming in and yesterday being World Poetry Day I thought I’d share a couple of pictures (taken two days apart) of the Japanese cherry trree in my back garden along with this haiku on a theme by A.E. Housman:

Loveliest of trees?
Not yet, but soon there will be
Bloom along the bough...

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A Dream of the Unknown – Percy Bysshe Shelley

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , on March 19, 2026 by telescoper 
I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—
Its mother's face with Heaven's collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may,
And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,
Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white,
And starry river buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!—Oh! to whom?

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

(This poem, also known as The Question, was first published in 1822 (the year of Shelley’s death) although it was probably written earlier, probably in 1820, while the poet was living in Italy.)

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R.I.P. Len Deighton (1929-2026)

Posted in Literature, R.I.P. with tags , , , on March 18, 2026 by telescoper

With all the excitement yesterday I missed the news that novelist Len Deighton had passed away (at the age of 97). I learnt from his obituary that he began his career as an illustrator and cartoonist, but he is far more famous as an excellent writer, especially of spy stories. The IPCRESS File (left) is one of my favourite novels in this genre.

It’s superbly written in a very down-to-earth fashion, and as a result far more credible than the more famous James Bond stories of Ian Fleming. In my opinion Deighton was a far better writer than Fleming. The IPCRESS File was in fact, Deighton’s first espionage novel, written in 1962, and the first appearance of Harry Palmer. Deighton was roughly contemporary with John le Carré though the characters of Harry Palmer and George Smiley could hardly be more different!

I found the copy shown above on my shelves and must read it again. Funeral in Berlin is another cracker, but I can’t find my copy. I probably lent it to someone and never got it back…

Rest in peace, Len Deighton (1929-2026)

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Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh go léir!

Posted in History, Literature, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on March 17, 2026 by telescoper

Well, it’s St Patrick’s Day, which means I’m on holiday. I’ll soon be toddling off to watch the parade in Maynooth, which passes quite close to my house. In accord with tradition, it’s very cold today – and not a little windy – but at least it’s not raining.

Not many facts are known about the life of St Patrick, but it seems he was born in Britain, probably in the late 4th Century AD, probably somewhere around the Severn Estuary and possibly in Wales. It also appears that he didn’t know any Latin. When a young man, it seems he was captured by Celtic marauders coming up the River Severn and taken as a slave to Ireland. He eventually escaped back to Britain, but returned to Ireland as a missionary and succeeded somehow in converting the Irish people to Christianity.

Or did he? This interesting piece suggests his role was of lesser importance than many think. On the other hand, if even a fraction of what is said about him is true, then he must have been a very remarkable man.

However it happened, Ireland was the first country to be converted to Christianity that had never been part of the Roman Empire. That made a big difference to the form of the early Irish Church. The local Celtic culture was very loose and decentralized. There were no cities, large buildings, roads or other infrastructure. Life revolved around small settlements and farms. When wars were fought they were generally over livestock or grazing land. The church that grew in this environment was quite different from that of continental Europe. It was not centralized, revolved around small churches and monasteries, and lacked the hierarchical structure of the Roman Church. Despite these differences, Ireland was well connected with the rest of the Christian world.

Irish monks – and the wonderful illuminated manuscripts they created – spread across the continent, starting with Scotland and Britain. Thanks to the attentions of the Vikings few of these works survive but the wonderful Lindisfarne Gospels, dating from somewhere in the 8th Century were almost certainly created by Irish monks. The Book of Kells was probably created in Scotland by Irish Monks.

The traffic wasn’t entirely one-way however. A while ago I saw a fascinating documentary about the Fadden More Psalter. This is a leather-bound book of Psalms found in a peat bog in 2006, which is of similar age to the Lindisfarne Gospels. It took years of painstaking restoration work to recover at least part of the text (much of which was badly degraded), but the leather binding turned out to hold a particularly fascinating secret: it was lined with papyrus. The only other books from the same period with the same structure that are known are from the Coptic Church in Egypt. That doesn’t mean that whoever owned the Fadden More Psalter had actually been to Egypt, of course. It is much more this book made its way to Ireland via a sort of relay race. On the other hand, it does demonstrate that international connections were probably more extensive than you might have thought.

Anyway, back to St Patrick’s Day.

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17th, the reputed date of his death in 461 AD. Nobody really knows where St Patrick was born,, and the when of his birth isn’t known either.

In any case, it wasn’t until the 17th Century that Saint Patrick’s feast day was placed on the universal liturgical calendar in the Catholic Church. Indeed, St Patrick has never been formally canonized. In the thousand years that passed any memory of the actual date of his birth was probably lost, so the choice of date was probably influenced by other factors, specifically the proximity of the Spring Equinox (which is this year on Saturday March 20th).

The early Christian church in Ireland incorporated many pre-Christian traditions that survived until roughly the 12th century, including the ancient festival of Ēostre (or Ostara), the goddess of spring associated with the spring equinox after whom Easter is named. During this festival, eggs were used a symbol of rebirth and the beginning of new life and a hare or rabbit was the symbol of the goddess and fertility. In turn the Celtic people of Ireland probably adapted their own beliefs to absorb much older influences dating back to the stone age. St Patrick’s Day and Easter therefore probably both have their roots in prehistoric traditions around the Spring Equinox, although the direct connection has long been lost.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh go léir!

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Crows in Spring – John Clare

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 6, 2026 by telescoper
Four Hooded Crows; Photo by Sound Designer S.K Pramanik on Pexels.com
The Crow will tumble up and down
At the first sight of spring
And in old trees around the town
Brush winter from its wing

No longer flapping far away
To naked fen they fly,
Chill fare as on a winter’s day,
But field and valley nigh;

Where swains are stirring out to plough
And woods are just at hand,
They seek the upland’s sunny brow
And strut from land to land,

And often flap their sooty wing
And sturt to neighbouring tree,
And seem to try all ways to sing
And almost speak in glee.

The ploughman hears and turns his head
Above to wonder why;
And there a new nest nearly made
Proclaims the winter by.

by John Clare (1793-1864)

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