Top 10 Novels of All Time (2025 version)
As I sit here and write this blog two things are foremost in my mind –
1. It's cold in the house. Damn cold. The boiler packed up a few days ago and we're still awaiting a new part for the thing, so it's not fixed yet, and probably won't be until later today (fingers crossed)
2. I’m not completely comfortable
with the title of this blog anymore. When I first set this blog up, 15 years
ago, the title was amusing. It was a reference to those DVD releases, more often than not from the BBC, which were edited to remove music cues from classic TV shows
(usually played on the radio, or over a montage sequence) so the BBC didn’t
have to pay clearance rights. But now it has different, more sinister,
connotations and that’s not so funny to me now. It now smacks of this toxic
culture we’re currently stuck in, and the re-writing of our history…but I’ll
talk more about this is a future blog post.
But for the moment let’s put these troubles out of our minds and turn our attentions instead to what I’ve been reading since we last spoke, and more importantly if it’s had an effect on my Top 10 Novels of All Time*1 “But what were my Top 10 novels last time we spoke? And when exactly was the last time you told us?” I hear you all shout in unison. Well, we’ll come to that in good time. But first, let’s start the list.
I first read this novel back in
1990 in college. I was studying for my A-Levels (English and English Literature
among them) and my friends and I were going through a Classic Modern Literature
kick – mostly of the dark dystopian or social-political satire variety – and we
were reading everything we could get our hands at a whirlwind pace. This book
was read alongside Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Huxley’s Brave New
World and Samuel Butler’s Erewhon. It made a big impact on me then
but was slightly eclipsed by the chilling brilliance of A Clockwork Orange (which is the only excuse I can think of for it not having entered by Top 10 earlier than it has).
Whatever the reason, I decided to revisit
Orwell’s classic in January 2023 after upgrading to a rather beautiful hardback
edition from Penguin Books and this time, after reading the book in just three
days flat, I was completely stunned, delighted and disturbed afresh. This time
the book leaped straight into my Top 10 Books of All time list, which makes
this, in Top of the Pops terms ‘A brand new entry’*2
This book has been in my Top 10 list for quite a few years now. I’ve read it a number of times over the years (and even recommended it to family and friends), but the very first time was in the mid-1980s.
Actually, that’s not quite correct.
The first time I ‘read’ The Day of the Triffids was on cassette tape. It was a friend’s abridged audiobook, read by Robert Powell, who’s voice was so powerful and mesmerising that I became instantly rivetted by Wyndham’s narrative…rivetted to the point of obsession. I listened to the tape over and over, eventually picking myself up a copy of the book so I could experience the complete unedited version. Since then I’ve gone through a number of copies until, as with Nineteen Eighty-Four, I upgraded to a beautiful hardback copy, which now sits on my bookshelves waiting to be reread for the umpteenth time.
Another new entry into my Top 10
and another novel I read for the first time only recently. It may surprise and
stun you (maybe even anger you) that I read Adam’s classic novel for the first
time in October of 2021. Yet another casualty of my speedy development in
Infants and Junior School. By fourth
year junior school (8-9 years old) I had progressed so quickly through the educational
Reading Age stages in the schools Reading Groups, and moved onto adult fiction,
I was reading Stephen King novels and film novelisations.*3 Because I progressed to adult fiction so
quickly, I ended up rather stupidly eschewing all the wonderful classic
children’s books that were available to me. It's only in the last twenty years
or so that I have been making a point of going back and reading all those books
I missed out on as a child.
Having said that, I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, call Watership Down a ‘children’s book’. The book is in many places
dark and somewhat disturbing, with more than a whiff of violence. For some
reason the animated film adaptation has gained a reputation as being disturbing
and frightening, when it actually isn’t. The film version (incidentally, one of
my Top 10 Favourite Films of All Time) has brief moments of violence and
danger, but for the most part is a straight adventure film. It is missing the
more disturbing passages from the novel, many of them involving the antics of
El-ahrairah (particularly the somewhat gruesome and uncomfortable chapter
recounting El-ahrairah’s meeting with the Black Rabbit of Inlé and the pain
he is forced to endure as he has parts of his body cut off one by one).
The first time I read The War
of the Worlds in 1993 was in my first year of university. Not as part of my
course, but purely for my own personal pleasure. I still remember sitting on
the top deck of a bus, on a cold rainy autumn afternoon, travelling between
campuses, reading the novel and wishing the journey took a little longer than
its usual 20 minutes.
As with The Day of the Triffids,
this is a novel I have read many times and owned many different copies. I’ve also recommended it to many friends and family who have all loved
it as much as I did.
And, yes, I also love the Jeff Wayne musical adaptation.
Another book I came to quite late
and one that, like The War of the Worlds, has a strong memory of travel attached to it. It’s early 2008 and
I’m sitting on a train on my way up the coast to spend a few days by the
sea. I have my bag on the seat next to me and, and as the sun shines and the
Yorkshire Moors roll past the window, I’m reading Dune. As a big
fan of the David Lynch film (yeah, that’s right, a proud lover of the film, to boot!) I
was looking forward to this book enormously and it didn’t disappoint. I read
the sequel, Dune Messiah, immediately after and, although it is a good
solid SF novel, it failed to capture the complexity, originality and sheer excellence of Herbert's first novel.
I do intend to read all six of the original novels some time in the near
future. My intention is to start from Dune again and read all six in one
quick burst.
In the family home growing up there was a cupboard in the living room, just under the kitchen serving hatch, that was crammed full of my mum’s books.*4 Among the classic horror, SF and film novelisations was a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was the 1979 Universal movie tie-in release, with Frank Langella as Dracula on the cover. It was this copy that I first read some time in the mid-80s. I have read and re-read this novel many times over the years, in many editions and with many covers.
I first read Hines’s superb novel when I was a wee boy of twelve in English class, sometime in the first year of Secondary School (or perhaps you called it Big School or High School). The cover was the tie-in to the fabulous 1969 film, and the book was actually called ‘Kes’ rather than A Kestrel for a Knave. My English teacher, Mr Bacon, actually referred to it as Kes not A Kestrel for a Knave, which led to great confusion later on when I discovered that Kes was not the real title of the book. I remember absolutely loving Hines's novel back then. By that time reading had become a burning passion for me, and I looked forward to English class so we could carry on reading it (actually it was the teacher who technically read it, out loud, while we sat with our copies open in front of us, silently read along with him). I recall that Mr Bacon had read it so many times over the years to so many other classes that he seemed utterly bored with reading it now, and as he read it out to us during class, his voice was so unexciting and monotonous that it made listening to him almost impossible.
I have been a huge fan of the film
for many years now, believing it to be the best film of British Post-War
cinema, so in January 2017 – 32 years later – I decided it was time to revisit
the book and I ended up completely falling in love with it all over again.
‘Salem’s Lot was only the
second Stephen King novel I read, some time back in the early 1980s – I have
spoken before on this blog how I borrowed a hardback omnibus book of King’s
first three novels*5 from the
local container library*6 ‘Salem’s
Lot is the only book that truly frightened me, causing me to sleep with the
lights on for a night or two. It was also the novel that made me take my writing
seriously. I’d been writing since I was very young, but this was the first
novel that inspired*7 me to want to see my writing in print and for that
reason alone it will retain a place as one of the greatest works of fiction
ever. The fact that it’s also a fabulous novel and the best work that Stephen
King has produced, also guarantees it a place on the list.
As stated above in the entry for Nineteen
Eighty-Four, I first read this book in college during a period where I was
reading mostly Classic Modern Literature and was completely floored by it. It was like no other book I had read before. Or since. Reading it was (and
still is) a truly unique experience. It is, in turns, the most beautiful,
horrific, disturbing, wonderful, exhausting and rewarding piece of literature
ever written. Written in Nadsat, a teenage street language spoken by Alex and
his Droogs, and as a consequence the first few pages can be a little off-putting to anyone
approaching it for the first time. My advice to people I recommend this book to is read the first seven pages, if you’re still baffled by the language then give
up.
You know what…no one ever has.
Everyone I know who’s started reading it has always finished it. And loved it. So,
it must be the greatest book ever written, yes?
Actually, no…
Not only the greatest novel*8
ever written, but also the one I’ve read the most on this list. There are a
couple of titles on this list I’ve only read once*9 , but at the
time of writing this blog I have read it every single Christmas*10 for the past 25 years, and I’d read it a
handful of times before beginning that tradition. It must be 30 times at
least. I can’t think of any other book - novel or work of non-fiction - that I’ve
read that many times.
To try and describe the beauty of
this novel, the effortless elegance of Dickens’s prose, or the sheer magic of
this timeless Christmas story would be like trying to describe an impossible
colour. Dickens’s 1843 novel is perfect on every level: a powerful
and compelling masterclass in economical writing and superlative description. The most potent examination of the complex human condition you will read.
Like A Clockwork Orange, Charles
Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is a masterpiece*11 of Literature.
Not English literature, but all literature.
As an end note, here’s the list
of My Top 10 novels (in no particular order) from the last time I made one*12…
The Story of Britain by Roy Strong
The War of the Worlds
'Salem’s Lot
Glue by Irvine Welsh
Dune
Dracula
London by Edward Rutherfurd
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
A Clockwork Orange
A Christmas Carol
Interestingly, The Story of
Britain is a non-fiction book, something which would not have been allowed on this new list, as it is now very specifically ‘Novels’. Besides, if I was to allow a non-fiction book into
the Top 10 it would be either Antony Beevor’s The Second World
War or Ian Kershaw’s Hitler.
NOTES
1 – Please Note - this is my Top
10 and will differ greatly from yours.
2 – If you don’t know what Top of the
Pops is then go and Google it. *Tsk* The internet is a massive source of
information at your fingertips, it’s not just for leaving comments on your
friends’ pictures telling them how hot they look, neither is it there just to
post stupid TikTok “dancing” vids (and I use the term ‘dancing’ advisedly).
3 - I still remember the time I
was called up to read to the teacher (the teachers would hear all members of
the class read to them one by one so they could keep a check on how they were coming
along) and I was reading the novelisation of Star Trek III – The Search for
Spock and I can to a passage that read “He didn’t even ask me! Son of a bitch!”
and, thinking quickly, I change it to “He didn’t even ask me! The fool!”. You
see, I’d heard that if the teacher thought you were reading something that had inappropriate
scenes or language they would make you read something else.
4 - Growing up my Mum was the big
reader in the house (and still is, incidentally), and it was something she was
to pass on to both my sister and myself.
5 – For some reason they were presented
out of publication order, with The Shining first, followed by ‘Salem’s
Lot and lastly Carrie. Thankfully I figured out the publication
order from the copyright dates at the front of the book (clever, eh!) and read
them in the correct order.
6 - The container library used to visit
near where I lived as a boy every Tuesday, parking in the car park of the local
Catholic church. It was an actual container trailer from the back of a
transport lorry, and was driven there, unhooked and left for the day, before
being connected and driven away by the lorry at the end of the day.
7 – Using that word
nowadays always makes me wince. Words like “inspire”, “influence” and “empower” are thrown around like confetti in the current culture that
they’ve lost all power and meaning. They’re now just words that people spout
without thinking; things you see thousands of times every day, everywhere you
look. They’re now hollow vessels, emptied out of any importance or truth. They’re words
I hate, they make me feel nauseous and unclean every time I hear them thrown carelessly
about…the worst offender being “empowered”.
8 – OK, technically it’s really a
novella, clocking in at just under 31,000 words, and with most printed editions
coming in at roughly 100 pages. But most refer to it as a Short Novel, so I’m
sticking with that.
9 – Four, to be exact. The ones I’ve
only read in the last few years (Watership Down, A Kestrel for a Knave)
because I’ve not gotten around to re-reading them yet. Plus Dune (because
I waiting for the right time to re-read it in a marathon with the other five
novels) and A Clockwork Orange (which I keep meaning to re-read, but I
hold it in such high regard I want a good amount of time to pass before I
re-read so I can go into it practically afresh that it’s almost like reading it
for the first time again. Does that make sense? Probably not, but I know what I
mean).
10 – And always read the same way –
one chapter a night over five nights – beginning with Stave One on 20th
December and ending with Stave Five on Christmas Eve. Sheer heaven!
11 – Another word that is thrown
around like there’s no tomorrow by your average 2020 idiot. It’s a word I
seldom use, saving it for those things that really are masterpieces.
12 - Which was 6th October 2010.
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