Spoiler: the top three are correct

December 9, 2015 5:23 AM

Looking for a reading list for 2016? The BBC has polled over 80 book critics from outside the UK to find out what they think are the 100 greatest british novels

The list in full:
100. The Code of the Woosters (PG Wodehouse, 1938)
99. There but for the (Ali Smith, 2011)
98. Under the Volcano (Malcolm Lowry,1947)
97. The Chronicles of Narnia (CS Lewis, 1949-1954)
96. Memoirs of a Survivor (Doris Lessing, 1974)
95. The Buddha of Suburbia (Hanif Kureishi, 1990)
94. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (James Hogg, 1824)
93. Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954)
92. Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons, 1932)
91. The Forsyte Saga (John Galsworthy, 1922)
90. The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins, 1859)
89. The Horse’s Mouth (Joyce Cary, 1944)
88. The Death of the Heart (Elizabeth Bowen, 1938)
87. The Old Wives’ Tale (Arnold Bennett,1908)
86. A Legacy (Sybille Bedford, 1956)
85. Regeneration Trilogy (Pat Barker, 1991-1995)
84. Scoop (Evelyn Waugh, 1938)
83. Barchester Towers (Anthony Trollope, 1857)
82. The Patrick Melrose Novels (Edward St Aubyn, 1992-2012)
81. The Jewel in the Crown (Paul Scott, 1966)
80. Excellent Women (Barbara Pym, 1952)
79. His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman, 1995-2000)
78. A House for Mr Biswas (VS Naipaul, 1961)
77. Of Human Bondage (W Somerset Maugham, 1915)
76. Small Island (Andrea Levy, 2004)
75. Women in Love (DH Lawrence, 1920)
74. The Mayor of Casterbridge (Thomas Hardy, 1886)
73. The Blue Flower (Penelope Fitzgerald, 1995)
72. The Heart of the Matter (Graham Greene, 1948)
71. Old Filth (Jane Gardam, 2004)
70. Daniel Deronda (George Eliot, 1876)
69. Nostromo (Joseph Conrad, 1904)
68. A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess, 1962)
67. Crash (JG Ballard 1973)
66. Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen, 1811)
65. Orlando (Virginia Woolf, 1928)
64. The Way We Live Now (Anthony Trollope, 1875)
63. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark, 1961)
62. Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945)
61. The Sea, The Sea (Iris Murdoch, 1978)
60. Sons and Lovers (DH Lawrence, 1913)
59. The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurst, 2004)
58. Loving (Henry Green, 1945)
57. Parade’s End (Ford Madox Ford, 1924-1928)
56. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson, 1985)
55. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)
54. NW (Zadie Smith, 2012)
53. Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys, 1966)
52. New Grub Street (George Gissing, 1891)
51. Tess of the d’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy, 1891)
50. A Passage to India (EM Forster, 1924)
49. Possession (AS Byatt, 1990)
48. Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis, 1954)
47. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Laurence Sterne, 1759)
46. Midnight’s Children (Salman Rushdie, 1981)
45. The Little Stranger (Sarah Waters, 2009)
44. Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel, 2009)
43. The Swimming Pool Library (Alan Hollinghurst, 1988)
42. Brighton Rock (Graham Greene, 1938)
41. Dombey and Son (Charles Dickens, 1848)
40. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
39. The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes, 2011)
38. The Passion (Jeanette Winterson, 1987)
37. Decline and Fall (Evelyn Waugh, 1928)
36. A Dance to the Music of Time (Anthony Powell, 1951-1975)
35. Remainder (Tom McCarthy, 2005)
34. Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005)
33. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
32. A Room with a View (EM Forster, 1908)
31. The End of the Affair (Graham Greene, 1951)
30. Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe, 1722)
29. Brick Lane (Monica Ali, 2003)
28. Villette (Charlotte Brontë, 1853)
27. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719)
26. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)
25. White Teeth (Zadie Smith, 2000)
24. The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing, 1962)
23. Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy, 1895)
22. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (Henry Fielding, 1749)
21. Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899)
20. Persuasion (Jane Austen, 1817)
19. Emma (Jane Austen, 1815)
18. Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989)
17. Howards End (EM Forster, 1910)
16. The Waves (Virginia Woolf, 1931)
15. Atonement (Ian McEwan, 2001)
14. Clarissa (Samuel Richardson,1748)
13. The Good Soldier (Ford Madox Ford, 1915)
12. Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949)
11. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813)
10. Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848)
9. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818)
8. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens, 1850)
7. Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
6. Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853)
5. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847)
4. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1861)
3. Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf, 1925)
2. To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf, 1927)
1. Middlemarch (George Eliot, 1874)

Related stories on the BBC Culture site:
Why Middlemarch is the greatest British Novel
More information and some quotes about the top 25

Are Britain's best writers women?

posted by Cantdosleepy (107 comments total)

'Are Britain's best writers long dead?' seems like an even more pertinent question. I'm quite intrigued by one of the live ones though, Tom McCarthy at no35, I've never heard of him or this novel, but its rated just outside the top ten British novels of the last one hundred years, and within the top ten of best post-WW2 novels. Was it super popular somewhere without breaking the home market? Or have I just not been paying attention?
posted by biffa at 5:43 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

To get the obvious complaint out of the way...

15. Atonement (Ian McEwan, 2001)

??? And yet LP Hartley and Rosamond Lehmann don't rate, and Elizabeth Bowen is down at #88. Either somebody isn't reading their classics or critics just prefer the contemporary rewrites.

I would have expected Austen to be higher. I mean, #11 is hardly low, but I would have guessed P&P would have come in right after Middlemarch. Maybe she doesn't translate well?
posted by thetortoise at 5:47 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Was it super popular somewhere without breaking the home market? Or have I just not been paying attention?

I don't know, biffa, as far as I recall this novel was everywhere on the year of its release. Not sure how you missed it. Might be the author's unremarkable name? It's really worth a read, but still surprising that it's at 35.
posted by distorte at 5:54 AM on December 9, 2015

While there is way too much Virginia Woolf in there for my taste, seeing Zadie Smith beat Tolkien sets everything right. Well, almost right...she's not better than Swift, now, come on.
posted by mittens at 5:55 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Emily > Charlotte forever
posted by thetortoise at 5:56 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

⌘-F "Pratchett"

OUT OF CHEESE ERROR
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:58 AM on December 9, 2015 [16 favorites]

It's really worth a read, but still surprising that it's at 35.

It's the only book that I have literally thrown across a room in frustration. Maybe I should give it another try.
posted by Lucinda at 5:58 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Only two in the top twenty are not "classics", in that they date from the last 30 years. Of those two I do think Remains of the Day belongs there. It is a perfect novel.
posted by distorte at 6:01 AM on December 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

Where's Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat?
posted by fings at 6:03 AM on December 9, 2015 [8 favorites]

Martin Amis's gonna be pissed. Darts, innit.
posted by distorte at 6:09 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Only two in the top twenty are not "classics", in that they date from the last 30 years. Of those two I do think Remains of the Day belongs there. It is a perfect novel.

Yeah, my complaint about Atonement isn't that it's too recent but that in theme and style it resembles a lot of earlier works (some of which I prefer), and I wish a less "safe" recent work ranked higher. I definitely don't have that problem with Ishiguro, but then I like his prose better anyway.
posted by thetortoise at 6:09 AM on December 9, 2015

The other day I picked up my copy of We Think the World of You from the shelf and started reading it again and reread the entire thing while standing by the bookcase. In case anyone wants recommendations on books that didn't make the list.
posted by thetortoise at 6:13 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Is the list of participants at the bottom the full list? Because if so, it seems heavily weighted towards people from English-speaking, developed countries like Australia, Canada and the US. I'd be interested to see a list with a more-representative sample of critics from all over the world.

But yeah, it's interesting how many of the novels are by women, which is something that they acknowledge in one of the associated articles.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:17 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Martin Amis's gonna be pissed. Darts, innit.

But then he's going to be pissed regardless, right?
posted by aught at 6:17 AM on December 9, 2015 [4 favorites]

Either somebody isn't reading their classics or critics just prefer the contemporary rewrites.

I know! Crash beat out Scoop, the the former is practically the latter, only with more car crashes and penises.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:18 AM on December 9, 2015 [6 favorites]

I wonder if Pride & Prejudice beating out Emma was a factor of more people having read Emma. I was listening to a recent In Our Time podcasts where the Austen scholars were pretty united that Emma was the substantially better novel.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:22 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

I would love to hear mefites' contemporary-ish (let's say post-1950) recommendations on this, if folks have them. I definitely don't have a super-great sense of British literature post-war, although I've read pretty much ALL the Doris Lessing and some other writers*. I'd be especially interested in more experimental/weirder stuff, as I feel like I am fairly decent at finding traditionally structured novels.

I am surprised to see that there isn't much (any?) fantasy on this list - it seems like there's so many excellent British fantastic novels. Frankly, I'd replace Memoirs of A Survivor with Lud In The Mist in a heartbeat, or with some Dunsany.

Speaking of which, The Golden Notebook is really good - and it's big in ambition - but I kind of think that the first couple Martha Quest books are better, and if you're willing to accept chamber piece sorts of novels, I think Diary of A Good Neighbor is a remarkable book.

The Swimming Pool Library is fantastic.

I'm always interested in the politics of the situation where one person gets more than one slot, especially for something really subjective like this. The Swimming Pool Library is just so good, but is The Line of Beauty really better than The Go-Between or Wise Children? It's not better than Wise Children. I really like both and they do such different things, but I'd have to resort to a coin-toss to chose between them.

Also, Bleak House is the best novel and should be number one. So much more satisfyingly bizarre than Middlemarch.

(*Pat Barker, Angela Carter, Alan Hollinghurst, Margaret Drabble, Hilary Mantel)
posted by Frowner at 6:22 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Pride and Prejudice gets all the glory, but Persuasion is categorically the best Austen.
posted by terretu at 6:22 AM on December 9, 2015 [15 favorites]

Also, I like to think the header on this page reflects internet responses to this list.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:24 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

An Orwell novel doesn't even crack the top ten? Craziness. To be fair, my list would have started with everything he wrote (well, not the non-fiction), and then started adding in other authors - so providing literary criticism isn't something I do professionally...

(Tolkein above C.S. Lewis - did they even read the books on this list?)

(And claiming Conrad is a bit dirty - he didn't particularly view himself as British, that was more expediency than anything else. Wait. Jonathan Swift. I don't even understand their rules now)
posted by combinatorial explosion at 6:25 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Great Expectations? Really?

Did I (and seemingly everyone else who had to read it in school) just have a bad experience?

Or does Dickens just have a Lost problem, where a decent serial gets retroactively ruined when they can't figure out the ending?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:27 AM on December 9, 2015

Yeah, I was thinking Irish writers were excluded, but that doesn't explain Swift or Lewis.

Huffy Puffy-- somebody on MeFi asked what books are better read in adulthood, and Great Expectations was the first that came to mind for me.
posted by thetortoise at 6:29 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've read only 13 of the 100. I have no culture. :(
posted by Mogur at 6:30 AM on December 9, 2015

Did I (and seemingly everyone else who had to read it in school) just have a bad experience?

Great Expectations is a terrific novel, but it's (IMO) a terrible novel to read in school. I think it gets chosen because it starts off with childhood and it is shorter than David Copperfield and maybe more coherent, but I think you have to have a certain love of Dickens and a certain maturity to really appreciate the novel. I actually don't think that teens need to read novels about kids/teens in order to find them relatable, and I think that's a big mistake that HS literature classes make. Some novels with young protagonists are terrific to use in class, but an awful lot of them (Jesus god, The Member of the Wedding) really, if anything, seem bizarre and difficult precisely because the child protagonist is written from the standpoint of an adult writing in a different time.

I would be awfully tempted to start students with Our Mutual Friend. I went on this big Dickens kick in my early twenties and I remember reading the scene where they find the body in the water and being just blown away - this was Dickens? I had already read Bleak House twice at that point but the sheer weirdness of that scene was amazing.
posted by Frowner at 6:35 AM on December 9, 2015 [12 favorites]

I am surprised to see that there isn't much (any?) fantasy on this list

I'm more surprised so see almost no mysteries.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:41 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

(The Member of the Wedding was, like, my book when I was 13! I lived for that book. But in my defense I was pretty alienated from other 13-year-olds and happened to find an old copy in the drama room that no one else had picked up for years.)
posted by thetortoise at 6:41 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ooh, mysteries. I have such an intense love/hate relationship with Josephine Tey.

Okay, calm down, thetortoise. Clearly I've been just itching to discuss British literature.
posted by thetortoise at 6:43 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

I don't see how you get two Woolfs before a Bronte.

I do wonder why Atonement and not Saturday, for McEwan.

But yeah, Middlemarch is clearly number 1. Glad to see that these critics have some purchase on the truth.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:56 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Reading the last three paragraphs of Middlemarch for the first time (of many) was one of the most satisfying moments of my life. I burst into tears on the train. Something about that ending, damn.
posted by sallybrown at 6:56 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Did I (and seemingly everyone else who had to read it in school) just have a bad experience?


Great Expectations works much better for older readers. I suppose there are Reasons to teach it in school, but they should probably be revisited.

My own responses:

a) Hey, James Hogg!
b) No Walter Scott, eh?
c) This is a very realist list. (In the sense of: "with some notable exceptions, this list tilts really strongly toward the realist strain of British novel-writing.")
d) Intrigued by Frankenstein's presence and Dracula's absence. Unless it's the Irish issue...but wait, Swift. Hmm.
e) Sarah Waters, but not Kate Atkinson? Also, why the enthusiasm for The Little Stranger? (Which I liked, but most people would plump for Fingersmith, I imagine.)
f) Surprised by how well Vanity Fair did. Thackeray is sort of the odd author out when it comes to the current popularity of canonical Victorian novelists. Though Trollope's The Way We Live Now is even more surprising, although it does speak to the contemporary climate, I suppose...
g) I always rank Bleak House and Middlemarch as the two greatest novels of the nineteenth century. People who are willing to grant me Middlemarch frequently loathe Bleak House, though, and vice-versa, so perhaps I'm a bit odd.
posted by thomas j wise at 7:01 AM on December 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

d) Intrigued by Frankenstein's presence and Dracula's absence. Unless it's the Irish issue...but wait, Swift. Hmm.

Maybe it's because Frankenstein is a much much better book than Dracula? I can see including Dracula in the top 100, but leaving Frankenstein out of the top, say twenty, would have been a mistake, to me.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:08 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Putting Narnia above any of the books in CS Lewis' sci-fi trilogy or the Screwtape Letters reflects popularity more than quality. That said, I would have put Wodehouse's novels 1-70, peppered in a few mysteries after that, only left the higher ranked Trollope novel in, and included at least Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

Arguing about subjectively ranked lists is the third best part of this season.
posted by mattamatic at 7:08 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

> "I would love to hear mefites' contemporary-ish (let's say post-1950) recommendations on this, if folks have them."

Okeedoke! Post-1950 commentary away!

99. There but for the (Ali Smith, 2011)

I haven't actually read this particular book by Ali Smith, but I read a lot of her and She. Is. Great. Recently read "How to be both" and it blew me away, definitely one of the best books I've read this year. Sad and funny and true, and definitely not afraid to experiment with form in interesting ways.

97. The Chronicles of Narnia (CS Lewis, 1949-1954)

There's a reason these are classics, and I have many fond memories of them from childhood, but some of them have held up less well than others. In particular, skip "The Last Battle", which pissed me off with its heavy-handed unfairness even when I was a kid. And while I loved "The Horse and His Boy" at the time, I suspect the racism fairy has visited it in the intervening years. The others, though, have a lot of great stuff in them well worth reading.

95. The Buddha of Suburbia (Hanif Kureishi, 1990)

He writes books, too? Dang, somehow didn't know that. Love his films.

93. Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954)

Bleak, brutal, and great. No question it deserves to be on the list.

79. His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman, 1995-2000)

Eh ... Hm. OK, the first one is pretty great, even if it's a railroad plot and the characterization is pretty slim. It's brimming with incredible ideas. The wheels kind of come off in the later books, though, and in particular the third one devotes huge swathes of text to an uninteresting and unnecessary subplot. Much as I appreciate a series in which teen sex saves the universe, I wouldn't have given this slot to all three. MAYBE the first one.

68. A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess, 1962)

Truly great book. Some people think the movie is better. They're wrong. The book gets under your skin and will stay there for a long time.

67. Crash (JG Ballard 1973)

I appreciate Ballard, but somehow I could never get into him as much as some people do. Every time I read a Ballard book, I think, well, I'm glad I read it, but I'm not sure I could say I liked it. This one was no exception.

63. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark, 1961)

Another great book. Deft characterization and a plot that makes itself clear without beating you over the head with it.

56. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson, 1985)

This book is awesome. It's Winterson at her least experimental and most accessible (which is not meant to be either praise or condemnation, just a description). It spoke straight to my heart.

53. Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys, 1966)

It's sitting right over there, I should really get around to reading it soon.

46. Midnight’s Children (Salman Rushdie, 1981)

I tried it, I didn't get very far into it. So I can't really say it's good or bad, but it didn't immediately grab me. Maybe I'll try again someday.

45. The Little Stranger (Sarah Waters, 2009)

I gave up on Sarah Waters before this book came up. She's an author I very much wanted to like, and always found just ... OK. Every book I read of hers, and I read quite a few before I stopped, always seemed flawed in some way that kept it from being great. Maybe this one is an exception, I don't know.

38. The Passion (Jeanette Winterson, 1987)

This is pretty good Winterson. I mean, I certainly enjoyed it, she's a great author. There are other books of hers I'd have put here instead of this one, though, if I had to choose, gun to my head. Probably Written On The Body.

26. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)

This hasn't held up for me as well as it has for many, many people. I mean, it's the ur-text of modern fantasy, absolutely, and it created many of the cliches before they were cliches. It's got tons of great moments. (You shall not pass!) But its digressions and odd plotting choices wear on me these days. If I had to pick out a Tolkien I'm eager to re-read, it'd be The Hobbit. That's an amazing, tight, formative book.

18. Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989)

It was OK. I mean, I don't regret reading it, but I can't say I see what all the fuss was about.


Post-1950 UK authors I can think of off the top of my head who might also have merited a place:

Kate Atkinson
Roald Dahl
Dorothy Dunnett
Alisdair Gray

No doubt there's a lot more.
posted by kyrademon at 7:08 AM on December 9, 2015 [8 favorites]

Maybe this list is the most interesting as "what people think of when they think of British literature".

What I'd really like to see is some interviews with participants where they describe what makes them thing of something as a "great" novel and how they have directed their reading over the years. We can argue back and forth all day, but without some shared criteria we won't get much forrarder.

It seems like people are bringing a bunch of different criteria to bear, which generates an exciting list but a difficult to analyze one.

Assuming that all the novels on the list are very good novels that are worth reading:

How do we weigh influence in relation to lyricism, complexity, etc?

How do we weigh the writing of hitherto undescribed experiences? The Golden Notebook isn't beautifully written - you can love Doris Lessing, but not for her prose style - but it powerfully describes both mental illness and an experience of feminism.

What makes a novel "well-written"? I notice that most of these have pretty conventional plot structure and use of language, and most of them fit pretty neatly into the standard bourgeois literary novel/ "very good Booker nominee" category.

How much should a novel be about interiority/individual emotional experience?

How do we compare neatness of plot structure with complexity? Some of Terry Pratchett's books are really charmingly written and structured, whereas Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy turns into a sagging mess starting in the second book. Pullmans trilogy is more ambitious, does more with character and engages seriously with theological questions. But still....sagging mess versus funny, light but relatively thoughtful and well-plotted comedy - how do you rank those and why?

It seems like a discussion of those questions would be more difficult to prepare than a poll/list, but is still a necessary step.
posted by Frowner at 7:12 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

POINT OF ORDER Like fifty of these should actually be Agatha Christie instead (she wrote 78 mystery novels but even I am willing to concede that, like, Passenger to Frankfurt is not exactly the very top of the literary heap).

And yeah I haven't read Dracula but Frankenstein is one of the best books ever and it definitely deserves to be in the top ten.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:13 AM on December 9, 2015

I'm glad to see "Lucky Jim" on the list and happy that Henry Green made it too.
posted by chavenet at 7:14 AM on December 9, 2015

Wait. Jonathan Swift. I don't even understand their rules now

Perhaps it's because Swift was born in Dublin in 1667. Ireland, excluding Northern Ireland, only became independent in the 20th century.
posted by Mister Bijou at 7:14 AM on December 9, 2015

I'm super happy to see that Sybille Bedford made the list.

I'm very surprised by Atonement. I don't think it will be read in 50 years.

I'm shocked by no LP Hartley, and no James Joyce. I wonder if with Joyce people thought everyone else would put him down.

Also, no Point Counterpoint, which seems weird.
posted by OmieWise at 7:16 AM on December 9, 2015

Also in complete seriousness I've been having a pretty tough few weeks and I don't feel like doing any work today and a pleasant argument about the merits of various British novels/authors sounds like a really nice way to spend the morning so thank you VERY MUCH for posting this! I shall be following along with interest.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:17 AM on December 9, 2015 [4 favorites]

Aw jeez, Alisdair Gray. He's not on here because almost no one outside the UK has heard of him, I suspect. He's the best. He writes about misogyny and "nice guys" in this way that is simultaneously intensely feminist and from-the-inside/sympathetic. I really trust him as a writer in a way that I trust few male authors. Also, of course, he's a great writer, his books are innovative and bizarre and he's a great artist as well.

It's so weird, I only ever started reading him because I kept seeing this copy of Lanark at the SF bookstore that never, ever sold. It was the one with the beautiful cover by Gray, and I assumed that because of the beauty and oddity of the cover it must be some weird small press thing, and the blurb seemed to suggest that it would be gross and misogynist. I think I read some mention of it in passing on some blog or other, thought "hey, that's the book that never sells!", was somehow moved to buy it and never looked back.
posted by Frowner at 7:17 AM on December 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

Aw jeez, Alisdair Gray

Yeah, but they put Cary's The Horse's Mouth on here, which as far as I can tell is Lanark written 50 years earlier. (And better. Even though I love Gray I've never understood why that novel gets so many shout outs.)
posted by OmieWise at 7:20 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

To speak up for the mystery novel:
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Probably Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People.
Rebecca is flat out brilliant, the best coming of age story I've read.
Wilkie Collins deserves a nod as a pioneer.
I can understand dropping Agatha Christie but not the entire Golden Age of Detectives.
Conan Doyle was robbed, although The Hound of the Baskervilles is his only great Holmes novel.
P.D. James is very literate and explores the mystery genre much deeper than just who-dunnit.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:24 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

No Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, or Michael Moorcock? No "Richard Allen?" Whose Britain is this, anyway?
posted by snottydick at 7:25 AM on December 9, 2015

The Horse's Mouth is so different. Look, Larnark is a superb regional novel, for one thing. And it's just about as morally different from the Cary as humanly possible - Lanark is about how a man can come to be a whole person in spite of misfortune and patriarchy, and it's about both personal and social tragedy. It's a take on straight masculinity that is, IMO, virtually unmatched by other male writers. (Among other things, it's like if you could get Orwell's characters to stop having the Nice Guy Sads all the time - I love how Orwell can write abject masculinity, that's a great strength of his, but he really needs the feminism that Gray brings to the table.) And don't forget the fantastic element.
posted by Frowner at 7:28 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'll add Alan Warner to my post-1950 list as well. And I agree with a lot of other names that have been called out by others.

Of course, the real problem is that 100 is probably just too small for the scope of the concept. 1000 might be more reasonable.

> "No Walter Scott, eh?"

It's amazing to reflect how UNTHINKABLE it would have been for him not to be on such a list if it were made, say, 100 years ago.
posted by kyrademon at 7:31 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Agree that there might be too much Virginia Woolf, and I'm surprised how far down you have to go before you find Doris Lessing. Also, I would've put Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None on the list, and put 1984 in the top ten.
posted by fuse theorem at 7:37 AM on December 9, 2015

The Horse's Mouth is so different.

Oh, there are differences, and I take your point about the examination of masculinity, although The Horse's Mouth is only one part of the First Trilogy, and is quite tonally different from the film. I think there are more overlapping themes than not, and the central preoccupation with artistic production plays out very similarly. To be fair, it's been ten years since I read Lanark, and only five since I read the First Trilogy.

The fantastic element in Lanark wasn't at all effective for me. I thought it detracted from the book.
posted by OmieWise at 7:44 AM on December 9, 2015

The Remains of the Day is sublime and I will fight anyone who disagrees.

However I am incensed that Jane Eyre is placed lower than any Dickens. Pah! Dickens! Pah!
posted by shakespeherian at 7:48 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

In terms of contemporary experimental writers, I'd put David Peace on here. I think his books will outlast the more Bookerish types, though they tend to be polarizing.
posted by thetortoise at 7:57 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

However I am incensed that Jane Eyre is placed lower than any Dickens. Pah! Dickens! Pah!


See, and this is why I want to know what criteria people are using. Not from a "let me tell you the correct criteria" standpoint, but just to know.

I guess I find Bleak House better than Jane Eyre - although they have a lot in common and are both very weird - because Bleak House paints on a much larger canvas and deals with a more complicated web of relationships and personalities. But it's much broader - we certainly get quite a lot of Esther, but she's a drip and not meant as a reliable observer of her interior state or the world around her, and she's written in a sort of comedy style, even though what she sees and thinks are intended seriously. Jane, of course, is written much more realistically, with much more depth, and she changes much more than almost any Dickens character is ever allowed to.

Both novels have some really lovely passages and describe place very effectively, although in different ways. If I had to choose between, say, Jane's thoughts on her possible future life with Asshole St. John and when Miss Flite talks about her birds, I don't know which I'd pick.

But what settles it for Bleak House for me is the ironic tone in the present tense passages. Jane Eyre is basically all in one register and Bleak House has several, all powerful and effective.

I end up thinking Bleak House better because it has so much going on, I guess I'd say.
posted by Frowner at 7:59 AM on December 9, 2015

Oh also forgot that the greatest delightful surprise is that McCarthy's Remainder made the list! That is perhaps the single book I've recommended the most in the years since it came out so I am very, very happy to see it there.

IF YOU LIKE BOOKS, GO READ TOM MCCARTHY'S REMAINDER RIGHT NOW
posted by shakespeherian at 7:59 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

By coincidence, incidentally, I literally just finished reading Cold Comfort Farm this morning.

That's a pretty hilarious book.
posted by kyrademon at 8:01 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

See, and this is why I want to know what criteria people are using.

They polled 82 book critics from around the world (excluding the UK). Each critic submitted a ranked list of 10 novels. Their top was given 10 points, lower items on their list received fewer points. There were, apparently 228 unique titles, and the ones that got the most cumulative points ranked highest. It doesn't look like they gave any criteria to the invitees, so I assume each person came up with their own criteria. This is in the first couple paragraphs of TF.

So we have an aggregated list of the the personal preferences of 82 diverse critics. This is not a scientific process; it's just grist for the internet (which doesn't mean it's not fun).
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:08 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

> However I am incensed that Jane Eyre is placed lower than any Dickens. Pah! Dickens! Pah!

See, and this is why I want to know what criteria people are using.

For me, prose style. I just don't find Dickens readable on the sentence level, though his plots and characters are great.
posted by languagehat at 8:09 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Angela Carter
Barbara Comyns
Tanith Lee
posted by kyrademon at 8:14 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yeah I don't care for Dickens's prose, but I'll also say that aside from a few exceptions (the end of Tale of Two Cities is great) I don't love his plots or characters either. I think they tend to come across a little too... fable-like, I guess? They often don't seem to be making their own decisions and I feel like I can see the author pulling the strings to achieve the desired outcome.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:17 AM on December 9, 2015

But... but... the opening of Bleak House! Fog everywhere. Where are y'all finding better sentences?
posted by thetortoise at 8:20 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

In every inch of Jane Eyre.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:22 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Barbara Comyns

Oh, absolutely. I've been glad that NYRB Classics has been reprinting her here in the US, although my favorite of hers, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead about a village poisoned by ergot, isn't in their imprint.
posted by OmieWise at 8:29 AM on December 9, 2015

It doesn't look like they gave any criteria to the invitees, so I assume each person came up with their own criteria.

And this is precisely what I'm curious about. What are these people thinking when they rank books? What range of books do they choose from and what brought them to read British novels? Not even a Very Serious literature major is going to have read exhaustively in multiple periods.
posted by Frowner at 8:31 AM on December 9, 2015

A: Thing X is the best thing.
B: No! Thing Y is better than Thing X.
A: Thing X!
B: Thing Y!
A: Thing X!
B: Thing Y!
C: Comrades! Rather than a meaningless squabble over subjective preferences, let us have an enlightened discussion of the reasons that lead us to prefer one thing over another. I myself find Thing Z to be the best, for Reason Q.
A: No! Thing X is the best, for Reason R.
B: No! Thing Y is the best, for Reason S.
C: Reason Q!
A: Reason R!
B: Reason S!
C: Reason Q!
A: Reason R!
B: Reason S!
D: Comrades! ...
posted by DaDaDaDave at 8:35 AM on December 9, 2015 [5 favorites]

I read The Swimming Pool Library in college and it was a terrific novel, indeed perhaps even better than terrific, and for me at that stage in my life kind of mind-blowing, but there's no way in hell that it merits being placed on a list anywhere above Gulliver's Travels or Tristram Shandy for that matter even in any top 100 British novels list. Same would be true for The Line of Beauty.
posted by blucevalo at 8:39 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

> And this is precisely what I'm curious about. What are these people thinking when they rank books? What range of books do they choose from and what brought them to read British novels? Not even a Very Serious literature major is going to have read exhaustively in multiple periods.

Obviously the question can't be answered, but more importantly, the answer doesn't matter. The various reasons and ranges of experience cancel each other out with large enough numbers of respondents. The wisdom of crowds. (Which is not to say that the collective answers are Right, just that they accurately represent collective opinion on British lit. Nobody's going to agree with all of them, though I find myself surprisingly comfortable with this list and agree that the top three are correct. Woolf and Eliot are truly, truly great.)
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

in response to the absence of Cakes and Ale i have thrown all my tea in the harbour.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:42 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was overjoyed at how many of my favourite writers from post war were there--there is this micro genre of acid etched, domestic dramas, that are very smart about people and very smart about reationships and elegently scaled--Pym, Spark, Fitzgerald.

The only one missing is the other Elizabeth Taylor.

I think Hollinghurst might be in that tradition.

I also wish I liked Austen more.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:48 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Burgess, btw, will be pissed that his only inclusion is A Clockwork Orange.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:50 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Obviously the question can't be answered, but more importantly, the answer doesn't matter. The various reasons and ranges of experience cancel each other out with large enough numbers of respondents. The wisdom of crowds. (Which is not to say that the collective answers are Right, just that they accurately represent collective opinion on British lit. Nobody's going to agree with all of them, though I find myself surprisingly comfortable with this list and agree that the top three are correct. Woolf and Eliot are truly, truly great.)

Do they? Or do they reflect access to and promotion of certain books on a large scale? When I look at some of the surprising absences on this list it seems like the list may have a great deal to say about what is read as "British literature" outside the UK. To take a politically neutral example, Alisdair Gray - he's a big, big deal in the UK, and almost unheard of outside it. Angela Carter similarly, although to a lesser extent. CS Lewis's Space Trilogy versus the Narnia books might be another example. Tariq Ali's Islam Quintet also comes to mind - I'd back it against Memoirs of A Survivor and probably against The Golden Notebook, which I really like and have read many times.

I think it's actually very useful to know where these respondents are coming from.
posted by Frowner at 8:51 AM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Line of Beauty got on there because somewhere a critic put The Golden Bowl down on their survey sheet, then remembered James was an American and crossed that out. Then they put down Brideshead Revisited but felt uncomfortable and crossed that out too. Then they put down The Line of Beauty and nodded sagely and sent off the envelope.
posted by thetortoise at 8:53 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think Line of Beauty is th great novel of manners of the 20th century, obv. an update on Wharton or James, as good as those, but angrier, and smarter. It also is very good on the move between soft power and hard power, and between official and unofficial discourses. Also, because of current mores, he can write explicitly about sex, and is v. good at it. That said, I think The Strangers Child might be the better novel, and doesn't show up on these lists.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:57 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

I read The Swimming Pool Library in college and it was a terrific novel, indeed perhaps even better than terrific, and for me at that stage in my life kind of mind-blowing, but there's no way in hell that it merits being placed on a list anywhere above Gulliver's Travels or Tristram Shandy for that matter even in any top 100 British novels list. Same would be true for The Line of Beauty.

Why? With this particular list, I think it's a much more morally subtle book than The Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go; it certainly stands up perfectly well to EM Forster and in terms of what the book has to say about race, class and colonialism that might be a good comparison. You can't tell me it's inferior to Julian Barnes's work - not to knock Barnes, but I think the two books are definitely on about the same level.

I always wonder about the glamour of the past. I find it very easy to say "but of course it's not as good as Villette", but then Villette certainly has its failings, as I'm reminded each time I read it.

And then there's the whole question of what we think novels are supposed to do, and how that's changed over time. Villette has a lot more confidence in the power of the novel than The Swimming Pool Library does, I think, and it has much higher moral/philosophical aims. Does that make it better?
posted by Frowner at 9:09 AM on December 9, 2015

> I think Line of Beauty is th great novel of manners of the 20th century, obv. an update on Wharton or James, as good as those, but angrier, and smarter. It also is very good on the move between soft power and hard power, and between official and unofficial discourses. Also, because of current mores, he can write explicitly about sex, and is v. good at it. That said, I think The Strangers Child might be the better novel, and doesn't show up on these lists.

I agree with this entirely. What a wonderful writer he is!
posted by languagehat at 9:20 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also Ballard novels better than Crash (which is v. v. v. good)

High Rise
Cocaine Nights
Concrete Island

Best Ballard Novel that would most likely be in my top ten if i wrote this list:
Super Cannes
posted by PinkMoose at 9:40 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Surely they could have fudged some positions so that Crash could come in at number 69.
posted by idiopath at 9:44 AM on December 9, 2015

CTRL-F His Dark Materials. Okay.

That said, Wonderland but no Looking Glass? GTFO.
posted by the sobsister at 9:55 AM on December 9, 2015

No Wyndham Lewis? Get the fuck outta here.

At least they've got Henry Green and Muriel Spark I suppose.
posted by wyndham at 10:04 AM on December 9, 2015

No Wyndham Lewis? Get the fuck outta here.

Being a fascist, even just a futurist, will sometimes mar your reputation.
posted by OmieWise at 10:07 AM on December 9, 2015

Being a fascist, even just a futurist, will sometimes mar your reputation.

Says Fredric Jameson incorrectly in 1979. Got anything new to back that up?
posted by wyndham at 10:15 AM on December 9, 2015

Does Dombey And Son have much to recommended it as more than the Hipster Pick/Pub Quiz Stumper Dickens Novel?

Liking the list, it's differently-wrong!
posted by comealongpole at 10:49 AM on December 9, 2015

The biggest omission from that list is David Mitchell who is (imho) the best working British novelist right now. Astonishing range, beautiful prose, and so intense interesting in his genre-defying, ventriloquist, slipstream ways. I cannot think of another current British novelist who is just so startling and mind-blowingly good. Hollinghurst and even Tom McCarthy are just traditionalists by comparison and, although both very good, just not in the same league.

Yes, Alasdair Gray is an obvious omission. He's not really known outside the UK (or even below the Scottish border) - maybe because he is very much not within a British realist tradition but rather continues what James Hogg started (another notable omission is James Robertson whose The Testament of Gideon Mack is in the same tradition, though more readerly than Gray).

And finally, where is Jonathan Coe? His What a Carve Up! is as bitter an indictment of Thatcherite Britain as Hollinghurst but is angrier and sadder.
posted by kariebookish at 11:39 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

NW but no White Teeth? Okay.
posted by duffell at 11:57 AM on December 9, 2015

White Teeth is #25.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:57 AM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

No Wyndham Lewis? Get the fuck outta here.
posted by wyndham at 12:04 on December 9 [+] [!]

We're on to you, Mr Lewis
posted by shakespeherian at 11:59 AM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Dombey and Son is a very good read with a nice plot, some of Dickens best prose (I particularly like the wedding chapter), and some great characters - including especially the second Mrs Dombey and Florence (for a change it is Son who is kind of colorless and Daughter who is more interesting). I quite like it, but then I tend to like Dickens anyway.
posted by Death and Gravity at 12:14 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah, really glad to see Dombey and Son, which I've always thought was really seriously underrated.

However, no Uncle Fred in the Springtime? That's just sad.
posted by holborne at 12:39 PM on December 9, 2015

I don't know, biffa, as far as I recall this novel was everywhere on the year of its release.

That was the year I moved to Cornwall and met my SO, so maybe a lot more beach time than reading.
posted by biffa at 2:07 PM on December 9, 2015

john brunner! 'considered too american' :P
posted by kliuless at 2:59 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

No Patrick O'Brien poor sad lobcocks...
posted by runincircles at 3:45 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure you could add Jeff Noon to this list, but his novels are interesting.
posted by combinatorial explosion at 4:37 PM on December 9, 2015

Could some of you list your top ten British novels?
posted by persona au gratin at 4:52 PM on December 9, 2015

> "Could some of you list your top ten British novels?"

... I can't even begin to imagine how I would create a list that short for a topic that big.
posted by kyrademon at 5:05 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'd settle for top 12.
posted by persona au gratin at 5:06 PM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oh, well in THAT case: 1984, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Five Children and It, Frankenstein, The Happy Return (AKA Beat to Quarters), The Hobbit, Jane Eyre, Peter and Wendy, Pride and Prejudice, The Silver Metal Lover, Watership Down, and Written On The Body.

Glad you decided to make it a reasonable number.
posted by kyrademon at 5:30 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Could we list, say, our personal most admired top twelve? I could do that, with the understanding that for many of us our reading is a bit idiosyncratic and patchy and that therefore there are probably novels we'd admire even more had we only read them.

Bleak House is my most admired novel of all, then maybe Vanity Fair. Villette would be on the list. Pat Barker's Century's Daughter (which is so ridiculously underrated); Angela Carter's Wise Children; The Swimming Pool Library; the Martha Quest quintet; Tristam Shandy; Alasdair Gray's Poor Things and Lanark; WG Sebald is sort of British, right, so The Rings of Saturn? Then I think I'd have to pick just one among some minor odd novels by women - Naomi Mitchison's Travel Light, or Lud-In-The-Mist, or The Corner That Held Them...

This is actually really productive because I'm realizing how many writers I haven't read as much as I'd like, or read so long ago that my tastes may have changed. (Fitzgerald, Murdoch, Rhys, Barnes), and I'm also realizing that what I basically like is novels about weird things happening or weird novels about things happening, and that I don't especially like novels primarily about introspection about regular things, or about how regular people don't really understand themselves and that's very sad.
posted by Frowner at 5:52 PM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

I assume the "book critics from outside the UK" part, combined with a general best-list bias against anything that's not Very Serious, is why Wodehouse only appears at #100.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:57 PM on December 9, 2015

No Durrells. No le Carre. No Deighton. This list is biased against interesting plots.
posted by emf at 6:21 PM on December 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

White Teeth is #25.

Oh thank God. Don't know how I missed that.
posted by duffell at 6:29 PM on December 9, 2015

I was kidding with the 12 of course. But I do trust Mefites' judgment on such things. It sounds like I need to read Bleak House. I liked the BBC series a bunch!
posted by persona au gratin at 6:34 PM on December 9, 2015

I worry my ten would be mostly 20th century, but here is a go:

10) Confessions of a Justified Sinner
09) Moll Flanders
08) Absess of Crewe
07) Super Cannes
06) Barchester Towers
05) Melmoth the Wanderer
04) Jude the Obscure
03) Dorian Grey
02) Maurice
01) Alice, most likely.
posted by PinkMoose at 6:37 PM on December 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

only one woman on that list--but i could make a list of ten women without a lot of problems:

1) Sackville West's No Signpost's at Sea
2) Orlando
3) White Teeth
4) We Need to Talk About Kevin
5) A Game of Hide and Seek
6) A View of the Harbour
7) Aiding and Abetting
8) Kingdom of Elfin (why this does not have the fame of much lesser writers like Tolkien, or Lewis confuses me)
9) Villete
10) Frankenstein.

that was more modernist than i was hoping
posted by PinkMoose at 6:48 PM on December 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

I don't think We Need to Talk About Kevin really works as a British novel, though, does it? It's pretty peculiarly American in subject matter, and Lionel Shriver is American by birth.
posted by holborne at 7:31 PM on December 9, 2015

it did win the orange prize, and she had been living in England for decades though....you can swap it with Oroonoko
posted by PinkMoose at 7:57 PM on December 9, 2015

I'm sad this list came out during a busy week for me because I've read almost all of them and I have Opinions.

(Needs Lanark, London Fields, and Lud-in-the-Mist. Does not need Angela Carter or Alan Sillitoe because their short stories were better than their novels.)
posted by betweenthebars at 9:59 PM on December 9, 2015

Frankly, my list-o'-12 is simply a list of which great British books happened to be formative for me. Every book on that list, and all the other ones I was seriously considering for it (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Sheep Look Up, A Christmas Carol, The Game of Kings, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) are books that I read before I was 18.

If I'd read, say, Life After Life or Lanark or Cloud Atlas or Vanity Fair or How To Be Both or Mrs. Dalloway or Morvern Callar or The Condition of Muzak or The Vet's Daughter at that time instead of more recently, those books might very well have ended up on the list.
posted by kyrademon at 5:02 AM on December 10, 2015

(We've been speaking of John Brunner ("too American" or not, etc) and I found this interesting fact about him: he was an early member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND, which invented the peace sign, was founded in 1957, organized the Aldermaston Marches and had Bayard Rustin as a speaker at one of their early rallies)....and he wrote the CND theme song, Can You Hear The H-Bomb's Thunder. I am fond of this very sing-songy cover by a German punk band. It's to an old folk tune, but I can't find my notes about which one.

I read The Sheep Look Up because my very first really serious crush (it was awful; she was lovely but the whole thing was terrible) read it.

But anyway - John Brunner, not just a grumpy environmental-dystopian author. His books are important as SF and pretty interesting, style-wise, but it was his connection to CND that made him seem cool to me.)
posted by Frowner at 5:56 AM on December 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

> I assume the "book critics from outside the UK" part, combined with a general best-list bias against anything that's not Very Serious, is why Wodehouse only appears at #100.

If you're implying that people from outside the UK don't like/understand Wodehouse, you couldn't be wronger; he's extremely popular all over the world (there's even a Russian site devoted to him), and some of the biggest Wodehouse fans I've known have been American. I think it's a more general prejudice against frivolous comedy.
posted by languagehat at 7:45 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Could some of you list your top ten British novels?"

This is a big question! Without worrying about whether the novels are important or big, or inhabiting a certain trait/time/space, here are ten fantastic British novels not found on the list above. All of them were written in the last 30 years apart from Dorothy L Sayers.

1. Alasdair Gray: Lanark (or 1982, Janine)
2. David Mitchell: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
3. Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night
4. Jonathan Coe: What A Carve Up! (or The House of Sleep)
5. Andrew Crumey: Moebius Dick
6. AS Byatt: The Children's Book
7. China Mieville: Embassytown
8. James Robertson: The Testament of Gideon Mack
9. Jeanette Winterson: The Passion
10. Patricia Duncker: Hallucinating Foucault

If we can call Michel Faber a British novelist, I'd add Under The Skin (probably one of the best three books I've read in the last decade).

Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the Bookerisation of "good" British fiction and its safe, realist tendencies.
posted by kariebookish at 8:51 AM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

> "I think it's a more general prejudice against frivolous comedy."

Speaking of which, where's Douglas Adams?
posted by kyrademon at 8:51 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]