Archive for book list

yet another list of 100 “best novels”

Posted in Books, Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2026 by xi'an

about 100’s lists

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 14, 2026 by xi'an

another list of 100 “best novels”

Posted in Books, Kids, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2026 by xi'an

“Lists procreate; they give rise to other lists” Margaret Atwood

The Guardian posted a(nother) list of 100 novels, “the best of all times”, gathered from authors, critics and academics worldwide polled by the journal. Out of which I only read 57, with the remaining 43 vacillating between classics I missed and others I had not even heard of. Somewhat predictable and very much favouring books in English. With several Victorian books, e.g. those of Jane Austen, Emily Brontë and Charles Dickens. Here is my read sublist, where I am glad to see Greenes’ End of the Affair, Grossman’s Life and Fate, McCarthy’s The Road, Naipaul’s House for Mr Biswas, Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness, but sad of seeing no Hugo’s, no Dinesen’s, no Chandler’s and no Céline…

books of the year²⁵

Posted in Books, pictures with tags , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2026 by xi'an


top 10 genre books of the 21st Century [so far]

Posted in Books with tags , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2024 by xi'an

On Reactor, the on-line magazine run by the publishing company Tor, the frequent contributor Jo Walton was asked to put forward her ten favourite by genre. Here are some lists that X my reading habits, if almost none my favourites: to wit,

for series

for fantasy

and for science-fiction

missing, imho, e.g., Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, K.J. Parker’s Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, Jaworski’s Gagner la Guerre, Anne Leckie’s  Ancillary Justice series, Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes, and some others. But since lists are personal, and always tantalizing to me, here is a potential reading list.