Books Q&A live: we answer your questions about our 100 top novels lists
Were our readers right to put Lord of the Rings above Middlemarch? What was missing from our list? Has anyone read the whole 100 … ?Liese Spencer, our joint head...
By Guardian moderators, Liese Spencer and David Shariatmadari · The Guardian Culture
Were our readers right to put Lord of the Rings above Middlemarch? What was missing from our list? Has anyone read the whole 100 … ? Liese Spencer, our joint head of books, and non-fiction editor David Shariatmadari are live now to discuss the huge reaction to our 100 greatest novels list , our readers’ choices of the 100 best – and any other burning questions you may have about what to read next Escoppycoppy asks : What was the actual question you asked the contributors? Did you ask for “best” novels, “greatest”, “favourite”? The wording would influence the choices eg “greatest” primes people to think of big, ambitious books, ‘best’ less so. “Favourite” would be very different- more personal choices, possibly children’s books. I think “favourite” would have produced a very different final list. Might even be a good follow-up? David: The wording said we were looking for the “best novels of all time published in English”, asking for contributors for the “top 10”. It was interesting to see how different people responded to that and I’m not sure if anyone set their own favourites entirely to one side – a completely dispassionate assessment is probably impossible and not really the point. A lot of the comments we received, which are really interesting and you can explore by clicking on the individual voters on the novel list, suggest that it was a combination of critical merit and personal significance. Benjamin Myers, for example, said “I have chosen 10 titles that I feel have advanced what it is the novel can – and should – do, while also taking into consideration the influence each has had on my own reading enjoyment and writing career”. Liese: I think many voters – including this one! - chose many books that they read at an impressionable age, because those are the ones that hit the hardest (also possibly the ones that you study at school ending up staying with you). When you’re reading as a young adult novels can really be life-changing. I was struck by a comment…