The Guardian recently stirred up the reading community with a list of the greatest literature ever published in English.1 One hundred novels chosen by a panel of authors, academics and journalists. Its purpose, I’m pretty sure, was not to establish a canon, but to get people talking and reacting. In that it was successful. Over 3000 readers wrote in with their own alternative top novels and The Guardian soon followed up with a second list of Readers’ top 100 novels of all time.2
It is interesting to compare the two. While the first list is quite heavy with Victorian and early 20th century tomes, and no less than five different books by Virginia Woolf, the second leans towards more modern titles. More American male authors find a place (John Steinbeck and Mark Twain notably). Still, there is a considerable overlap. Seven of the top ten titles from the first list also figure in the top twenty of the second. The top placed Middlemarch from the first list holds the silver medal position in the Readers’ choice list. Most interestingly though, the Readers’ choice for best English novel was a no-show in the earlier list: The Lord of the Rings.
Personally I think it hard to think in terms of “best books”. I prefer to think in terms of books I have read through without giving up on, books I’ve re-read and could read again, and books I read and re-read repeatedly at different times of my life.
The Lord of the Rings definitely slots into my third category. I read it first when I was 13 and then again on repeat up into my early 20s. My original single paperback volume eventually fell apart, but I kept it for years.
In my last three years of school, like many of my contemporaries, I spent a lot of time reading. This was principally for my end of school exams. The habit of reading was so well ingrained in 17 year-old me by the summer of 1976, after I completed my final exam, that I could not stop. For want of any other project, as I waited to get my results, I re-read all the books on the shelves of my bedroom library. All the books I had collected and enjoyed reading as a child. (I drew the line at re-reading books I’d read for any of my exams.)
I made an astounding discovery. I still remember it as a blinding revelation. Some of the books were still fantastic, and re-reading them revealed new qualities. Other titles, though, were dross. It was strange, I thought, as I could remember the joy they had given me. I could remember staying up all night to read some, under the bedclothes with a torch when I was supposed to be asleep. (The Biggles books come to mind.3) But reading them again, now, I was having difficulties. They were boring!
By the end of that summer I had a small shelf of books I wanted to keep and a box to give away.
Among the books I kept, not all have stood the test of time. Some, subjected to another re-reading years later, turned out to have passed a best-before date. That happened to The Lord of the Rings. But there are some books from that original selection that I still have – if not on my shelves, then packed away in storage. They include Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows, Ursula K LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. and my seven original paperback copies of the Narnia stories. Somewhere along the way I lost my copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but I’ve replaced it with a new (annotated) edition.
I don’t re-read these books so much nowadays, but I have done so several times. Now, when I revisit, it is most often to dip into them. Sure, there’s a degree of nostalgia about this, but there is admiration too. I admire the authors’ ability to engage the reader, convey an emotion or slip in an adverb or adjective to illustrate or undercut a character.
For example, the chapter of The Wind in the Willows (Dulce Domum) where Mole finds himself called home is still, for me, a most powerful description of homesickness (and homesickness relieved). While some of Alice’s conversations – with the White King, for instance – are touchstones for my writing. “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” That very gravely tells you, I think, what the author thought of his character’s advice.
With the exception of The Lord of the Rings, Animal Farm and Watership Down none of my childhood treasures made the cut for either of The Guardian’s lists. Perhaps because they are children’s books. Nevertheless, I think they lie at the foundation of my personal literacy, and of my literary interests.
What books that you read first as a child do you still go back to? And do any of them feature in either of The Guardian’s Best Novels lists?
Links
- 1 The Guardian 100 Best Novels of All Time (the original list) ^
https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time - 2 The Guardian Readers’ Top 100 Novels of All Time ^
https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/jun/06/readers-top-100-novels-of-all-time - 3 The Biggles books by WE Johns ^
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biggles
If you enjoyed this, you may also like Nigel’s post about what makes a book good – The Good Book. And how about Michael’s Upstairs Downstairs Books? Or Jos’s Why? What? How? and Who?
These lists are always fun to debate (and criticize)! To respond to your question, from list #1, I read Crime and Punishment as a child. Though it left a mark, I can’t say I want to read it again. 1984 I would definitely read again because I strongly suspect we’re living it. I was forced to read a Tale of Two Cities multiple times in grade school and do not wish to repeat. I read Watership Down as a child and was glad to see it on your list of books that stood the test of time/aging. Also voluntarily as a kid, I read all of Kurt Vonnegut’s cannon available and added his new ones as they were released. I think those worth a re-read. Don Quixote – am I the only one who thinks this overrated? To Kill a Mockingbird hit differently on re-reading it when I was older. Attempted Grapes of Wrath as a kid and couldn’t get past the initial pages. Lord of the Rings, of course. Interesting that it didn’t last for you.
I am in awe of my capacity to read really long, complex books when I was in my very early teens. I no longer have that. I used to haunt the second hand bookshops in my home town, Brighton, and was delighted to walk away with thick volumes in worn cases for a couple of shillings. That’s how I came to read Don Quixote and A Tale of Two Cities (and a good many other titles). Of course, now I wonder how much of those books went over my head. I thought Quixote was entertaining in parts, but far too long. I can’t remember much of Two Cities, beyond the first sentence and “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.” That’s probably because my mother loved to quote it.
There were definitely confusions. I started reading Cannery Row under the impression it was called ‘Canary Row’, and I was disappointed that I never got to the bit about the birds. (This is true! It wasn’t till I was studying American literature as an undergraduate that I realised my mistake.)
When I was 14 I read War and Peace (all except the last few chapters when Tolstoy goes off on a philosophical tangent). I was fascinated by the Napoleonic wars, but I started to read it because I had a crush on the actress Angela Down who played Maria Bolkonskya in the 1972-73 BBC’s TV production. Anthony Hopkins was Pierre Bezukhov, and his performance is the one I remember now. I don’t remember so much of the book.
Sadly I didn’t get to Kurt Vonnegut till I was in my late teens when I read and re-read Slaughterhouse 5 and several more of his novels and short stories, though (besides Slaughterhouse) it’s only The Sirens of Titan that stands out.
I suspect it was Peter Jackson’s films that did in The Lord of The Rings for me. I re-read each volume of TLoTR directly after seeing the filmed versions and each one felt flat. Now I find Jackson’s films flat, so should probably give TLoTR another shot. It may have regained some of its charm.