Prompted by a conversation with MLW this evening about the death of Kurt Vonnegut (MLW: what’d he write, then? ME: omigod how can you not know??? Slaughterhouse-5? MLW: ? ME: if I had to name my ten favourite novels of all time, that would be one of them! MLW: what would the other nine be?) I have compiled a list of my ten favourite novels of all time (not ranked though – it was only one glass of red wine):
- Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Tidewater Tales: A Novel by John Barth
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
- Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
- The Counterlife by Philip Roth
The first five flowed quite easily. I had to think harder about the next five, and choose some over others:
- The Biographer’s Tale by AS Byatt
- Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
- Happenstance by Carol Shields
- White Noise by Don DeLillo
- The Master of St Petersburg by JM Coetzee
I’m aware that 5 of those 10 are books I studied at varsity, and so had a deeper engagement with. The others were just most thoroughly enjoyed. The novels I chose over were:
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- The Day of Creation by JG Ballard
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
- Herzog by Saul Bellow
