required reading

This morning I decided to make a list of one hundred worthy books I should read. I had started to make a similar list last Friday, of 239 films that were successful, accoladed, or considered worthwhile, after receiving a list of 239 average American movies from the last 5 years (mainly) that was meant to reflect how well-viewed we were.

Lists are addictive. I still have a 'Sixth Form Reading list' (a whole booklet with a few hundred books in total) that we were given aged 16 and beginning A-Level English, to help de-mystify the choice of what to read. I also have a dogeared copy of the Waterstones '100 Greatest Books of the Century' floating around, and I've only read just over half of the list.

But why do we bother, those of us who do engage in things like this? I think that it reflects the perfectionist aspect in us. We can never reach the woolly objective of 'well-read' unless we're arrogant or have time to read a novel a day, but we can have the satisfaction of reaching a more limited target. And there's always the chance that one day someone wil say 'Do you remember that poll that Waterstones did in the late 90s of the British public to ascertain what they felt the greatest books of the 20th century were?', at which point I would be able to casually drop into conversation that I vaguely remembered the list they were referring to and was fairly certain I'd read every single one of them.

Today, Stephen Moss assesses claims to the title of 'Greatest Living Author' in the Guardian, after an article last week spoke of Martin Amis as 'often described as the greatest living author in Britain', prompting one reader to threaten suicide, or emigration to Uruguay. He suggests Pinter, Naipaul, Lessing, and Stoppard. I'm not sure. I liked the photo of a mocked-up pile of books, with, I guess, likely suspects included.

I think that bestowing the title of 'Greatest Living Author' is profoundly scary. All of these authors are all still beavering away, after all. I might suggest Ali Smith, and then the very next day Ali Smith might produce an absolute stinker of a book and turn out to be a neo-Nazi. (I doubt it on both counts, though.) Can't we have a best recently-dead author prize? (Muriel Spark gest my vote).

Choosing a Greatest Living Author does not appeal even to a list-maker like me, someone who likes to know that even if someone disagrees with my judgement, at least I've got plenty of other people on my side. In fact, the debate on who is the best has really put me off my list making activity. Why? Because it's short-sighted, reflecting the whims of the moment and the prejudices of the age, and operates with limited information. Why don't we all (I mean me) grow up a little bit. We need to be a little more afraid.  We'll wander among the bookshops without the helpful top 10 bestseller shelves, the 'Oxford recommends' signs, and the little comment cards written by staff. We'll resist checking out the lists on Amazon entitled 'Books you really should read', and 'The best novels ever!'. We need to accept that there will come a time when someone says 'I think Raymond Carver* was the best American author of the twentieth century, and his short stories are at the pinnacle of the genre.' and you will not know who Raymond Carver is. On the contrary, however, there might be more chance of us actually reading some Raymond Carver, because we're not trying to plough our way through everything published in the Oxford's World's Classics series, or on the list of Best British Books of the 21st Century.

[*insert the author you know you know shamelessly little about here]

I have only one thing to add: Ali Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro, of course! It's easy!