How to Be Well Read : A Guide to 500 Great Novels and a Handful of Literary Curiosities

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Fortunately, literary sleuth and academic John Sutherland is on hand to do precisely that. In the course of more than 500 wittily informative pieces he gives us his own very personal take on the most rewarding, most remarkable, and, on occasion, most shamelessly enjoyable works of fiction ever writtenthe perfect reading list for the would-be literary expert. His taste is impressively eclectic. An appreciation of Apuleiuss The Golden Assarguably the first-ever novelis followed by a consideration of Ian Flemings Goldfinger. The Handmaids Tale is followed by Hangover Square, Jane Eyre by Jaws. There are imposing Victorian novels, entertaining contemporary thrillers, and everything in between, from dystopian works to romance. The flavor of each is brilliantly evoked and its relative merits or demerits assessed. At the same time, John Sutherland shows how the work fits into a broader contextwhether that of the authors life or of other books from the same genre or period. And he offers endless snippets of intriguing information: did you know, for example, that the Nazis banned Bambi or that William Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying on an upturned wheelbarrow; that Voltaire completed Candide in three days, or that Anna Sewell was paid 20 for Black Beauty? Encyclopedic and entertaining by turns, this is a wonderful dip-in book, whose opinions will inform and on occasion, no doubt, infuriate. It is also effectively a history of the novel in 500 or so bite-sized pieces.