Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which he first read in junior high, is "still a book I admire vastly." • Stephen Bates on surprises in Heller's Letters• Chris Cox reads Catch-22 fifty years after its publication, 75. Nineteen Nineteen by John Dos … • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Moby-Dick, 22. These waterproof, fleece-lined boots from Merrell are sleek enough to wear around a city and sturdy enough to handle a lengthier walk in the woods. • Janice Galloway rereads Lanark• William Boyd on Lanark at 25• John Mullan considers Lanark's cover for the Guardian Book Club• An interview with the 'Clydeside Michaelangelo', 87. JOAN DIDION. American Pastoral Philip Roth For years, Roth was famous for Portnoy's Complaint . The new plant parents got the Tough Cookie duo—a hardy ZZ Plant and Philodendron that can withstand low light and a missed watering here or there. • Ian Rankin on The Strange Story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 33. by Sarah Churchwell, • John Banville on the story behind Kafka's great novel of judgment and retribution, • Chis Power salutes some of the greatest short stories ever written, • Tibor Fischer on Celine's journey to the cutting edge of literature, • Celine: great author and absolute bastard, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: As I Lay Dying, • Alison Flood on the anniversary edition of The Sound and the Fury in coloured ink, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Brave New World, • Read the original Guardian review from 1932, • Ann Pasternak Slater on the journalistic experiences that shaped Waugh's novel, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Scoop, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Nineteen Nineteen, • John Dugdale on Chandler's crime-writing revolution, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Big Sleep, • Olivia Laing on Mitford's genius wicked humour, • Tony Judt on the man behind the novel, • Ed Vulliamy on The Plague, 55 Years later, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Nineteen Eighty-Four, • Sam Jordison discusses Will Self's criticism of Nineteen Eighty-Four, • From the Archives: the original review from 1949, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Murphy, • Keith Ridgway rereads his favourite Beckett, • Ten things you should know about The Catcher in the Rye, • Stephen Bates on the possible sequel to The Catcher in the Rye, • David Barnett offers his take on the controversy, • Anne Roiphen rereads Salinger's novel, • The Reading Group takes on O'Connor's debut, • Peter Wild takes a look at O'Connor's cartoons. Fitzgerald was known to write long, flowery backstories for characters that resembled novels more than Hollywood movies. "Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers, because it was banned as pornographic. • Tibor Fischer on Celine's journey to the cutting edge of literature• Celine: great author and absolute bastard, 52. • Ann Pasternak Slater on the journalistic experiences that shaped Waugh's novel• Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Scoop, 55. A Nation is Making. Martin has said that J.R.R. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro A collaborator from prewar Japan reluctantly discloses his betrayal of friends and family. "You're drawn into the story, and you come out the other end, and you know you've seen something great in action. That's why I'm getting this kneading dough as a stocking stuffer for my boyfriend. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Among them, Bradbury said, were "The collected essays of George Bernard Shaw, which contain all of the intelligence of humanity during the last hundred years and perhaps more," books written by Loren Eisley, "who is our greatest poet/essayist of the last 40 years," and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: "Quite obviously its impact on my life has lasted for more than 50 years. Sayre told Fitzgerald that she wouldn’t marry him unless he published the book. Here are 26 authors' favorite reads. • From the Archive: Michael Joseph's review• Ian Thomson considers Levi's influence on our moral history• The Periodic Table made its way into the hands of a Guardian Science journalist...•...and to the top of the Science book favourites list, 90. He also included his own B.B., which he said was "a book which I wrote some years ago, not for publication but just for my own private reading. Sybil Benjamin Disraeli Apart from Churchill, no other British political figure shows literary genius. "When I read Alcott, I knew that these girls she was talking about were all white," Angelou told The Week in 2013. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez A postmodern masterpiece. She wrote: "I loved it so much I hid it so my mother would not be able to return it to the library. • William Boyd on the A-Z of Tinker, TailorThe Reading Group discusses Tinker, Tailor and the spy novel genre, 79. • Alex Clark reviews Bellow's short stories• John Crace 'digests' Herzog• James Wood on Saul Bellow, 76. This list is generated from 129 "best of" book lists from a variety of great sources. Photograph: Victor Fraile / Reuters, • Harold Bloom on Don Quixote – the first modern novel, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Pilgrim's Progress, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Robinson Crusoe, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Gulliver's Travels, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Tom Jones, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Clarissa, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, • Jason Cowley on the many incarnations of Dangerous Liaisons, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Emma, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Frankenstein, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Nightmare Abbey, • Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day: Daily Rituals of Creative Minds, • Jason Bourke on France's tradition of art imitating life, • Nick Lezard on a translated collection of short stories and Balzac's influence on other literary greats, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Sybil, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: David Copperfield, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Wuthering Heights, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Jane Eyre, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Vanity Fair, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Scarlet Letter, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Moby-Dick, • Julian Barnes rewrites the ending to Madame Bovary, • The Everest of translation, by Adam Thorpe, • The Woman in White's 150 years of sensation, Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, •Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Little Women, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Way We Live Now, • Rereading Anna Karenina, by James Meek, • A new novel from George Eliot - the Guardian's first review of Daniel Deronda, from 1876, • Stuart Jeffries on the incorrect title, In Pictures: Readers suggest the 10 best long reads, • Profound and flawed: Claire Messud on rereading The Portrait of a Lady, • Hermione Lee on the biography of a novel that changed literature, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels - Huckleberry Finn, • Ian Rankin on The Strange Story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels - Three Men in a Boat, • Fiona MacCarthy on the inspiration behind The Picture of Dorian Gray, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Picture of Dorian Gray, Buy The Diary of a Nobody at the Guardian Bookshop, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Jude the Obscure, • Classics Corner - The Riddle of the Sands, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Call of the Wild, • Chinua Achebe and Caryl Phillips discuss the case against Conrad, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Wind in the Willows, • Melvyn Bragg rereads In Search of Lost Time, • Jane Smiley on The Good Soldier, stylistic perfection, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Good Soldier, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Thirty-Nine Steps, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Ulysses, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: Mrs Dalloway, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: A Passage to India, • Damon Galgut on the unrequited love at the heart of A Passage to India, • Robert McCrum's 100 best novels: The Great Gatsby, • What makes Gatsby great?