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100 greatest novels of all time

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Or so they claim. No Euripedes? No Ovid? The Guardian editors have much to answer for. For much the Guardian editors have to answer.

Whatever.

So these Boetians walk into a bar

Here‘s the list, each one with a handy-dandy link to buying it on Amazon, even the ones that have been online at Gutenberg for years.

The case for the defence. Don’t like the list? Post your own suggestions for the 100 best books on the Observer blog.

1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes
The story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza has entranced readers for centuries.

2. Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan
The one with the Slough of Despond and Vanity Fair. 

3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
The first English novel.

4. Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift
A wonderful satire that still works for all ages, despite the savagery of Swift’s vision.

5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding
The adventures of a high-spirited orphan boy: an unbeatable plot and a lot of sex ending in a blissful marriage.

6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson
One of the longest novels in the English language, but unputdownable.

7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
One of the first bestsellers, dismissed by Dr Johnson as too fashionable for its own good.

8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
An epistolary novel and a handbook for seducers: foppish, French, and ferocious.

9. Emma Jane Austen
Near impossible choice between this and Pride and Prejudice. But Emma never fails to fascinate and annoy.

10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Inspired by spending too much time with Shelley and Byron.
Buy Frankenstein at Amazon.co.uk

…

Who did we miss?

So, are you congratulating yourself on having read everything on our list or screwing the newspaper up into a ball and aiming it at the nearest bin?

Are you wondering what happened to all those American writers from Bret Easton Ellis to Jeffrey Eugenides, from Jonathan Franzen to Cormac McCarthy?

Have women been short-changed? Should we have included Pat Barker, Elizabeth Bowen, A.S. Byatt, Penelope Fitzgerald, Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch?

What’s happened to novels in translation such as Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Hesse’s Siddhartha, Mishima’s The Sea of Fertility, Süskind’s Perfume and Zola’s Germinal?

Writers such as J.G. Ballard, Julian Barnes, Anthony Burgess, Bruce Chatwin, Robertson Davies, John Fowles, Nick Hornby, Russell Hoban, Somerset Maugham and V.S. Pritchett narrowly missed the final hundred. Were we wrong to lose them?

Let us know what you think. Post your own suggestions for the 100 best books on the Observer blog.

Coexist

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Coexist

From Tima, via Cold Desert. In Lebanese war blogger news, Ahmad reports that there have been attempts to hack into his blog account; it’s quite obvious that, since the enemies of truth can’t win with logic or facts, they’ve resorted to crime.

article o’ the day: Israel and the art of sophistry

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John McCarthy, yoFrom John McCarthy in the Independent, which I really should read more often. Why in god’s name the home page is made to look as trashy as it is, is a mystery. If it didn’t look so US Weekly, I might actually read the damn thing.

I was pointed to the article over on the BoJo flamewar by Wobbly. And you thought they were extinct, didn’t you?

In any case, there is an interesting amount of debate going on in the press, and this is an article I keep coming back to. Well worth reading, if only for the information that Israel kidnapped two Palestinians the day before the kidnapping of Corporal Shalit, the official excuse for the current war.

In Tony Blair‘s speech in Los Angeles last Tuesday, he said he was sickened by what was happening in Lebanon but went on to effectively absolve Israel of responsibility for the devastation there. He urged: “Just for a moment, put yourself in Israel’s place.”

In that one phrase, our Prime Minister summed up everything that is wrong with our policy for the Middle East.

And before you accuse the author of mindless anti-Semitism and knee-jerk pro-Palestinianism, check the bio notes:

John McCarthy was kidnapped in Lebanon in 1986 and held for five years

John McCarthy makes the cover of Time

making fun of Europeans

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Some people do it better than others; better, even, than AA Gill. With a little help from Europeans, that is. EU States Lose, from Logged Hours via Gawker.

EU States DESERVE to lose, dammit!

4.) Jean-Jacques was so excited to come to LoveParade that he didn’t stop home to change after his rehearsals for Chippendale’s Easter Extravaganza.

Radio(head), Radio(head)

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Hail to the ThiefIn accordance with the raincoaster blog’s policy of culture jamming, petard-hoisting those who don’t stand by their own words, and doing whatever the hell we want, we are happy to repost here Thom Yorke’s anti-Tony Blair rant, which was posted on Radiohead’s blog and almost immediately taken down.

We are all about being on the record here. So, for the record, we stole this report from Sploid!

“I’ve had enough of this,” the songwriter wrote on Radiohead‘s blog. “Our government’s sitting on the fence with the U.S. while World War 3 appears to be breaking out in Lebanon and Northern Israel. We must throw Tony Blair out of office NOW. He does not represent the views of British people. He does not represent the views of his foreign office and officials.”

Yorke added that Blair “cares far too much about his relationship with Bush and Murdoch.”
…
“This man is not fit to be our prime minister,” Yorke concluded. “It’s a nice sunny day. Come on, let’s do it. You know it makes sense. A vote of no confidence. Or something. Anything.”

But the call to action mysteriously vanished from Radiohead.com on Thursday. Nobody in the band will explain what happened to the message, so Radiohead fans and the music press are left to wonder if certain sinister forces are at work.

Thom Yorke is anybody listening???