Virginia Woolf had the following to say about reading:

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”

For Woolf, reading, and reading widely, was a way to self-educate and, in doing so, engage more effectively and critically with one’s world.

This perhaps explains the power of novels to change minds, societies and circumstances. They are vehicles for ideas that can challenge oppressive systems and mobilise resistance.

If something is particularly powerful, it stands the test of time, as evident in the Telegraph‘s list of the top 100 novels of all time.

Here’s the top 10:

10. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605)

This is a novel about reading. A man reads too much and decides to become a knight. It’s epic and ridiculous and a must-read.

9. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

While Woolf’s clever use of time and stream of consciousness in this novel sets it apart as one of the greatest modernist texts ever written, it’s perhaps (in my opinion) not her best. Try The Waves. 

8. Disgrace by JM Coetzee (1999)

South Africa’s very own JM Coetzee makes it into the top 10 with his novel about a university professor who loses everything after seducing a student.

While this is the go-to text for Coetzee since its publication in 1999, his earlier work, Waiting for the Barbarians, is both stylistically and conceptually superior.

7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Jane is nothing to write home about, but Mr Rochester wants to marry her anyway (despite already being married). There is also a potato famine.

6. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (1871-1922) 

Anything by Proust could have made it onto this list. This particular offering is a seven-volume autobiographical meditation on memory.

5. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1902)

This novel has been through a lot over the last few years. There was a call to ban it during the student protests. It was also the inspiration for the film Apocalypse Now. 

4. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (1881) 

Despite being a man of his time, James writes some incredibly compelling and well-rounded female characters.

3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878) 

One of the best novels that you’ll ever read. Tolstoy captures the difficulty of navigating the late 1800s as a woman, surrounded by difficult men and social instability.

2. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

This one has become a pop culture reference and a classic. Although reading it is similar to hunting the whale – difficult and seemingly impossible. Still fantastic, though.

1. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871-72)

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) captures in perfect detail, life in the town of Middlemarch, while commenting brilliantly on the society that lives there. It’s hard to explain the genius of this novel. All you really need to know is that you haven’t lived a full life until you’ve read it.

For the full list of the top 100 novels of all time, go here.

[source:telegraph]