The Times has just featured a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. I was quite surprised to find that I had read something by almost all the top ten, given that I have not formally studied English literature since I was sixteen.
So how many of them have you read and do you agree with the list?
Three notable things:
1. School was back today. Hooray!
2. I got last week's Open University assignment back, it was fine.
3. I started to pull together the info for my tax return today. Urgh.
5 comments:
I'm quite surprised to see Larkin at No 1 (if the list is in order) and I think there are some odd choices there. Wonder how they compiled the list?
Having said that I was relieved to at least recognise most of them.
But Bruce Chatwin? Rosemary Sutclif. Nope, never read them.
ps hooray for back at school:-)
Hmmm...let's see...
1. Philip Larkin - yes
2. George Orwell - yes
3. William Golding - yes
4. Ted Hughes - yes
5. Doris Lessing - no
6. J. R. R. Tolkien - yes
7. V. S. Naipaul - no
8. Muriel Spark - no
9. Kingsley Amis - yes, Lucky Jim (didn't finish it)
10. Angela Carter - no
11. C. S. Lewis - yes
12. Iris Murdoch - yes
13. Salman Rushdie - no
14. Ian Fleming - no (seen the films tho' ;o))
15. Jan Morris - no
16. Roald Dahl - yes, lots
17. Anthony Burgess - no
18. Mervyn Peake - no
19. Martin Amis - yes, London Fields (didn't finish it)
20. Anthony Powell - no
21. Alan Sillitoe - no
22. John Le Carré - no
23. Penelope Fitzgerald - no
24. Philippa Pearce - no (who?)
25. Barbara Pym - no (who?)
26. Beryl Bainbridge - no
27. J. G. Ballard - no
28. Alan Garner - no
29. Alasdair Gray - no
30. John Fowles - yes, loved The Collector
31. Derek Walcott - no
32. Kazuo Ishiguro - no
33. Anita Brookner - no, though I do have one of her books I've been meaning to read for ages
34. A. S. Byatt - yes
35. Ian McEwan - yes
36. Geoffrey Hill - no
37. Hanif Kureishi - yes, all of them I think
38. Iain Banks - yes
39. George Mackay Brown - no
40. A. J. P. Taylor - no (I thought he was a history writer?!)
41. Isaiah Berlin - no
42. J. K. Rowling - yes, all of them!
43. Philip Pullman - yes, didn't finish it though
44. Julian Barnes - no (seen the films though if he's the man I think he is)
45. Colin Thubron - no (who?)
46. Bruce Chatwin - no (who?)
47. Alice Oswald - no
48. Benjamin Zephaniah - no
49. Rosemary Sutcliff - no
50. Michael Moorcock - no
Oh dear 17/50 - that's not very good is it?
I was surprised at Larkin being top, too.
Cally, my total was 24, including a few unfinished (Midnight's Children sticks in my mind) For some I have only read a poem or short story and I have to admit there were a few I'd not heard of either!
Cx
Crumbs, I'm too ashamed to say how few I've read.
There are actually, ahem, quite a few I've never even heard of.
Disgraceful. Sigh.
Yes, school back - hurray indeed!
Crystal xx
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