The Guardian recently released a list of 'the 100 best novels of all time'. The older I get, the less interesting these lists become, but it'd be a mistake to not read the list and pick the cherries off the list.

Sarah Bakewell has added some books to the list. In case you don't know who Sarah is, I urge you to read her books. Start with the one about Montaigne or the one about existentialists. It's worth it.

The list

Scroll to the end of the text to see a list of Bookwyrm links to all books. All of the quotes are what Sarah told The Guardian about the books.

1 - The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

"The novel I reread more than any other, running the gamut of lust, politics, romanticism and science. Like a lot of books that are considered humourless, it's also full of humour."

2 - In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

"There are a couple of volumes in the middle I'll probably never read again, but this is still on a different planet from all other novels."

3 - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

"Gleeful 18th-century literary fun, never bettered."

4 - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

"As with so many good novels, the bad bits are a bore and the good bits are sublime."

5 - Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

"The 20th century in a (large) nutshell."

6 - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

"It never, unfortunately, seems to become less relevant."

7 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

"Simply a delight."

8 - Middlemarch by George Eliot

"All life is here – slightly marred by its over-earnest protagonist, although there are funny bits too."

9 - Howards End by EM Forster

"Human connection and disconnection: humanism in novel form."

10 - The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake

"I loved this as a teenager and love it still, for its lush language, its wit, and the vivid mental pictures it leaves with you for a lifetime."

11 - The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

This book didn't end up in Sarah's list in The Guardian but she says it should have been added.

I've only read two of the books—by Orwell and Carroll, respectively—but I am very keen to dig into the Mann book. And Musil! The plots sound fantastic.