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Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Darn Accurate
Review: Mr. Burt has taken a stab at the thankless, controversial, and questionable task of ranking the world's greatest 100 novels in numerical sequence, and justifying his decisions in about five pages per novel. (There is also a second, unelaborated list of 100 "honorable mention" novels.) I would say that, all things considered, he has done quite well. He is strongest on summarizing the novels in such a way that we are eager to read (or reread) them, and in placing them in their historical and literary-historical context. He doesn't do quite so much with style. This is perhaps understandable, given not only his space limitations, but also the fact that many of the works were not written in English. He seems especially on target in choosing and ranking the works of Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, James, and Bellow. However, there are several works which I feel should have been in the "Top 100" rather than "Honorable mention:" Nabokov's Pale Fire, Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Mann's Doctor Faustus, Calvino's Invisible Cities, and Dickens's David Copperfield. And the following should have at least been mentioned: Alexander Theroux's Darconville's Cat, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, John Crowley's Little, Big, and Georges Perec's Life: a User's Manual. This is not to suggest that Burt shies away from difficulty in making his recommendations: Finnegans Wake is rated in the top 50! One quibble: it is stated on the book jacket that the author arrived at his decisions with the aid of other scholars. Those scholars, and the type of aid, should be specified. Or does this consist of the quotations with which he heads each of his summaries? Recommended for neophyte and veteran novelophiles.
Rating: 
Summary: nope
Review: read the books, don't let other people tell you about them(like me)
Rating: 
Summary: Informative and engaging
Review: This is a daunting, not to say impossible, task: ranking the greatest novels of all time, but Burt has accounted himself well with his selections. Sure, there are favorites missing and novels that anyone might rank higher or lower, but in general it's hard to fault his choices. Each novel is covered succinctly, and Burt manages an enthusiasm for his subject that is contageous. It's easy to quibble with the ranking aspect of the book, but readers will learn an enormous amount from Burt's efforts here.
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