NOVEMBER 2024

Jean-Marc threw down the gauntlet. Cuné picked it up. Now it's my turn: rank your 100 favorite novels. Can't resist a good list challenge, especially with rules attached. Two constraints here: only novels count, and you have to actually commit to the ranking. So I did it. Took longer than expected.

"It blew my mind. Not only was she reading, but somewhere out there a man had written what she was reading, and she had an appointment with him." A guy doesn't want to go home. So he wanders the train platforms instead. That's where everything starts to unravel in the best possible way.

"I didn't even fight in the war. Unless war means riding calmly at noon on an exhausted horse between two rows of burned cars and corpses, waiting for one of those guys hiding behind a hedge to finally shoot you." Simon dissects memory and conflict. The result is devastating and necessary.

"Books became interchangeable products: people want something that pleases them, relaxes them, entertains them. If you don't give it to them, your neighbor will, and you'll be trash." Spring 2008. Small town New Hampshire. A beloved writer becomes a murder suspect. His protégé tries to save him. Nothing is what it seems.