I'll try and order them a bit, the rankings aren't set in stone as I'm not very good at comparing very different books, but generally the higher ones were obviously better than the lower ones. "Better" being, in this case, some ill-defined combination of my subjective liking for the book and my still-subjective-but-less-so view of the literary merits of the book. Deal.

Links are either to my review of the book or, in a few cases, to the respective Book Clubs. I see I failed to review Babel Tower and Andromaque, which is a shame, but I don't know if there's much of a point to writing them now, since it's been nearly a year since I read those two.

1) Zadie Smith - White Teeth

Has to be both among the best books written on the multicultural European society of the post-WW2 period, and among the best books written in the last decade (-ish, it's from 2000), period. Funny, deep, moving and never boring.

2) A.S. Byatt - The Children's Book

Possibly Byatt's best book, and that guarantees it a high spot on my list. Excellent take on the pre-WW1 period, its art, its culture, its politics, and of course its children.

3) Ivan Turgenev - Fathers and Sons

Surprisingly "modern"-feeling novel about parents and children (I understand the original Russian title isn't as sex-limited as the most common English translation), about hypocrisy, ideals and finding your way in the world.

4) A.S. Byatt - Babel Tower

Very good story about a young independent-minded mother in the British sixties, the mysterious decade full of contradictions that somehow just keeps fascinating us - with an equally good dystopian story-within-a-story as bonus.

5) Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago

Remembered by many as a great and epic romance, which it is, but it's so much more than that. I found it at times harder to get through than the Turgenev, and there's a reason why it's ranked lower, but considering its scope, ambition and length, I do think it's a more impressive achievement.

6) Jane Austen - Emma

As I argued in my review, in some ways not only the equal of P&P and S&S but perhaps even better. Emma is certainly among Austen's best heroines.

7) Jean Racine - Andromaque

Perhaps the greatest play by the greatest French dramatic playwright, about the aftermath of the Trojan War and the emotional turmoil of its survivors and those who try to move on.

8 ) Naguib Mahfouz - Palace Walk (though I should add I'm giving Mahfouz the benefit of the doubt and assuming his prose is a great deal better than the translation I read)

The first book in Mahfouz' famous Trilogy, telling the story of a middle-class family in early 20th-century Cairo. He's great at recreating the atmosphere and the mentality of the time.

9) Emma Donoghue - Room

Notable particularly for its premise of a five-year old protagonist who's never seen the world outside the one room he and his mother are held captive in, but imho it really shines in the later part, when he leaves "Room".

10) Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited

Not a very easy book to appreciate, but then that only means a re-read should be rewarding. About a wealthy noble family in interbellum Britain, and the rapidly changing society of the time.


Honorable mentions for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Johan Huizinga's Waning of the Middle Ages and Maurice Druon's The Accursed Kings (as a whole).