Author: Jay Ruud

A lot of people would put Kingsley Amis’s modern classic Lucky Jim in this slot, and I did find that novel to be an impressive sendup of academic life and a withering lampooning of pretentiousness—and, truth to say, if I were to do a second list of “The Next 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language,”… Continue reading Martin Amis’s “Money: A Suicide Note”

Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age novel has never been out of print in the hundred and fifty years since its first publication in two parts in 1868-69. Generations of women have grown up and been inspired by the four March sisters Meg, Beth, Amy, and especially by the independent spirited and passionately ambitious Jo. Helen Keller… Continue reading Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women”

Watership Down is another novel that doesn’t often appear on these kinds of lists, probably because it’s thought of essentially as a children’s book, or at least YA. But the book won the Library Association’s  Carnegie Medal in 1972, recognizing it as the best children’s book of the year. It also won the Guardian Prize in the… Continue reading Richard Adams’ “Watership Down”

The second book (alphabetically) on “The Ruud List of the 100 Best Books to Love in the English Language” is Douglas Adams’ sci-fi romp The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which I am counting the entire five-book “trilogy” including the original Hitchhiker’s Guide (1979) and its sequels: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe, and… Continue reading Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s acclaimed 1958 novel Things Fall Apart is alphabetically first on my list of the “100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language.” It was the first book by a native African writer to receive worldwide fame, and is a staple of post-colonial literature. It is on the list of Time Magazine’s “100 best English-language novels… Continue reading Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”