I've decided to read all the novels on Robert McCrum's list of the 100 best novels ever written in Engish. Such lists are, of course, arbitrary; a fact readily acknowled by Robert McC in his introduction to the series here. That's neither here nor there, IMHO. We all compile lists - favourite this, most disliked that, the tedious 'bucket list' and many more besides. We pick and choose.
Each week I read the article introducing The Observer team's pick of that week. This week in a list that's ordered chronologically we've reached book number 78, To Kill A Mockingbird. I've read 25 of the list announced so far which strikes me as pretty poor form; about one-third. So I've decided to read or re-read the entire list in the chronological order it has been suggested to us. Hence the arrival of the Bunyan, which I read a very long time ago - as an early teenager - perhaps in an abridged format. I have a vague recollection of a children's version which, I speculate, my parents would have thought educational and improving for a child of still tender years (I may have been ten or eleven, so not even a teenager).
I flicked through the pages of the edition I received today (I remain surprised that anyone makes deliveries on a Saturday but I'll stop talking about that rather dim-witted surprise some day soon). The illustrations are familiar. They must have been in the children's version I read maybe 45 or more years ago. And when I read the first paragraph (before setting down the book to return to reading the Guardian online over breakfast) I had an unmistakable and strong sense of having been there before, inside Christian's head, hearing his voice speak to me 300 years after the author set them down on paper. I guess it's that sort of literary power that makes any writing a candidate for appearing on lists. We'll see as I read it.
