Iris Murdoch, one of the most honored British writers of her generation, wrote 26 novels over the course of a 40-year writing career, the earliest of which, Under the Net, is a delightful read and appears on both the Modern Library’s list of the 100 greatest English language novels of the 20th century, and Time magazine’s list of the… Continue reading Iris Murdoch’s “The Sea, The Sea”
Category: Review
The 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language
As ranked on our podcast, “Between the Covers,” through Tuesday, December 17, 2024. To tune in to the podcast, try this link: https://betweenthecoverspodcast.podbean.com: 1. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Catch-22 is a satirical, anti-war novel that follows the increasingly frantic attempts by the American bombardier Captain John Yossarian to stay alive. He has become convinced that everyone,… Continue reading The 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language
Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon”
Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, holds an almost mythic place in the annals of American literature, as the first African-American writer to win the Nobel Prize and only the second American woman to do so. Morrison’s most popular novel is of course the 1987 Pulitzer-Prize winning Beloved, a gut-wrenching book about… Continue reading Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon”
Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”
“Call me Ishmael.” The most famous opening line of any American Novel. And the novel that it opens, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, is one that has often been touted by its admirers as the “Great American Novel.” Moby-Dick makes its appearance on the Guardian list of the greatest novels in English, the Observer’s list of the 100 Greatest World novels, Penguin Classics’ list of… Continue reading Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”
Ian McEwan’s “Atonement”
If you have read much of acclaimed contemporary novelist Ian McEwan’s work, you are well aware that Atonement, which did not win the Booker Prize, is a much better novel than his Amsterdam, which did win it. (Shortlisted in 2001, Atonement lost out to Peter Carey’s impressive True History of the Kelly Gang.) A wider ranging and thematically more challenging… Continue reading Ian McEwan’s “Atonement”
Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall”
Like a lot of people, my concept of Thomas More, or I suppose I should say “Saint Thomas More,” has been shaped by two major texts. The first, his famous literary text Utopia, reveals him to be a brilliant Renaissance thinker, a rational humanist philosopher whose thought, particularly as regards political philosophy, made him admired throughout… Continue reading Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall”
Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild”
John Griffith Chaney—generally known by his pen-name of Jack London—was one of the first American writers to capitalize on “commercial” fiction (the way, I suppose, that Dickens had in Victorian England), publishing his stories and serializing novels in American magazines and then in book form, becoming perhaps the first American writer to become a true… Continue reading Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild”
Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt”
Sinclair Lewis has declined somewhat in popularity and scholarly interest since his heyday in the 1920s, having generally been surpassed in literary reputation by his younger contemporaries like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and even Steinbeck. It is true that his dystopian 1936 novel It Can’t Happen Here, depicting the election of a political demagogue to the U.S.… Continue reading Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt”
Andrea Levy’s “Small Island”
Like most Americans, I would guess, I had never heard of British novelist Andrea Levy before, finding her novel Small Island on the BBC list of the “100 Greatest British Novels,” I decided to read it and put an end to my ignorance. Levy, born in London to parents who had been Jamaican immigrants, spent her career… Continue reading Andrea Levy’s “Small Island”
Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is another of the “no-brainers” that appear on this list. It was immediately popular upon its first publication in 1960, and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. It has remained popular for more than sixty years, and is one of the most widely taught novels in high schools and… Continue reading Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”