Viv Groskop is an award-winning comedian, writer, and broadcaster. She is the author of The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature.Her new book is Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature.
At the Guardian, Groskop tagged five big, bold and brilliant books to last through lockdown, including:
Dubbed by Virginia Woolf as “one of the few English novels written for grownup people”, George Eliot’s “study of provincial life”, Middlemarch (880 pages) was published in the 1870s and features a giant cast of characters. A novel all about compromise and people trying to do the rightRead about another entry on the list.thing in impossible circumstances – I know! – there are a few mentions of outbreaks of cholera that might be pleasing for readers of a dark disposition and at a strict 50 or 60 pages at a time is well-suited to a 14-day self-isolation. Give or take.
Middlemarch also made Boris Kachka's list of twenty-six very long books worth the time, Mary Gordon's list of ten desert island books, Kirsty Gunn's top ten list of books about unrequited love, Jeff Somers's top five memorable books set on New Year’s Eve (and Day), Lauren Groff's list of six favorite portrayals of marriage in literature, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best New Years in literature, ten of the best bankers in literature, ten of the best marital rows, ten of the best examples of unrequited love, ten of the best funerals in literature, and ten of the best deathbed scenes in literature. It is among Emrys Westacott's five top books on philosophy & everyday living, Selma Dabbagh's top 10 stories of reluctant revolutionaries, Philip Pullman's six best books, Rebecca Goldstein's five best of novels of ideas, Tina Brown's five best books on reputation, Elizabeth Kostova favorite books, and Miss Manners' favorite novels. John Banville and Nick Hornby have not read it.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
