Key events<\/p>\n
We\u2019re going to stop there but thank you for all the considered questions and your interest in the 100 best novels project. If you\u2019re looking for inspiration beyond that on what to read next, tomorrow morning we\u2019ll launch our annual summer reads special.
Thank you!<\/p>\n
Liese and David<\/p>\n
Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a009.44 EDT<\/p>\n 19th century or now? When was the golden age of the novel?<\/p>\n Ghughz<\/a> asks: Is there a \u2018golden age\u2019 or \u2018best\u2019 decade of books?<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: I don\u2019t think it\u2019s controversial to say that for novels there was a golden age from the late 18th to the 19th century \u2013 a fact that\u2019s reflected in our top 100 list which features a lot of Dickens and Austen \u2026 but then the 20th century \u2013 from James Joyce to Toni Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marquez – wasn\u2019t bad either. And what about the works of Hilary Mantel, Kazuo Ishiguro and Marylinne Robinson in this century? Impossible to choose. It\u2019s all golden!<\/p>\n Was Colombian writer and Nobel prize for literature winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez part of a golden wave of 20th century novels? Photograph: Ulf Andersen\/Getty ImagesShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a009.50 EDT<\/p>\n What are the future classics?<\/p>\n Gavernism<\/a> asks: I was genuinely glad that top 100 reflected a little bit more of the last 50 years. I remember seeing similar lists a decade ago that only reflected 19th century literature. I cannot help but feel this list will have quite a few additions during the next decade because of the period we are living in. I look forward to the novels \u2013 in whatever genre \u2013 that will reflect how our feelings have changed since the Covid pandemic, the rise of Trump and the growing chorus warning the approach of war.<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: Yes I\u2019d say that the top of the list was still maybe a little more canonical than I expected but that it was refreshing to have Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and The Vegetarian by Han Kang. There are many brilliant contemporary novels responding to the climate emergency that I would hope make a future list.<\/p>\n The top 100 included more recent classics such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u2019s Half a Yellow SunShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a009.39 EDT<\/p>\n Is reading books doomed in an age of screen addiction?<\/p>\n mesm<\/a> asks: Is there any way to help younger people back into reading and away from their phones? I\u2019m 40 and I was an avid reader but I was addicted to my phone and didnt really read for about 10 years. I\u2019m coming out of it now (although here I am) and I feel like an alcoholic in recovery. If it was so hard for me, an ex-readaholic, how difficult will literature be for the digital natives?<\/p>\n double quotation markDavid: This is a big worry. I think there are a couple of issues here: one is that time spent on phones is a massive opportunity cost \u2013 not just for reading, but for all sorts of things. Simply put, if you\u2019re on your phone scrolling, you\u2019re not socialising\/making something\/going for a walk\/reading a book. Then there\u2019s the after-effects of that time spent on your phone \u2013 your capacity for sustained attention is going to be shot, especially if you\u2019ve mainly been consuming short-form, high-intensity video clips. This is why the discussions about limiting young people\u2019s access to phones and social media are of huge interest to people who care about reading.<\/p>\n In the UK there\u2019s now going to be a statutory ban<\/a> on phones in school, and there\u2019s talk of a social media ban for under 16s. Those might help. But smartphones are clearly having huge effects on our behaviour in ways that make it hard to predict what the longer term consequences will be. Glimmers of hope? Audiobooks make \u201creading\u201d easy and accessible on devices; social platforms can make communities of readers more likely to find each other and can result in huge bursts of enthusiasm (see: BookTok). But of course you have to acquire the habit in the first place.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re on your phone scrolling, you\u2019re not socialising\/making something\/going for a walk\/reading a book Photograph: OcusFocus\/Getty Images\/iStockphotoShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a009.04 EDT<\/p>\n Were any books banned?<\/p>\n Pickaxe<\/a> asks: I thought that it was a pretty intelligent list. And I was especially pleased to see that major authors weren\u2019t excluded because some of their views or writing offend some modern sensibilities. Were there any books that the panel considered WERE beyond the pale and so were excluded?<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: No novels or writers were excluded from the list \u2013 what you see is what our critics, authors and academics voted for – although I imagine that such considerations may have influenced some of their choices.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a009.47 EDT<\/p>\n What makes us want to finish a book?<\/p>\n Jerry 26 asks<\/a>: The best books tick all the boxes. If there are noted weaknesses in setting, characters, dialogue, plot, and the author hasn\u2019t addressed it after 100-150 pages, I\u2019m done. UNLESS there\u2019s an unusual plot with subtle foreshadowing! What is it that makes us want to finish a story?<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: For me it\u2019s a compelling narrative, engaging characters and fantastic writing (so not asking much) but that can come in any form. I love a page-turning thriller (and would never read the end first as novelist and Celebrity Traitor Harriet Tice revealed that she does at Hay festival) but I can be equally riveted by a dreamy, immersive novel like Marilynne Robinson\u2019s Housekeeping which cast such a hypnotic spell I never wanted it to end.<\/p>\n Marilynne Robinson\u2019s spellbinding novels keep you reading to the last pageShare<\/a>Too much Austen not enough Conrad?<\/p>\n PurpleCanary<\/a> asks: This will make me sound like an angry man but four or was it five Jane Austen books? A talented but limited writer who didn\u2019t venture beyond a certain familiar milieu. By contrast only one Conrad \u2013 no Nostromo, for example \u2013 and not one Patrick White? The Tree of Man, for starters.<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: As someone who put Jane Austen\u2019s Emma as their no.1 book I\u2019d have to disagree with you about Austen, and celebrate the genius of her \u201ctwo inches of ivory\u201d. The top 100 reflects the choices of our voters but also inevitably the fashions now – so no Patrick White but no William Golding or Iris Murdoch either \u2026<\/p>\n How much is too much Jane Austen? Photograph: Patti McConville\/AlamyShare<\/a>Terry Pratchett was missing. How about a list of top authors?<\/p>\n Alex42<\/a> asks: Would you ever do a favourite authors list, as opposed to favourite books? Terry Pratchett was noticeable by his absence from both lists, but this could be because he doesn\u2019t have a book that\u2019s agreed by general consensus to be his best. Therefore the vote was probably split. This would apply to many other authors too, so it would be interesting to see how the list would work out.<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: I agree that if it had been favourite authors it would probably have produced a different list (which might have included Stephen King, Douglas Adams and Martin Amis as well as Terry Pratchett). Though we did have multiple entries for Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I\u2019m not sure we\u2019d do a separate list, but do check out our Where to Start With<\/a> \u2026 and Ranked!<\/a> columns for more focused takes on the works of individual authors.<\/p>\n Readers were disappointed that Terry Pratchett did not feature in the top 100 Illustration: Guardian Design, Martyn Goodacre\/Getty ImagesShare<\/a>What about female writers and global south?<\/p>\n Jotierney<\/a> asks: Anything that gets people talking about and discovering new books is great but I felt a standard best 100 list misses out on how the world of literature is evolving. I would love to see you do a companion list which would help people discover less well known but equally influential and important authors, and highlight the contributions of more female writers and those from beyond the global north. While I love many of the books on the list and see them all as important, it felt stale, predictable and does not represent the current state of literature. Would you consider an alternative 100 list?<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: I think a list of the greatest novels of all time is probably always going to be canon-heavy. Having said that there were some in our top 100 such as Pedro Paramo and The Known World that I didn\u2019t know and am really looking forward to discovering. Others such as Ragtime and The Left Hand of Darkness I was reminded to put to the top of my reading pile \u2026 And watch this space for some alternative lists.<\/p>\n Our top 100 included lesser know books such as Pedro P\u00e1ramo by Juan Rulfo, a classic of Mexican modern literature about a haunted village Photograph: webShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a008.37 EDT<\/p>\n Would ‘favourite’ or ‘greatest’ have created a different top 100?<\/p>\n Escoppycoppy<\/a> asks: What was the actual question you asked the contributors? Did you ask for \u201cbest\u201d novels, \u201cgreatest\u201d, \u201cfavourite\u201d? The wording would influence the choices eg \u201cgreatest\u201d primes people to think of big, ambitious books, \u2018best\u2019 less so. \u201cFavourite\u201d would be very different- more personal choices, possibly children\u2019s books. I think \u201cfavourite\u201d would have produced a very different final list. Might even be a good follow-up?<\/p>\n double quotation markDavid: The wording said we were looking for the \u201cbest novels of all time published in English\u201d, asking for contributors for the \u201ctop 10\u201d. It was interesting to see how different people responded to that and I\u2019m not sure if anyone set their own favourites entirely to one side \u2013 a completely dispassionate assessment is probably impossible and not really the point. A lot of the comments we received, which are really interesting and you can explore by clicking on the individual voters on the novel list, suggest that it was a combination of critical merit and personal significance.<\/p>\n Benjamin Myers, for example, said \u201cI have chosen 10 titles that I feel have advanced what it is the novel can \u2013 and should \u2013 do, while also taking into consideration the influence each has had on my own reading enjoyment and writing career\u201d.<\/p>\n Tom Crewe\u2019s guiding rule \u201cwas to choose the books that have left the strongest impression in my memory\u201d. I agree, if we\u2019d gone simply for \u201cfavourites\u201d that would probably have produced a different kind of list \u2013 with each top 10 almost being like a fingerprint or mini-biography of the contributor<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a008.08 EDT<\/p>\n Do books read in our youth hit hardest?<\/p>\n BuddSchulberg<\/a> asks: I wonder whether the greatest books one has read are those that are read when at an impressionable age? For indeed Alice in Wonderland, Dune, The Day of the Triffids etc are typically books one reads (and rereads over and over again) at a young age. Precisely because they are so immensely readable. On the other hand, does this also mean that we should include the likes of Alistair MacClean and Desmond Bagley \u2013 which I devoured in my youth? Or should we draw the line somewhere?<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: I think many voters \u2013 including this one! – chose many books that they read at an impressionable age, because those are the ones that hit the hardest (also possibly the ones that you study at school ending up staying with you). When you\u2019re reading as a young adult novels can really be life-changing. I was struck by a comment from a reader who voted for George Orwell\u2019s Animal Farm on our Readers\u2019 top 100: \u201cReading this as a teen was my entry-level book to socialism. It opened my eyes to injustice, oppression and abuse of power. My parents always blamed my \u2018communist\u2019 English teachers for introducing me to Orwell!\u201d<\/p>\n Do paperbacks devoured as teenagers such as John Wyndham\u2019s novels The Midwich Cuckoos and The Day of the Triffids have lasting impact? Photograph: James Grady\/AlamyShare<\/a>Will the classics one day be “too old”?<\/p>\n Dworth<\/a> asks: Surprised The Count of Monte Cristo didn\u2019t make the list \u2013 was it mentioned by anyone? Also thought David Copperfield would have been higher. It\u2019s a phenomenal book. Any thoughts on why not?<\/p>\n In 200 years\u2019 time would such a list look similar or would it be full of modern books future generations consider classics and the books we consider classics are just too old to be relatable or will it always been the same old classics with a few modern books for a small bit of balance?<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: I\u2019d hope that in 200 years\u2019 time there would be some exciting new classics on such a list (I put Normal People by Sally Rooney on to my list to inject a bit of modernity although it didn\u2019t make the final cut.) Who knows which novels will ultimately stand the test of time? It was interesting on our top 100 novels to see which modern classics had already fallen out of fashion – no American Pastoral by Philip Roth, no Money by Martin Amis, no To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee which I\u2019d argue would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago!<\/p>\n Will Sally Rooney\u2019s novel Normal People stand the test of time? Photograph: Faber & Faber\/PAShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a009.54 EDT<\/p>\n Are audiobooks cheating?<\/p>\n ZodKneelsFirst<\/a> asks: Does \u201clistened to an unabridged audiobook\u201d count as \u201cread\u201d? I would say it does \u2013 but there are probably a few books where it doesn\u2019t. I\u2019m thinking of ones written in a heightened style, where the language itself is meticulously constructed and demands careful parsing.<\/p>\n double quotation markDavid: Ha! This is a good question. As a keen audiobook listener, I would have to agree with you. But you\u2019re right that not every book lends itself to the audio treatment. I\u2019m not sure about the meticulously constructed aspect \u2013 I think things can fall apart a bit when there\u2019s a lot of formal experimentation in the novel. I once tried Lincoln in the Bardo <\/a>on audiobook and the multiple voices made it very confusing \u2013 even though they were performed by a cast of actors. I find traditional novels much easier to follow as they tend to proceed in a fairly conventional manner, with the scenes carefully set, dialogue easy to follow etc. So I find it\u2019s a good way to consume classics.<\/p>\n An audiobook can be a good way to consume classics Photograph: Pressmaster\/Getty ImagesShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.40 EDT<\/p>\n Why so much Virginia Woolf while Catch-22 so low?<\/p>\n Namdam<\/a> asks: Four Virginia Woolf novels in the top hundred of all time defies some belief. There are 98 novels better than Catch-22? I dispute that. I personally don\u2019t think there are any. It caught me as a teenager and supplied a lifetime of pleasure from reading. I am surely not alone. I guess the greatest story ever told doesn\u2019t qualify as a novel. Fair enough. So no Iliad. Or Odyssey.<\/p>\n Speaking of adventures that take forever (although not quite 10 years): War and Peace, Anna Karenina, \u00c0 la recherchu<\/a> and Ulysses all in the top seven? I guess there is no requirement to be choate \u2026 but I feel therefore that this is signifying the achievement rather than enjoyment.<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: You\u2019re in good company loving Catch-22 which was voted one of the top 100 novels of all time by our fiction editor Justine Jordan. Interestingly it was catapulted up the list by readers who put it at (joint) number 8 on their top 100 \u2026 and yes the Iliad and the Odyssey didn\u2019t qualify as they\u2019re epic poems.<\/p>\n I voted for Mrs Dalloway but was also surprised by Woolf\u2019s strong showing \u2013 but that\u2019s how the votes fell! There are definitely some challenging reads in the top 10 but I think many of the critics and authors who voted for them would argue that as well as reflecting some dazzling literary achievements they are also books that reward the (quite significant) work of reading \u2026 Something readers seem to agree with as Ulysses and Anna Karenina also placed pretty highly in the readers\u2019 top 100, just outside the top 10. At our Guardian Live event novelist Guy Gunaratne said that having struggled to take it on solo he really enjoyed reading Ulysses as part of an online group. I think there are a few places that do read-alongs around Boomsday, but he recommends the Friends of Shakespeare and co. podcast.<\/p>\n Alan Arkin in the 1970 movie of Catch-22 Updated at\u00a007.27 EDT<\/p>\n What first reads led you to a lifelong love of literature?<\/p>\n Sevensisters<\/a> asks: What were your first books as a very, very young reader that drew you to a lifelong love of reading? I have to say here it was Enid Blyton.<\/p>\n double quotation markDavid: So many to choose from! Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning was an early one, with its magic spells and the idea of the enchanted version of reality that only the child protagonist has access to. A little later on Alan Garner\u2019s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Ursula K Le Guin\u2019s Earthsea trilogy introduced me to the darker elements of storytelling. I also remember being a bit obsessed by Leon Garfield\u2019s historical fiction for children, including The Pleasure Garden and The Sound of Coaches. But probably the strongest very early influences were the Moomin books, particularly Comet in Moominland which my mum read to me at bedtime. That was probably the first time I remember being desperate to know what happened next \u2013 a very basic lesson in the power of narrative.<\/p>\n The inspirational author Alan Garner at home in Blackden, Cheshire Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The GuardianShare<\/a>Should we take re-readability into account?<\/p>\n MomDoc<\/a> asks: I would like to see a division of the best 100 novels that you would read and read again. Versus the best 100 novels that you would read and know immediately that you would never want to read again because it was a little bit traumatising to read them?<\/p>\n double quotation markDavid: It\u2019s interesting to think about what makes a book re-readable \u2013 and what kind of book you feel glad to have read but aren\u2019t drawn back to again and again. You mention being traumatised, and it could certainly be that, but some books are more admirable than they are magnetic. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d re-read Madame Bovary, for example. Anyway, there are lots of reasons, and in our Books of my life<\/a> Q&A each week, authors share the books they return to, as well as the book they\u2019d never read again. Virginia Evans, who just won the Women\u2019s prize for fiction for her novel The Correspondent, recently told us she couldn\u2019t go back to the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson because it was so disturbing!<\/p>\n Stieg Larsson\u2019s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from the Millennum series Photograph: Nordisk Film\/Sportsphoto\/AllstarShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a008.05 EDT<\/p>\n Where are all the children’s books?<\/p>\n Matthewrosedon<\/a> asks: While it was not quite the usual suspects, when is children\u2019s and genre fiction going to be taken seriously? Where were the Alice books, Wind in the Willows? Aren\u2019t these great works of fiction? Where\u2019s The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine? No Dune or Day of the Triffids. No Chandler or Hammett. No Asimov or Arthur C Clarke. If one of the purposes of such a list is to encourage reading then it helps if more of the books are actually readable.<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: I think there are many children\u2019s books that are great works of fiction and some of our voters did select them in their top 10s. Novelist Katherine Rundell, for example, put Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland at number six on her list while regretting that she did not have space for Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, The Wizard of Earthsea and Pippi Longstocking. But when the votes were tallied up they did not get enough to make the final top 100.<\/p>\n As for genre, it was interesting to see a few more in our readers\u2019 top 100 with Dune making the cut along with Stephen King\u2019s The Stand. Ultimately it\u2019s subjective as to what makes a novel one of the \u201cgreatest of all time\u201d. I put Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban on my list which is a brilliant SF novel \u2013 partly because I loved his book The Mouse and His Child as a kid \u2013 but that too failed to make the final list!<\/p>\n Should Alice have been in our top 100? Greencorn<\/a> asks: Why is C\u00e9line\u2019s Journey to the End of the Night not on there?<\/p>\n double quotation markLiese: Not enough votes!<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Welcome to the Conversation<\/p>\n Hello and welcome to the latest Guardian Conversation, a new series of Q&As with our journalists. At 12pm BST we will be joined by Liese Spencer and David Shariatmadari who are ready to take your questions about all things bookish, including our huge recent project to rank the 100 greatest novels of all time \u2013 and last weekend\u2019s corresponding list of readers\u2019 favourites. <\/p>\n The books team have also been working hard to prepare their annual list of top reads for the (northern hemisphere) summer which is published tomorrow. (David is also the inventor of the Guardian\u2019s Wordiply game<\/a> should you wish to ask him about that). <\/p>\n Comments are open now (please sign up for a Guardian account below to join in) and, in the meantime, here\u2019s some of the best of the 100 novels project.<\/p>\n
\n Photograph: HA\/THA\/ShutterstockShare<\/a><\/p>\n
Photograph: National Media Museum\/SSPL\/GettyShare<\/a>Why isn’t my favourite book on the list?<\/p>\n