What do you think of The Guardian's list of the 100 best novels of all time published in English.

[True Dough]

Here's their top 20:

20 Wuthering Heights
19 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
18 Persuasion
17 One Hundred Years of Solitude
16 Nineteen Eighty-Four
15 Moby-Dick
14 Mrs Dalloway
13 Emma
12 Bleak House
11 The Great Gatsby
10 Madame Bovary
9 Pride and Prejudice
8 Jane Eyre
7 War and Peace
6 Anna Karenina
5 In Search of Lost Time
4 To the Lighthouse
3 Ulysses
2 Beloved
1 Middlemarch

The full list can be found here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time

[hlthe2b]

1. Pretty subjective without any criteria, but at least I've heard of most on the list, albeit not read

that many. I did glance at the top 100 and got a distinct impression a lot of classics should have been there, not to mention some more contemporary, but heralded novels. But, what do I know? I was a science/medicine geek so, outside of an AP English class or two where I had to read the book, those published summaries taught me a lot about literature. LOL

[cachukis]

2. Another list. Read a good number. Conversational.

Who is the greatest songwriter? Left-handed pitcher? Michelin star?
Discussion on these lists is valuable.
Did they study Joseph Heller's attempt to put Catch 22 into every sentence?
Ulysses over Tristram Shandy? Stern at least gave you a laugh.
Gretzky over Orr?
Jordan over Wilt or Wilt over Russell?
The Grand Inquisitor chapter in The Brothers?
Enjoyed the list and memories of my reads.

[LoisB]

3. Agree with some, disagree with others, never heard of some, would have

excluded some, included others and ranked some differently. Overall a pretty good list.

[RockRaven]

4. My first thought: "how very British of them, 3 Austens in the top 20"

I know they said they asked experts from all over, and I love Jane Austen, but that seems a bit much.

Also, they are clearly including translations in "published in English" so the list seems rather thin on contributions from Asia, Africa, South America, and non-Russian Eastern Europe. There are a few, yes, but that is a lot of people who have written a lot of novels to choose from who are scarcely present.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Haven't read any of the soaps. Mostly mine have political or social commentary.

Catch-22 and 1984 stand out.

I read something by Ursual K. LeGuin. It might have been "Left Hand of Darkness", too long ago to recall. Never read another of her books, and I've read tons of SF.

Weren't there two novels by the name of "Invisible Man" ? Or was "The Invisible Man" by H. G. Wells, and "Invisible Man" something else ? Or was there a non-fiction book by that title ?

The Guardian didn't find any pioneering SF worth of that list ? The Time Machine ? War of the Worlds ? No intellectually stimulating, imagination-provoking reads, but lots of weepy emotathons ? No thanks. I prefer to have my intellect and imagination provoked, not my endocrine glands. Seems like half the titles would make Oprah's Book Club, and I don't mean that as a complement.

[Bayard]

6. I've read a number of these,

And just as many that I've always meant to read. Then, others that I'm thinking--say whut?

[Figarosmom]

7. Ive read most of them. Always thought of many of those as highbrow

Romance novels.

[Wiz Imp]

8. Terrible list

No Steinbeck, Twain, Vonnegut, Salinger, tolkien, Hugo, Christie, Hawthorne, Stevenson, Doyle, Poe, Wells and many, many more great writers. Yet they found room for 2 or 3 books from, many if not most of the writers who made the list.

I found this to be a much better list. https://thegreatestbooks.org/

[True Dough]

9. What would your top 3 be, Wiz Imp?

[Wiz Imp]

10. Good question which I find difficult to answer.

I admit I haven't read many books on the Guardian's list. The highest ranked book I've read is The Great Gatsby which I found to be good, though not as great as many people seem to feel about it. I also read Nineteen Eighty Four and Wuthering Heights from the Top 20 and found them to be much better in my opinion to the Great Gatsby. The one on the list that I consider the "best" of those I read is probably Crime and Punishment, though it was a difficult read in High School when I read it.

My biggest issue with the list is the following authors had multiple books on the list:
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
Those 16 authors made up over 40% of the list. It seems to me that it would make more sense to find room for some other authors over a 5th book by Virginia Wolff or a 4th by Austen or Dickens. I understand it was assembled based on votes by authors but I think that didn't end up working real well as the list ended up missing too many great authors.

I did find it interesting that I agree with all 3 books on Stephen King's list that I have read. Carson McCullers' The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

I guess my top 2 favorite/best books I've ever read would be Wise Blood and The Grapes of Wrath, with a lot of contenders for the 3rd spot including those I already mentioned along with Huxley's Brave New World, Orwell's Animal Farm, Salinger's Catcher In The Rye and Franny & Zooey, and Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth and I'm sure several other I'm forgetting right now.

[True Dough]

11. I agree with you

in that the Guardians list is too concentrated among a handful of authors.

[malthaussen]

14. In fairness, Poe was not a novelist. n/t

[LogDog75]

12. The best classic novel I've read is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

I've read the unabridged version, about 1500 pages, three times and I still love it. I saw the play in London in the 90s and own the original CD of the London version of the play,

Book lists are very subjective and often are based upon the bias of the person(s) making the list.

[malthaussen]

13. I've read almost all of them, much to my surprise.

As for my opinion of their status... let's just say I have problems with most Victorian literature, and am not too crazy about a lot of early -20th century works, so I wouldn't rate any of them (that I have read) in the Top 20 except possibly Tristam Shandy, which is hilarious.

-- Mal

[malthaussen]

15. The British reading public would put Christie, Rowling, and Pratchett at the top...

... with repeated entries for both. George MacDonald Fraser might even sneak in there.

But, of course, as we all know, "popularity" >< "greatness."

-- Mal

[Coventina]

16. Emma should rank higher than P&P.

Both are excellent, of course.