Between The Covers

Jay’s pick this week is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, a book that could be maddening or it could be one of the 100 Most Lovable Books in the English Language if you approach it...

The Magus was John Fowles’ first novel, but his third to be published, and its postmodern, metafictional format focuses on a young British teacher on a Greek Island who falls in with an unreliable local mastermind...

Jay’s pick this week for his list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language is D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, a novel about a young man’s coming of age in Nottinghamshire, as he navigates his...

John Galsworthy’s chronicle of the “new money” Forsyte family is Jay’s pick this week for his list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language. The Forsyte Saga focuses on Soames Forsyte, a “man of property,”...

Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is this week’s pick for Jay’s list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language. This British novel isn’t as well known in the United States, but it should...

Jay’s choice this week is Old Filth, a 2004 novel by British writer Jane Gardam. The book focuses on Sir Edward Feather’s quest to understand the life he has lived in the second half of the twentieth century. Chaos...

Jay’s pick this week in the final 10 of his list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language is Andrea Levy’s Small Island, a 2004 novel that explores the experiences of the Windrush generation of Caribbean...

This week’s addition to Jay’s 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language list is Wilkie Collins' Victorian proto-detective, gothic novel The Woman in White. Wilkie’s chosen structure of multiple narrators puts the...

This week we're taking a break from our 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language list to join in the world's current Odyssey Era. Jay and Stacey share their enthusiasm for the book and talk about tips for...

Of John Updike’s four Rabbit books, Jay has chosen the first, Rabbit, Run, to include on his list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language. The 1960 novel introduces readers to Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom and...

Martin Amis’s 1984 novel Money: A Suicide Note is Jay’s pick this week for his list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language. Though the main character, John Self, is thoroughly detestable, Amis’s novel is...

Jay’s choice this week is another historical fiction novel, this one set in turn-of-the-millenium Rome, I, Claudius by Robert Graves. The epic follows 80 years of violent Roman politics when dark-horse Claudius emerges...

This week Jay cheats and names a tetralogy (four books) to his list as one entry, Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End. The chronology addresses the WWI era from the intimate life of its protagonist. Chaos Reader is still...

William Styron’s 1979 tragedy, Sophie’s Choice, is the book Jay is naming this week to his list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in English. He and Stacey discuss the profound pain of the novel as well as the objections...

Jay’s choice this week for his list of the 100 Most Lovable Novels in the English Language is another world-famous detective novel, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. While this may not be the Christie...