When you look at lists of bestselling novels, and then at lists of what the “greatest novels” are, you don’t see as much overlap as you do in other media. It seems as though when it comes to those GOAT lists, people seem way more concerned with magnitude as works of literature as art, when in reality the kinds of books you’re taught in school won’t as often be the kinds of books people choose to buy and read. As much as reading is viewed as an “intellectual” hobby by society, I don’t think most readers are as concerned with that side of it, and often will even read stuff they know is trashy. Which is great! As long as people are reading, in a time when reading seems to be going away, it can only be a good thing. But that being said, having combed through some such lists, I’m wondering which books people consider to maximize both sides, being exciting and engaging reads while also being immensely powerful and well written as works of art. So for instance a Colleen Hoover novel may not be atop many people’s lists of contemporary masterpieces, but Ulysses won’t exactly be something people are addicted to and can’t stop themselves from devouring. What books hit that sweet spot between the two arenas in the best way?
Possession by A S Byatt
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Things Fall Apart (and Arrow of God) by Chinua Achebe
Lolita by Nabokov
We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson
I’ve also found most of Thomas Hardy’s novels to be pageturners but YMMV.
Gotta recommend A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o if you liked Things Fall Apart.
Tess of the Durbervilles is a romantic page turner! Loved it!
Possession is very romantic. I personally find Hardy to be deeply unromantic aside from Jude The Obscure and his poems.
Okay I love that book but how is it romantic?