At Bill’s and Melanie’s suggestion, I’ve updated my Fifty Favourite Novels list (2017; 2019). I’ve looked at the 2019 list regularly in the last couple of years, including about a month ago, so I can’t reasonably claim I wrote this one without referencing the old one – but I left it a while so I could do it relatively fresh. I did look at Goodreads so that I could remember what I’ve read in the last few years, but I steered clear of my reviews. The top ten are in extremely strict descending order, the next twenty have been ordered carefully, and the final twenty are a bit more relaxed – with a few reflections on the changes on the list below. I’ve read, by my estimate, around 200 books since the last update – so here’s hoping for a few more favourites.
- The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (no change)
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (no change)
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (+47)
- Gaudy Night by DL Sayers (+1)
- Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (+3)
- The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor (+11)
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (-1)
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (-5)
- Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (+1)
- Lila by Marilynne Robinson (new entry)
- Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding (-6)
- The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (+11)
- We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome (-1)
- Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (+1)
- Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery (+1)
- Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett (new entry)
- The Silver Chair by CS Lewis (re-entry)
- Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery (+3)
- Jeeves and Wooster novels by PG Wodehouse (no change)
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (+9)
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (+3)
- The Spy who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré (+13)
- Persuasion by Jane Austen (new entry)
- Middlemarch by George Eliot (-17)
- Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (-16)
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis (-4)
- The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (-16)
- The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas (+19)
- The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes (re-entry)
- Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (new entry)
- In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes (new entry)
- Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym (new entry)
- Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (-7)
- Endless Night by Agatha Christie (new entry)
- Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber (-2)
- Ballet Twins by Jean Estoril (no change)
- Shards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold (new entry)
- The Nine Tailors by DL Sayers (new entry)
- Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo (new entry)
- Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks (+5)
- Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott (-21)
- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (-12)
- Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford (new entry)
- Rilla of Ingleside by LM Montgomery (new entry)
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (-20)
- Have His Carcase by DL Sayers (-33)
- The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (-7)
- The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham (no change)
- Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (re-entry)
- What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge (-16)
This time around, there are some big changes in my ranking, though The Lord of the Rings is unlikely ever to be replaced in the number one slot in my heart. I love Gilead as much, but I have not loved it as long, and if Gilead can’t displace it, I doubt anything will. North and South shot almost to the top after my recent reread reminded me just how much I love it, while my current reread of Vanity Fair has dropped it off the list (not that I’m not enjoying it, but it’s definitely not a forever favourite). Gaudy Night hops around all over the place in my top ten, as does Doomsday Book – both are novels that I love immensely despite their very different, very significant flaws, and the way that I mentally assess their strengths v weaknesses changes over time. If I’d rated these in the early days of the pandemic, for example, I might have put Doomsday Book at number 3, even though it is a much worse book than lots of the others on this list, because of its honest but ultimately hopeful depiction of a pandemic (as well as showing how much medical care has improved outcomes for infectious diseases over the centuries). The other huge change is in Have His Carcase, though that’s probably because I reread The Nine Tailors recently and haven’t picked up Have His Carcase in a while – I expect it will climb back up the minute I do!
There are eleven new entries this time, almost all books that I’ve read since 2019 – with the exception of Station Eleven, which has become a favourite for, well, obvious reasons. Last time there were fifteen, of which eight have subsequently dropped off the list. I will be interested to see which of the new additions stay, and whether they move up or down, especially those that I’ve read very recently. I keep thinking about Shards of Honour and I’ve been recommending it left and right, but I imagine how much I continue to like it will depend hugely on how much I like the rest of the series – witness Dragon’s Green, which I loved immensely on first reading, falling right off this list after I hated Galloglass so much. Similarly, I have had a Christie on both my previous lists (And Then There Were None; Murder on the Orient Express), but Endless Night is a more recent read, and it made such an impression on me that I think there’s a good chance it will be the one that sticks. I never reviewed it – I often find it difficult to review thrillers without referring to spoilers, which is also why The Expendable Man, The Spy who Came in from the Cold, and Rebecca are all unreviewed – but I really loved it. It’s one in the eye for anyone who thinks Christie wrote “cosy” novels.
I nearly replaced Fanny Herself with Ferber’s So Big, which I read this year and absolutely loved, but when I think about it, I can’t help remembering how it ended with that terrible racist caricature of a Japanese servant, and that sits right alongside all the fabulous characterisation and wonderful prose in my mind. Such an off note in a book that might otherwise have become a forever favourite. I do love Ferber’s writing, though, and Fanny Herself is a book I’ve loved since I was a teenager. Like lots of the books on this list, it’s here because there are one or two scenes that I can conjure up in my head even years after the last time I read them, and that kind of sticking power is a sign that a book has really made an impact on me. What Katy Did at School has kept a place in my favourites (lo these many years) purely on the strength of the Christmas box.
One of the other criteria I used – last time somewhat subconsciously; this time intentionally – is how often I think about a book. I mean, that’s not the only one by any means. Sometimes when I think about a book, or discuss it a lot, I’m thinking about what I disliked. I’ve talked about House-Bound with a lot of people lately, for instance, because even though it’s unpleasant it has a lot of interesting topics and themes. The Psychology of Time Travel, though, is a book I often think about because it is everything I want modern science fiction to be: thoughtful, well-written, unusual, cross-genre, and can stand purely on the merits of its plot but also engages with wider themes and ideas. There’s no one moment in TPoTT that has stuck with me, but the book as a whole has done so. Rilla of Ingleside, similarly, made it onto the list because during the early days of the first lockdown, I kept thinking about it. Every time I switched on a daily news briefing, I thought about how Rilla and her family reorientated their whole day around papers carrying news from the front. Different technology, same feeling, I suspect.
Well, there you have it – an updated list and a bit of reflection. I enjoyed this immensely and, indeed, worked on it instead of marking the two MSc dissertations currently sitting in my inbox, so I’d probably better go and do those. If you’ve read this very self-indulgent post, thank you! I would be really interested to hear if other people have favourites lists, or what makes something a favourite for you.
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NB The cover photo for this post is of Lit & Phil Library in Newcastle, which I highly recommend (both the library and Newcastle in general). It’s much more ornate than this photo suggests, but all the other photos have people in. I visited at the end of 2019, which feels like a lifetime ago now!
louloureads 
Thanks for the mention. I don’t have a favourites list – I tend to rank novels by which is the ‘best’ rather than which I like the most. I’ve never been a Lord of the Rings fan and I don’t know Gilead at all, so that knocks those two out. North and South I rate very highly, as a ‘best’ or a favourite’, ditto anything by Jane Austen.
If I were name just one favourite it would be Beau Ideal by PC Wren, a book no one younger than I has ever heard of.
But I’d better have one Australian too, say My Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin.
I’ve read and enjoyed many of your choices (or not in the case of PG Wodehouse). But mostly only once, even Terry Pratchett, who I don’t come across often enough. I look forward to your further updated list in a couple of years.
I don’t think I could possibly come up with a “best” list, as I’m so aware that the books I enjoy are often not ones that have the most artistic or creative merit. I’d also be curious to know how you’d rank across genres – an excellent science fiction novel is obviously very different to an excellent crime novel, and both are different again from excellent literary fiction. I think if I was going to do “best” rather than “favourite” I’d have to do ten or twenty from each genre I read – which sounds fun but very challenging!
You are right that I had not heard of PC Wren, though I do like adventure stories of that era.
I think this post is self-indulgent for everyone around, in the best way possible. The whole time I’m reading your list, I’m thinking of what I would do myself. A post like this reminds me of emails my friends and I used to send each other with lists of questions that let your choose one option or the other — chocolate or vanilla ice cream, for instance. It’s a great way to gently explore ourselves, and listing books is a much more in-depth version of that, I think.
Coming up with 50 books I could do, but the way you move them around your list without re-reading your reviews is impressive. Is it just what made the most last impression overall that moves a book up the list?
It’s a combination of things – books that made a lasting impression, books that changed the way I think about something, books that became friends to me at difficult times, and books that capture some aspect of human lives in a way I haven’t seen before – all threaded through with some ineffable quality along the lines of how fondly I think about them. It’s a very unscientific and imperfect endeavour, in other words!
Okay, that gives me more confidence to try this myself! I’ll give it a go and link back to you!
I have so much trouble ranking books that I’m in awe of your ability to do so! In the Skin of a Lion is the book I generally name as my favourite and it has stuck as such for a good long while now but I think I’d struggle to rank 49 other faovurites!
I had never heard of In the Skin of a Lion, but I looked it up and it sounds great, so I have added it to my TBR!
I think not ranking them according to set criteria helps, because I’m making no attempt to assess how *good* the book is, only how much I love it – which I know will change with the sands of time.
I hope you enjoy it if you read it!
Always fun to see other people’s lists of favourites and you have lots that might be on mine too – the two Anne books (I haven’t read Rilla), Gilead, PG Wodehouse, Three Men in a Boat, The Heart of the Matter and of course LOTR. I’m gutted that Vanity Fair has dropped out on this re-read, and look forward to arguing with you over it! 😉 There are a few that definitely wouldn’t be on my list though – The Eyre Affair which I hated, anything by Dorothy L Sayers, and Station Eleven! And several I haven’t read yet so time will tell. I don’t think I could come up with a list – I tend to forget books after a while even if I loved them at the time so it would end up heavily biased towards recent reads which doesn’t seem fair somehow, or accurate.
DL Sayers is one of those authors that I love despite my better instincts. I reread Gaudy Night last year, which has a lot of Sayers’ ugliest class stuff on display, and I started off thinking “this is why so many people hate her” – but by the end I had just completely fallen for the book all over again! And I’ve seen some reviews of Station Eleven lately that mention things I’ve completely forgotten and don’t like the sound of, so it’s possible that if I reread it I wouldn’t like it.
Yes, the being biased towards recent reads thing is why I like keeping this as a living list – I think there are some largely immovable forever favourites on here along with a selection of whatever I’ve recently loved. It’s an attempt to pin down my current favourites rather than the books I have loved the most in my lifetime – which would be an impossible endeavour, I think!
I’ve done so many of these lists over the years – all very subjective and personal of course, which I think, ultimately is the only way to compile them!
I’ve got favourite childhood reads, classics, the yearly round ups but to try and put together an all-time top 50 of those books that have stayed favourites would be challenging.
Like you, my number one hasn’t changed for quite some time – Persuasion. LOTR would certainly be in my top 50. I’ve never read any Marilynne Robinson. I enjoyed N&S but maybe it needs a reread to have it so high in one’s list?
Curiously I associate Sayers with Cuba as I packed 2 of her books for the trip as they were small & light & disposable. She was fun but not memorable. We all have those comfort authors though that end up staying with us for life (I know one of Bill’s is Georgette Heyer whereas mine has changed over time. Catherine Gaskin in my teens, then Jean Plaidy/Victoria Holt. Agatha Christie is probably the closest thing I have to lifetime comfort read).
I still think about my read of Station Eleven last year and would consider it for a top 50 position, but not so sure about Pym. I’ve enjoyed her books but don’t find them particularly memorable.
I will stop now or this comment will end up as long as your list 🙂
Yes, subjective and personal is the only way to do these lists! This is definitely not an all-time top 50, which is why I’ve done a few of them now – there are probably-immovable favourites like LOTR and Gilead, but there are plenty that come and go in different seasons of life. I do love Persuasion, for example, and would currently say it’s my favourite Austen, but that tends to rotate between Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility.
Sayers is an author whose later work I admire much more than the early stuff – the early books are pretty standard detective fiction, but the later ones get into all sorts of stuff about gender equality in work and marriage, women in academia etc, and those are the ones I love, though admittedly I think the actual mystery elements became less well-written as she went along.
Pym is one of those authors that I encountered at exactly the right time – she writes both eloquently and hilariously about being an early 30s spinster in a church culture that is a bit baffled by single women over the age of about 22, and so I love her for that. I have read some of her other novels and not loved them as much, but any of her novels about that topic are real winners for me.
Thanks for commenting – it’s a lot of fun hearing about other people’s favourites!
This was a really enjoyable post! It’s interesting to think about what criteria make a book a favorite. The idea of trying to rank my top 50 books of all time is incredibly daunting, so I’m impressed that you’ve been able to keep a running list and re-do it to see how it evolves over time.
I think that knowing it’s not my top 50 of all time helps – if it was my one definitive list forever I think it would be way too daunting!