The 20 best novels of all time
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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17th and 18th centuries
19th century
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The Tale of Genji (1021)
by Murasaki Shikibu
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The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Next manuscript by Amitav Ghosh to be kept sealed for 89 years
The next manuscript by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh will not be read for 89 years, as he becomes the 12th author to contribute to the Future Library project. Ghosh joins Margaret Atwood, Han Kang, Ocean Vuong and other prominent authors who have written secret manuscripts, which are locked away until 2114. The texts are stored in a specifically designed silent room in the Deichman Bjørvika building at the public library in Oslo. At the end of the project, the full anthology of texts will be printed using paper made from trees from the Future Library forest in Nordmarka, in northern Oslo, where 1,000 spruce trees were planted by Katie Paterson, the artist behind the project, in 2014. Ghosh, whose novels include The Circle of Reason and Sea of Poppies, said being invited to participate in the Future Library project was a 'profound honour and a humbling act of trust'. The initiative 'compels us to think beyond our lifetimes, to imagine readers who have not yet been born'. 'It is particularly significant for me that the project has a forest at its core,' he added, 'because for a long time now, I have been writing about a forest, albeit of an entirely different kind – the great mangrove forest known as the Sundarban.' Stretching across the Ganges delta, the Sundarbans are the backdrop to Ghosh's novels The Hungry Tide, Jungle Nama and Gun Island. 'It will be an exciting challenge to make a connection between the forests of the far north and those of the tropics, at this time of extreme planetary crisis,' added Ghosh, whose works often address climate disaster. 'I am moved to be part of a work that intertwines ecology, literature and patience on such a monumental scale.' Ghosh grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and has a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Oxford. He has written a number of novels, as well as works of nonfiction and essay collections. Ghosh's writing 'is expansive, urgent, and deeply attuned to the shifting ground of our world', said Paterson. 'His stories traverse oceans and centuries, revealing how the climate crisis is inseparable from histories of empire, migration and myth.' Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion 'With a rare ability to weave the intimate with the planetary, the visible with the invisible, Ghosh gives voice to the forces – human and more-than-human – that shape our shared future,' she added. Ghosh will submit his manuscript at a ceremony in the Future Library forest in May or June 2026, when the work's title will be revealed. Along with Atwood, Han and Vuong, other writers to have contributed to the project include David Mitchell, Sjón, Elif Shafak, Karl Ove Knausgård, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Judith Schalansky, Valeria Luiselli and, most recently, Tommy Orange. In June 2022, the City of Oslo signed an agreement which ensures the forest remains in the hands of the Future Library Trust for the duration of the project.
Telegraph
8 hours ago
- Telegraph
Deep Purple's drummer: How we made the ultimate live album
It says rather a lot about the music industry that when Deep Purple travelled to Japan for the first time, in August 1972, the band's members were in economy class while their managers reclined in luxury in the expensive seats at the front of the plane. For the musicians in cramped quarters, though, time has had the last laugh. While few know the names of the group's managers, Purple's trip became a landmark occasion. As well as establishing them as an evergreen favourite of Japanese audiences, the quintet's three concerts in the Far East – two at the Festival Hall, in Osaka, and one at the sacred Nippon Budokan in Tokyo – heralded the concert record Made in Japan, one of the most revered and enduring live albums in the annals of rock music. Recorded in unusual circumstances and originally released in December 1972 – remarkably, fewer than three months after the conclusion of the short tour – the LP is being re-released in suitably lavish form. Whereas the original album featured just seven tracks, the new version (remixed by the ubiquitous Steven Wilson) contains 37 songs. Confusingly, the group are calling it a '50th Anniversary Edition'. Last year, they did the same for their studio album Machine Head, which was also released in 1972. From this, I can only conclude that Deep Purple aren't very good at maths. Asked to explain the appeal of an album that helped set the template for the modern live LP, Ian Paice, the band's drummer, answers without hesitation. 'There's never been a better recorded live show' 'Of its genre, of that type of rock and roll music, there's never been a better recorded live show,' he tells me. 'Simple as that. It's not just listening to what's going on, you can feel the atmosphere … you're there, you're a part of it. And I think that's the magic the album has. If you shut your eyes, you can be with us in the hall.' On a gloomy Tuesday in the middle of summer, Paice – the only constant member amid the swirl of Deep Purple's numerous line-up changes – speaks to me from a room in his home near Henley-on Thames. Before he's said even a word, the signs that this is a rock star from a more gilded age are on full display. With his laptop positioned at an unusual angle, for one thing, I can see elaborate adornments – ornate cursive, almost, but swirls rather than letters or words – on the high ceiling of what can easily be imagined is a reassuringly plush pile. 'I'll tell you who did that for me,' Paice says. 'It was done years ago by a good friend of ours … Larry Smith [the drummer] from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He was staying at George Harrison 's place, which is two miles down the road. He had a couple of weeks to kill so I thrust money in his fist, and he laid on his back like Michelangelo and did the ceiling. The contraption [on which he laid] was 16ft or 17ft high. We buggered off on holiday and let him get on with it.' Upon arrival in Tokyo, Paice recognised the band's digs, at the New Otani Hotel, as being the site of a scene from the James Bond film You Only Live Twice – but that was about it. During their short stay, the quintet encountered food they'd never seen before, and fans who handed them unwieldy packages bearing gifts as they prepared to board trains and aeroplanes. They also encountered audiences that are guaranteed to bamboozle every Western band visiting Japan for the first time. At the end of each song, venues resonate with cheers and applause that quickly gives way to silence. Not just calm, but perfect pin-drop serenity. By comparison, even Deep Purple's fabled appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, seemed noisier than the poll tax riots. 'You think you're doing something wrong,' Paice tells me. 'But after the first night we spoke to one of the local promoters who told us 'this is what we do. Once we've said thank you we wait for you start again without wanting to get in your way'. 'Oh right!' They were incredibly polite. Their whole society is like that, so why would going to a concert be any different? But you have to get your head around it … If you finish the tune and they don't applaud, then you know you've done something wrong.' 'A marriage between four or five people' Initially, Made in Japan was only intended to be sold in the UK. But when import copies became a sought-after item in the US, at the princely price of $10 for each disc, the album was granted a wider release. This isn't the only thing that makes Made in Japan seem like a curiously perfunctory exercise. Remarkably, the entire LP was recorded using just eight tracks, two of which were for the audience. Unlike many live albums from the 1970s, according to Paice, there aren't even any overdubs. 'Luckily, it didn't need anything else,' he says. 'The sound was just on the tape, which was just us. Once we got through everybody's egos saying that their bit should be a bit louder than everyone else's, we got it right.' Perhaps inevitably, the intermittently fractious Purple were themselves split on the merits of their influential creation. Keyboard player (the late) Jon Lord agreed with his drummer that the record represented the group at their best; singer Ian Gillan, meanwhile, expressed dissatisfaction at the quality of his vocal performance. Which isn't surprising. In 1972 alone, Deep Purple performed 127 concerts across three continents. Despite their singer requiring three months' rest and recuperation after contracting hepatitis, in New York City, they also released two albums. 'Back in those days, if a band lasted for four or five years, that was a miracle,' Paice says. 'There aren't very many bands who can get through that first decade. It's very, very difficult. You have to liken it to a marriage between four or five people, not two. The possibilities of it all going terminally bang are much greater. As they often do, and as we have done in the past.' As it turned out, Deep Purple didn't make it through that first decade. The line-up featured on Made in Japan (already the group's second iteration) lasted just one more year, until the Who Do We Think We Are album, after which Gillan and bassist Roger Glover were replaced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes respectively. After disbanding following a famously subpar concert at the Liverpool Empire Theatre, in 1976, Purple returned in 1984 with their classic line-up – completed, of course, by Ritchie Blackmore on guitar – with the Perfect Strangers LP. An appearance at a rain-soaked Knebworth House followed a year later. 'When you're kids, of course, everything is incredibly important,' Paice tells me. 'Even if it's not important, it feels like it is. Later in life you understand that your bandmates might not see the world like you do. And when you're a kid you may have an argument that might come to fisticuffs. But later [in life] you can see it differently. 'That's okay, we disagree, now let's go and play some music.' When you're a kid, that's the last thing that happens. Everything's a problem.' Holy trinity of British heavy rock Today, alongside Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Deep Purple are one third of a Holy Trinity of British heavy rock bands. On this very subject, in fact, Paice offers a reminiscence of the last time he saw Ozzy Osbourne, 20-odd years ago in the Swiss skiing town of Zermatt. With drinks having been taken, the Prince of Darkness suggested the three bands undertake a world tour in which each played for just 20 minutes a night. The money would be so outstanding, he reasoned, that they'd only have to do it the one time. The idea came to naught, of course, and now it's moot. But on the day that Osbourne was laid to rest, Paice tells me that 'I think our generation of musicians is at the age where, when you turn on the news, you almost expect another one of us to have gone … But I will say this about Ozzy: he was a much smarter bloke than a lot of people gave him credit for. His persona of this bat-eating maniac had nothing to do with the truth at all.' He adds that Osbourne 'was much more of a cerebral man than people painted him as. He was very clever. He was thinking of stuff all the time.' There is a difference between the three bands, though. While in the 21st century Sabbath and Zeppelin have managed to harvest an army of younger listeners, overwhelmingly Deep Purple's audience has been by their side for decades. For all their musical accomplishments, the group's legacy has not been very strategically marketed. A win-win situation But that may be about to change. In the wake of the first trailer for the keenly awaited fifth and final series of Stranger Things, unveiled last month, the internet was aflame with people enquiring about the identity of the loud song featured in the clip. The answer: an enhanced version of the Deep Purple classic Child in Time, from 1970. If the effect of this anointment by television's hottest show is anything like that enjoyed by Kate Bush, whose 1986 single Running Up That Hill appeared in season four, Purple might be about to tap into the youth market for the first time in half a century. 'That's the real value of these things being taken and put in front of massive, massive audiences,' is the drummer's view. 'They're hearing something that they would never have looked for themselves, so that's a win-win situation. Occasionally stuff gets put in a TV show or a movie and you find that the record royalties take a little upward leap the next time round, and there's nothing wrong with it.' How much was he paid by Netflix? 'I haven't got a clue,' he shrugs. 'Somewhere in the future I'll get a piece of paper saying you've got this or you owe this.' Whether or not their audience changes, the band themselves will keep (space) truckin'. Despite their drummer being afraid to turn on the news lest he learn that he's just died, this most resolute of national institutions aren't done yet. Not only do they plan to return to the road, but there's even talk of heading back to Japan, the country which provided the setting for a live album that helped cement a reputation that endures today. 'I think we've said no to a farewell tour so often that it would be very difficult to now say yes,' Paice tells me. 'I generally have a feeling that when we play our last concert, no one will know that it's our last concert. I think that's the reality of it. Financially it's a ludicrous decision, and I'm not saying it won't happen, but my gut feeling is that one day one or two people [in the band] will just say, I don't want to do it anymore. And that'll just be it.'
BBC News
10 hours ago
- BBC News
Irvine Welsh among Ilkley Literature Festival stars
The writer Irvine Welsh, actor Hugh Bonneville, comedian Michael Palin and former politician Nick Clegg have been confirmed as household names who will appear at this year's Ilkley Literature Festival. The annual event takes place over 17 days starting on 3 October and will cover themes ranging from the dangers of big tech to cooking and the Post Office scandal. Other names who will be discussing their latest work include Wild Swans author Jung Chang, poet laureate Simon Armitage and "festival favourite" Gyles Brandreth. Festival director Erica Morris told the BBC: "Bradford has an incredibly rich history of literary excellence and we are highlighting not only the people who come here from other parts of the UK and the world but the the homegrown talent - which is immense." Comedian Alan Davies will be sharing his journey in the world of comedy with his latest memoir White Male Stand-Up, while Queen of Shops retail expert Mary Portas will take guests "behind the shop window" with I Shop, Therefore I Am. Paddington and Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville will be introducing his first children's book, Rory Sparkes and the Elephant in the Room, while Brandreth will discuss his book Somewhere, A Boy and A Bear, which marks the centenary of the publication of Winnie the The Dark Side of the Internet theme, journalist James Bloodworth shares his experiences investigating the toxic subcultures of the "manosphere" and Dr Kaitlyn Regehr will explain why screen addiction is on the rise and how we can quit our phones. Ilkley Literature Festival has been going since 1973 and the very first one was opened by the legendary poet W.H. Auden - author of Funeral Blues. Ms Morris said: "From the very earliest days, Ilkley was called - rather condescendingly - an 'outpost of progress' because it brought incredible writers and thinkers and artists to a relatively small Yorkshire town, back when the only other literature festival in the country was Cheltenham. "It was very innovative right from the get-go and incredibly expansive in the subjects that it raised and the kind of writers that it included."Other well-known faces include Sir Tony Robinson introducing his fiction debut and broadcasters Edward Stourton, Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Welsh will be discussing the sequel to his bestseller Trainspotting. Men in Love picks up the story Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie in a new era as they head into rave and romance in the late "big ideas" up for discussion include how to save the planet in a climate crisis, explorations in philosophy and the science of asked who she is particularly excited to see, Ms Morris replied: "Nick Clegg." She added: "I think Nick will be a really interesting person to to hear from and I think he's probably going to get some really interesting questions from our audience as well."Tickets go on general sale on Tuesday 26 August, with priority bookings open for Friends of the Festival from Wednesday 20 August. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
