I was asked recently to list my top 100 books to date, and it was such a difficult thing to do that I decided to write it down and publish the finished article. I must ask that you forgive any philistinliness… philistinility… ignorance – I have not read everything, of course, but I still have my favourites and they are thus (and in no particular order, because that’s just too bloody difficult):
1. Midnight’s Children, Salmon Rushdie
2. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
3. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
4. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
5. The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
6. House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
7. 1984, George Orwell
8. Dracula, Bram Stoker
9. Women in Love, D H Lawrence
10. Humboldt’s Gift, Saul Bellow
11. The Women’s Room, Marilyn French
12. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
13. The Secret History, Donna Tart
14. Darkmans, Nicola Barker
15. Valley of the Dolls, Jaqueline Suzanne
16. Rosemary’s Baby, Ira Levin
17. War of the Worlds, H G Wells
18. Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jules Verne
19. Catcher in the Rye, J D Salinger
20. Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
21. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
22. A Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
23. Gaslight Sonatas, Fannie Hurst
24. Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh
25. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
26. Howard’s End, E M Forster
27. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
28. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
29. Lord of the Rings, J R R Tolkein
30. The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood
31. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (or The Handmaid’s Tale. Can’t make up mind)
32. The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing
33. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
34. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
35. Dune, Frank Herbert
36. Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
37. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
38. A Spy in the House of Love, Anais Nin
39. What Happened to the Corbetts, Neville Shute
40. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
41. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
42. Ragtime, E L Doctorow
43. The History of Danish Dreams, Peter Hoeg
44. Beloved, Toni Morrison
45. White Oleander, Janet Fitch
46. Island, Jane Rogers
47. The Virgin Blue, Tracy Chevlier
48. Swimming Sweet Arrow, Maureen Gibbon
49. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
50. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
51. Sabbath’s Theatre, Philip Roth
52. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
53. Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
54. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
55. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
56. The Belljar, Sylvia Plath
57. The Remains of the Day, Kashuo Ishiguro
58. Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis
59. Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathanial West
60. The Passion of New Eve, Angela Carter
61. Trumpet, Jackie Kay
62. A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, Julian Barnes
63. The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
64. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
65. Butcher Boy, Pat McCabe
67. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
68. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
69. Bridget Jones’ Diary, Helen Fielding
70. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
71. The Rotters’ Club, Johnathan Coe
72. Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
73. The Wooden Overcoat, Pamela Branch
74. Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K Jerome
75. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
76. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
77. Bear V. Shark, Chris Bachelder
78. The Wrong Boy, Willy Russell
79. Vurt, Jeff Noon
80. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
81. Ghostwritten, David Mitchell
82. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
83. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
84. Disgrace, J M Coetzee
85. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
86. Carter Beats the Devil, Glen David Gold
87. Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
88. Anne Frank’s Diary
89. Love and Darkness, Amos Oz
90. Everything is Illuminated, Johnathan Saffran Foer
91. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
92. The Scarlett Letter, Nathanial Hawthorn
93. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
94. The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory
95. Northern Lights Trilogy, Philip Pullman
96. Clock without Hands, Carson McCullers
97. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
98. Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
99. Wicked, Gregory McGuire
100. The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer
I had no idea how hard writing this list would be. I mean, what do I do with things like Someset Maugham’s The Magician and everything else that Margaret Atwood’s written? Oh, Alias Grace hasn’t made it to the list and yet it’s fantastic. Gormenghast and I haven’t even mentioned Terry Pratchett, or PG Wodehouse!
And, what do I do about graphic novels? Daytrippers, Maus, Blue is the Warmest Colour. Jeeze – it’s a good job my life doesn’t depend on this list.
Feel free to point out any gaping holes and tell me your favourite reads – I’m always looking for a good book.
