Category: Review

Agatha Christie does not appear on most “100 Greatest Novels” list, which seems something of an oversight. Her plaudits are myriad: In 1955, the Mystery Writers of America awarded her its inaugural Grand Master Award. Her novel And Then There Were None, having sold more than 100 million copies, is the best-selling mystery novel of all… Continue reading Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express”

Dorothy Sayers, a crime novelist herself, famously wrote that the detective story “does not, and by hypothesis never can, attain the loftiest level of literary achievement.” Thus the “hard-boiled’ detective fiction of Raymond Chandler and his peers like Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain whose novels inspired the film noir of 1940s American cinema, was traditionally considered… Continue reading Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep”

I must admit once again that it took me way too long—fifteen years, I reckon—to finally read Michael Chabon’s brilliant tour-de-force, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. But I freely admit that once I did I was so astonished by every aspect of the novel that I resolved there and then to become a Chabon completist,… Continue reading Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a book that captures your imagination when you first read it as a child of ten, and continues to stir your delight and your intellect when you read it for the last time as a senior citizen of 99. There are very few books in English that appeal to such a… Continue reading Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance won the 1990 Booker Prize for Fiction. It appeared on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest novels since 1923, and came in at #49 on the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest British Novels. And for me, Byatt’s novel comes in at #15 (alphabetically) on my own list of the “100 Most Lovable… Continue reading A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”

Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange may not at first seem like a “lovable” novel, as I’ve titled my list, since it seems to glorify violence—or at least it seems to do so for people who only know Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film version of the book, after viewing which nobody will ever innocently hear “Singin’ in the… Continue reading Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange”

Since I’m presenting my list of the “100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language,” alphabetically by author’s last name, and since Charlotte Bronte had Tuesday’s #12 book, it’s probably no surprise that today’s honoree should be Emily Bronte’s Gothic romance Wuthering Heights, coming in at book #13 on my list. Though unlike Jane Eyre, Emily’s novel met… Continue reading Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”

Okay, well, this was a no-brainer. Charlotte Bronte’s novel has been a favorite with both critics and readers ever since its publication in 1847 under her pen name of “Currer Bell.” The novel has been adapted as a stage play, several film and television versions, and two operas, and has inspired popular literature as varying… Continue reading Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”

In 1976, Saul Bellow became the seventh American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (if you don’t count T.S. Eliot, who had eschewed his American citizenship well before his award). Bellow had just won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Humboldt’s Gift. He had already become the only writer in the history of the award to… Continue reading Saul Bellow’s “Henderson the Rain King”

When I think of John Barth, I can’t help thinking of those lines in A.E. Housman’s famous poem “To an Athlete Dying Young”: “Now you will not swell the rout / Of lads who wore their honors out, / Runners whom renown outran, / And the name died before the man.” Barth, the darling of… Continue reading John Barth’s “The Sot-Weed Factor”