Episode
The Guardian's 100 Best Novels of All Time: A Hot Take, with Phil Chaffee and Joseph Dance
- Podcast
- The Book Club Review
- Published
- May 19, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2580
- Processing state
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Summary
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 [email protected], or head to our website for full shownotes. What would be in your top-10? Check out the Patreon for all kinds of extras, from our monthly book club to extra shows and Kate's reading diaries. Find it at patreon.com/thebookclubreview The Guardian’s List of the 100 Greatest Novels published in English , copied below for ease of reference. *underlined – the ones Kate has read Middlemarch Beloved Ulysses To the Lighthouse In Search of Lost Time Anna Karenina War and Peace Jane Eyre Pride and Prejudice Madame Bovary The Great Gatsby Bleak House Emma Mrs Dalloway Moby-Dick Nineteen Eighty-Four One Hundred Years of Solitude Persuasion The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Wuthering…