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Michael Dirda's Desert Island Books

Description: The list was published in the Washington Post on January 12th, 2022. The list is limited to 20th-century prose by English-language authors.

Rank Title Author Added

1

The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame

27,687 members

365 reviews

4.1

4 Members: hipdeep, ahef1963, ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

2

Cold Comfort Farm

by Stella Gibbons

6,393 members

240 reviews

4

4 Members: ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

3

The Man Who Was Thursday

by G. K. Chesterton

7,869 members

192 reviews

3.8

3 Members: hipdeep, ahef1963, auldhouse

4

Collected Ghost Stories

2,584 members

45 reviews

4.2

3 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

5

by Vladimir Nabokov

35,178 members

633 reviews

4.1

2 Members: ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

6

by Bruce Chatwin

3,624 members

102 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: ahef1963, auldhouse

7

The Thurber Carnival

by James Thurber

2,829 members

37 reviews

4.2

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

8

2,248 members

35 reviews

3.9

2 Members: ahef1963, auldhouse

9

The Art of Eating

by M. F. K. Fisher

2,023 members

22 reviews

½ 4.3

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

10

by Rafael Sabatini

1,891 members

61 reviews

4.2

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

11

by Frederick Exley

1,201 members

14 reviews

4.1

2 Members: ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

12

The Mouse and His Child

by Russell Hoban

1,152 members

32 reviews

4.2

2 Members: ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

13

Performing Flea

by P. G. Wodehouse

146 members

2 reviews

4.1

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

14

Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times

84 members

2 reviews

½ 4.7

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

15

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

by John Berendt

16,964 members

313 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

16

by Rudyard Kipling

10,173 members

215 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

17

Nights at the Circus

by Angela Carter

2,935 members

56 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

18

Lud-in-the-Mist

by Hope Mirrlees

2,251 members

61 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

19

The Urth of the New Sun

2,021 members

28 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

20

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

by Chris Van Allsburg

1,838 members

79 reviews

½ 4.5

Member: auldhouse

21

The Moving Toyshop

by Edmund Crispin

1,587 members

70 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

22

Up in the Old Hotel

by Joseph Mitchell

1,570 members

22 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: auldhouse

23

by Wilfred Thesiger

1,392 members

26 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

24

by Thomas Berger

1,350 members

36 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

25

by Evan S. Connell

1,206 members

43 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

26

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

1,116 members

34 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: auldhouse

27

by John Dickson Carr

982 members

42 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

28

The Box of Delights

by John Masefield

925 members

22 reviews

4

Member: auldhouse

29

Fancies and Goodnights

by John Collier

818 members

16 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

30

United States: Essays 1952-1992

767 members

8 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

31

A Day with Wilbur Robinson

by William Joyce

620 members

17 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

32

The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe

by Charles Nicholl

599 members

12 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

33

The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus

by Cyril Connolly

557 members

4 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

34

The Geography of the Imagination

by Guy Davenport

552 members

11 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

35

Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal

by J. R. Ackerley

465 members

9 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: auldhouse

36

Augustus Carp, Esq., By Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man

by Henry Howarth Bashford

420 members

13 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

37

The Private World of Georgette Heyer

by Jane Aiken Hodge

417 members

15 reviews

4

Member: auldhouse

38

A Childhood: The Biography of a Place

390 members

10 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: auldhouse

39

Shakespeare's Lives

by Samuel Schoenbaum

374 members

7 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

40

Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things

by Gilbert Sorrentino

247 members

7 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

41

Adventures in Unhistory: Conjectures on the Factual Foundations of Several Ancient Legends

by Avram Davidson

226 members

5 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

42

On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript

by Robert K. Merton

225 members

8 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

43

Seven Men and Two Others

by Sir Max Beerbohm

197 members

2 reviews

4

Member: auldhouse

44

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

188 members

8 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

45

Last Letters from Hav

188 members

5 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: auldhouse

46

Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould

by Kevin Bazzana

175 members

2 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

47

A Cab at the Door

by V. S. Pritchett

162 members

4 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: auldhouse

48

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives

by Diane Johnson

145 members

2 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

49

Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship

by Robert Craft

106 members

2 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

50

The Complete Firbank (Picador Classics)

by Ronald Firbank

91 members

1 review

4

Member: auldhouse

51

Kipling, Auden and Company: Essays and Reviews, 1935-1964

by Randall Jarrell

82 members

½ 3.5

Member: auldhouse

52

The new Apocrypha: A guide to strange science and occult beliefs

by John Thomas Sladek

80 members

4

Member: auldhouse

53

Lost Property: Memoirs & Confessions of a Bad Boy

by Ben Sonnenberg

75 members

½ 2.7

Member: auldhouse

54

Paris Journal, 1944-1965

by Janet Flanner

71 members

½ 3.5

Member: auldhouse

55

The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh

by Evelyn Waugh

68 members

1 review

3.8

Member: auldhouse

56

Tellers of Tales

by Roger Lancelyn Green

44 members

3.9

Member: auldhouse

57

A.J.A. Symons, His Life and Speculations

by Julian Symons

32 members

4

Member: auldhouse

58

Morreion: A Tale of The Dying Earth

23 members

1 review

½ 3.4

Member: auldhouse

59

The literary life; a scrapbook almanac of the Anglo-American literary scene from 1900 to 1950

by Robert Phelps

22 members

5

Member: auldhouse

60

Jorkens Remembers Africa

by Lord Dunsany

20 members

4.1

Member: auldhouse

61

The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters (Complete set)

by George Lyttelton

9 members

Member: auldhouse

62

Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Second Series

by Malcolm Cowley

9 members

Member: auldhouse

About This List

Started: auldhouse
January 2022
Type: Unnumbered

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