Official: Buchan beats Dostoevsky in poll!
The Economist has just challenged ‘bibliophile data scientists’ to produce an aggregated worldwide list of the 500 ‘best books of all time’ – and John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps is in there at no. 402! Apparently ahead of both Dostoevksy and Sophocles… As eagle-eyed member Bill Galbraith notes, in 2015 it came in at no. 42 on the Guardian’s rather more focused list of ‘100 best novels written in English’. What would JB have to say about everybody’s favourite ‘shocker’?