The Guardian's 100 best novels list

As it has done roughly once a decade, The Guardian recently polled a panel of 170 writers, each of whom selected 10 books, to compile a list of "The 100 Best Novels of All Time."

Such efforts are inherently subjective, of course, but The Guardian cast a wide net: Any book published in English, but originally written in any language, was eligible. Depending on how strictly one defines LGBTQ literature (Does an author have to be "out" to count? What about straight authors who present gay love stories?), between 10 and 15 of the novels would fit that rubric--including Virginia's Woolf To the Lighthouse. That one came in #4, just after her arch‑rival James Joyce and his modernist epic Ulysses. In fact, with five novels on the list, Woolf is the most voted for writer–beating Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, with four each.

We haven't read that one (yet), but did discuss Orlando (#54) back in 2010. Other novels from the list we've discussed include: The Left Hand of Darkness (#89) by Ursula K. LeGuin, Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (#87), Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (#84), James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room (#44)--but not Go Tell It on the Mountain (#79)--Alice Walker's The Color Purple (#65), and E.M. Forster's Howards End (#60). Curiously, we've never discussed any Henry James novels, three of which made the list: The Turn of the Screw (#86), The Golden Bowl (#52) and The Portrait of a Lady (#21)--though we have read his short story, "The Beast in the Jungle" (still one of the most chilling works in that genre, in my own not-so-humble opinion).

Oh, and the top choice? George Eliot's Middlemarch.