06-07-2025
The 20 best novels of all time
To nominate the 20 greatest novels of all time, even if you've spent decades reading and writing about fiction, is far from an easy task. I swapped books in and out of the running for weeks; I was haggling with myself over a couple until the end. The project made me think about all of them afresh: to remember why I had enjoyed them, and understand why they spoke to me.
The attentive reader will immediately spot omissions. There is, for instance, no Austen, no Dickens, no Forster – and that's just some of the British names. Yet no list can be complete – even if we had 30, or 50, or 100 entries. And in order to avoid an arbitrary list of great novels, or of novels that are obviously canonical, I've tried to opt for books that have changed the way we think about the novel form.
Each of the 20 books below, then, has in some way moved the novel forwards, whether stylistically, structurally or politically. The literary tradition would look very different without them.
You may disagree with some of my choices, and some of my reasoning. But that's fine; in fact, I hope you do. Let the conversation commence!
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Middle Ages
17th and 18th centuries
19th century
20th century
21st century
Middle Ages
The Tale of Genji (1021)
by Murasaki Shikibu
