Discussion, debate, even a little dispute – expect it all on The Book Club Review. Join host Kate and her guests as they explore contemporary and classic titles. From hyped new releases to word-of-mouth backlist tips, books are put to the book club test – do they live up to our expectations? Listen in for thoughtful insights, lively opinions and inspiration for your next great read.
When the Guardian drops a list of the 100 Greatest Novels in English it's time to drop everything to talk about it. Luckily pod-regular guest, journalist Phil Chaffee and Joseph Dance, host of the Curious Readers podcast, also had views, and were willing to get together on a Sunday evening to share them. You'll hear our hits, our misses, how many we’ve read, whether we should have read more and much musing on whether a list like this is the way to get people excited about reading. We explore the joys of the sub-lists – the contributor lists – all squirrelled away on a sub-section of the Guardian's website, that arguably provide more excitement and inspiration than the fairly canonical top 100. Which is the best Brontë? Which is the best Austen? Do we age into certain books? If you've read all seven volumes of Proust shouldn't that count for more than one entry? All this and much, much more. Enjoy – this was an absolute delight to make and I hope it makes you smile as much as it did me.
Have your say: get in touch on Instagram @bookclubreviewpodcast or email thebookclubreview@gmail.com, or head to our website for full shownotes. What would be in your top-10?
Check out the Patreon for all kinds of extras, from our monthly book club to extra shows and Kate's reading diaries. Find it at patreon.com/thebookclubreview
The Guardian’s List of the 100 Greatest Novels published in English, copied below for ease of reference.
*underlined – the ones Kate has read
- Middlemarch
- Beloved
- Ulysses
- To the Lighthouse
- In Search of Lost Time
- Anna Karenina
- War and Peace
- Jane Eyre
- Pride and Prejudice
- Madame Bovary
- The Great Gatsby
- Bleak House
- Emma
- Mrs Dalloway
- Moby-Dick
- Nineteen Eighty-Four
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Persuasion
- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
- Wuthering Heights
- The Portrait of a Lady
- Things Fall Apart
- Midnight’s Children
- The Remains of the Day
- Lolita
- Don Quixote
- The Trial
- The Brothers Karamazov
- Pale Fire
- Frankenstein
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- The God of Small Things
- David Copperfield
- Wolf Hall
- Great Expectations
- The Handmaid’s Tale
- Invisible Man
- The Age of Innocence
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Song of Solomon
- Heart of Darkness
- The Magic Mountain
- Housekeeping
- Giovanni’s Room
- The Golden Notebook
- The Leopard
- Vanity Fair
- The Metamorphosis
- A Fine Balance
- Wide Sargasso Sea
- My Brilliant Friend
- The Golden Bowl
- The Transit of Venus
- Orlando
- The Waves
- Mansfield Park
- The Sound and the Fury
- Disgrace
- Never Let Me Go
- Howards End
- The Rings of Saturn
- Half of a Yellow Sun
- White Teeth
- The Good Soldier
- The Color Purple
- The Master and Margarita
- The Man Without Qualities
- Blood Meridian
- Crime and Punishment
- Jude the Obscure
- Kindred
- Our Mutual Friend
- Austerlitz
- Nervous Conditions
- The Bluest Eye
- Dracula
- The Rainbow
- A House for Mr Biswas
- Go Tell It on the Mountain
- Rebecca
- Buddenbrooks
- The End of the Affair
- A Farewell to Arms
- The Talented Mr Ripley
- The Vegetarian
- The Turn of the Screw
- The Line of Beauty
- Ragtime
- The Left Hand of Darkness
- Jacob’s Room
- Life and Fate
- Sentimental Education
- Invisible Cities
- The Known World
- The Return of the Native
- Pedro Páramo
- Catch-22
- The Road
- The Go-Between
- My Ántonia
Particular books we touch on in the show
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
