The Guardian's 100 Best Novels of All Time: A Hot Take, with Phil Chaffee and Joseph Dance

About this episode

The episode discusses The Guardian's list of the 100 Greatest Novels in English with insights from guests Phil Chaffee and Joseph Dance.

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…

People in this episode

Guests: Phil Chaffee, Joseph Dance

Topics covered

• Greatest Novels
• Literature Discussion
• Reading Lists
• Book Recommendations
• Author Comparisons

Keywords

• Guardian
• Best Novels
• Phil Chaffee
• Joseph Dance
• Reading
• Literature
• Book Club

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Guardian, Curious Readers

Books & works: Middlemarch, Beloved, Proust, Austen, Brontë

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