Inspired by an article I came across I compiled this list of books (with my mother and some of my friends in mind) as an alternative to the horror of watching the Olympics day in and day out. Sweaty athletes in snow and suchlike was never my cup of tea and in fact when I come to think of it I do not think it should be linked to tea in any way anyway because tea is good. But. The idea is that sports is mindless, but something that sucks you in when it is on television, and that the books to read instead therefore cannot be of the type that you have to put down to think. But I did not want to make it a list of books I didn't think were good, either. The fine balance made it rather tricky to find 10 books that would do. But here it is.

1. The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway.

2. The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt.

3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

4. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

5. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

6. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.

7. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

8. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino.

9. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

10. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.


I am still torn on a couple of them. I tend to agonise over lists. More than usual over this one. Which books would you list? And don't you just hate it when the Olympics are the only thing the news seem able to write about? Is there any way we could get an anti-sports-and-especially-the-fucking-Olympics-bookclub as a bi-annual event?