Here are the 15 books that received most votes to join the list, Robert McCrum has reached a verdict on his selection of the 100 greatest novels written in English. published 1977, avg rating 3.71 — You can now read the only surviving full draft of a Jane Austen novel, in her very own handwriting. By Emily Temple. But I promise that this is a book that will make you feel good, while also challenging you. published 1961, avg rating 3.81 — She leads storytelling exercises. published 1963, avg rating 3.70 — 64,696 ratings — Because wait, there actually is more. The story of her crossing to the US examines the blurring of boundaries, the commingling of languages and the blending of identities that complicate the idea of an eventual return. Available for everyone, funded by readers, Robert McCrum selects the definitive 100 novels written in English, After Robert McCrum finished his two-year-long project compiling the best novels written in English, you had a lot to add. Ursula Todd’s multiple lives see her strangled at birth, drowned on a Cornish beach, trapped in an awful marriage and visiting Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Oxford graduate Nick Guest has the questionable good fortune of moving into the grand west London home of a rising Tory MP. Welcome back. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (632 pages). published 1985, avg rating 4.36 — Radical and readable and truly awesome in every sense of the word. Available for everyone, funded by readers. 7,503 ratings — Read the review, Sebald died in a car crash in 2001, but his genre-defying mix of fact and fiction, keen sense of the moral weight of history and interleaving of inner and outer journeys have had a huge influence on the contemporary literary landscape. He is ever-loving towards his cruel and reckless brother, a little anxious about his weight, and gets extremely excited when he purchases a toothbrush for the first time. Read the review. Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (864 pages). Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (531 pages). published 1955, avg rating 3.88 — A housekeeper’s fate is changed by the pranks of her employer’s teenager daughter; an incorrigible flirt gracefully accepts his wife’s new romance in her care home. published 1939, avg rating 4.30 — Full of data, theories and historical analysis, its message is clear, and prophetic: unless governments increase tax, the new and grotesque wealth levels of the rich will encourage political instability. Read the review, The fourth of the autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels finds the wealthy protagonist – whose flight from atrocious memories of child abuse into drug abuse was the focus of the first books – beginning to grope after redemption. The book doubles as a set of profound reflections on objects and what they mean to us. The resulting “first Brexit novel” isn’t just a snapshot of a newly divided Britain, but a dazzling exploration into love and art, time and dreams, life and death, all done with her customary invention and wit. Strikingly honest, originally written, with a galaxy of intellectual reference points, it is essentially a love story; one that seems to make a new way of living possible. As well as being genuinely useful, it’s a fascinating chronicle of literary persistence, and of a lifelong love affair with language and narrative.Read the review, Henrietta Lacks was a black American who died in agony of cancer in a “coloured” hospital ward in 1951. Read the review, Jemisin became the first African American author to win the best novel category at the Hugo awards for her first book in the Broken Earth trilogy. 12,693 ratings — Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (864 pages). published 1929, avg rating 4.19 — With shades of Patricia Highsmith, this teasing investigation into sex, class and loneliness is a dark marvel.Read the review, The Spanish master examines chance, love and death in the story of an apparently random killing that gradually reveals hidden depths. What the evolutionary biologist lacks in philosophical sophistication, he makes up for in passion, and the book sold in huge numbers. Pullman has brought imaginative fire and storytelling bravado to the weightiest of subjects: religion, free will, totalitarian structures and the human drive to learn, rebel and grow. 24,531 ratings — From novels by Patrick Rothfuss to J.K. Rowling to Sabaa Tahir, we list the best fantasy books of the 21st century. I never remember how long The Secret History actually is—it is slim and sharp in my mind. From fantasy, science fiction, to political satire, here are 12 contemporary Russian novels from the the post-Soviet literary scene that every literature lover should read. More on BBC Culture’s greatest British novels poll: Best of the best: The top 25 explained Why Middlemarch is number one Why women rule the list What makes a great British novel… . Here are the rules: I only counted single volumes (it’s fine for them to be part of a series, but they have to meet the size requirements on their own), published in English since 1970. Two decades on, Gladwell is often accused of oversimplification and cherry picking, but his idiosyncratic bestsellers have helped shape 21st-century culture. Read the review, A key text in the days when the “New Atheism” was much talked about, The God Delusion is a hard-hitting attack on religion, full of Dawkins’s confidence that faith produces fanatics and all arguments for God are ridiculous. They are page-turners, keeping you up till the wee hours of the night. Paranoid yet plausible, Roth’s alternative-world novel is only more relevant in the age of Trump. Read the review, An electrifying memoir that captured a moment in thinking about gender, and also changed the world of books. Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life (720 pages). An unforgettable book, which is both an act of catharsis and a profound demonstration of empathy. Flynn’s stylishly written portrait of a toxic marriage set against a backdrop of social and economic insecurity combines psychological depth with sheer unputdownable flair.Read the review, Written after a near-fatal accident, this combination of memoir and masterclass by fiction’s most successful modern storyteller showcases the blunt, casual brilliance of King at his best. Read the review, A father and his young son, “each the other’s world entire”, trawl across the ruins of post-apocalyptic America in this terrifying but tender story told with biblical conviction. In this riotous memoir, Satrapi focuses on one young life to reveal a hidden history. published 1961, avg rating 3.97 — In her intricate and richly imagined far future universe, the world is ending, ripped apart by relentless earthquakes and volcanoes. Chabon’s novel combines elements of history, romance, adventure and escape making it a modern American epic or ‘heroic tale’ of its own. A book of elegies and echoes, these poems are infused with a haunting sense of pathos, with a line often left hanging to suspend the reader in longing and regret. Pollan is a skilled, amusing storyteller and The Omnivore’s Dilemma changed both food writing and the way we see food. Book four, the first of the doorstoppers, marks the point where the series really takes off. But was it an accident? published 1975, avg rating 3.58 — But psychologist Kahneman argues that, although System Two thinks it is in control, many of our decisions are really made by System One. Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (849 pages). 18,841 ratings — During a donut-eating contest. Read the review. THERE’S MORE!” at you in hopes to hold your attention for more than 30 milliseconds. 25,564 ratings — The good ones always seem to create space for the reader: space to sink and settle, and time to really learn what you’re dealing with, both in terms of character and in terms of author. The slide into savagery as civilisation collapses is harrowing material, but McCarthy’s metaphysical efforts to imagine a cold dark universe where the light of humanity is winking out are what make the novel such a powerful ecological warning. This love story-cum-immigration story, tracking two Nigerian lovers as they leave their country—one for the US, one for London—and try to find their way back together, is a chummy, clear-eyed delight for every one of its 588 pages. Read the review, With cold, clear, precise prose, Didion gives an account of the year her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, collapsed from a fatal heart attack in their home. published 1926, avg rating 4.06 — Wallace is certainly not hero worship material, that much is clear—but his most famous work is still an imperfect, impossibly good novel that gets more relevant every day. Between the World and Me takes the form of a letter to his teenage son, and ranges from the daily reality of racial injustice and police violence to the history of slavery and the civil war: white people, he writes, will never remember “the scale of theft that enriched them”. The Witch Elm is also perhaps her most fully realized, investigating not just a murder but privilege and society and the notion of memory—or sanity—itself. Read the review, This startling work of autofiction, which signalled a new direction for Cusk, follows an author teaching a creative writing course over one hot summer in Athens. The literary Internet’s most important stories, every day. A murder mystery concerning a labyrinthine library, and probably the only bestselling novel to be based on semiotics. Sign up for my newsletter, lovingly called “Mindf*ck Monday,” because, well, we all need a little attitude on Monday morning. The best novels in English: readers' alternative list, The best novels written in English: help us come up with a more diverse list. Read the review, An agenda-setting book that is devastating about the extent to which big tech sets out to manipulate us for profit. Three narrative strands – spanning far-future space opera, contemporary unease and virtual-reality pastiche – are braided together for a breathtaking metaphysical voyage in pursuit of the mystery at the heart of reality.Read the review, A grand house by a lake in the east of Germany is both the setting and main character of Erpenbeck’s third novel. published 1986, avg rating 3.86 — Read an interview with the author of our No 1 book. 37,783 ratings — Read the review, Coates’s impassioned meditation on what it means to be a black American today made him one of the country’s most important intellectuals and writers. The result is both sharp and dreamy, sliding in and out of different phases of Dylan’s career but rooted in his earliest days as a Woody Guthrie wannabe in New York City.

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