Vi listomaner har svært ved at gå uden om en god liste. Og når nu The Observer spørger, hvilke engelsksprogede bøger, der har været de bedste gennem de seneste 25 år, så må vi da gå i tænkeboks? Er det mon Harry Potter-sagaen? Rushdie? Tænke-tænke…

Opdatering: Guardians nominerede er

1. Disgrace (1999)
JM Coetzee
Coetzee became the first writer to win the Booker Prize for a second time with this exploration of post- apartheid South Africa, which centres on Professor David Lurie, in self-imposed exile at his daughter’s remote farm after an ill-advised affair with a student.

2. Money (1984)
Martin Amis
Super-charged, anarchic and full of narrative acrobatics, Money burst on to the Eighties literary scene leaving a trail of imitators and devotees in its wake, not least because of its formidable, if frequently repulsive narrator, ad director John Self .

3. Earthly Powers (1980)
Anthony Burgess
Homosexual writer Keith Toomey is asked to write the memoirs of the late Pope Gregory XVII – a commission that takes him on a whirlwind recap of the major events of the 20th century.

3.Atonement (2001)
Ian McEwan
Opening in 1935 , Atonement focuses on Briony Tallis , at first as a 13-year-old implicated in the conviction of a family friend for rape and, latterly, an elderly novelist on the brink of losing her memory.

The Blue Flower (1995)
Penelope Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald’s final novel is frequently cited as her masterpiece. It recreates the life of the 18th-century German poet and philosopher Novalis , focusing on his romance with a 12-year-old girl .

The Unconsoled (1995)
Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro’s intricate, dream-like fourth novel marked a radical departure from the more conventional narratives of his earlier work, evoking the great European masters of film as much as fiction.

Midnight’s Children (1981)
Salman Rushdie

Rushdie’s second novel not only won the Booker prize but was also awarded the ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993. It unites powerful subject matter – the partition of India – with a dazzling, playful style.

Delt ottende plads

The Remains of the Day (1989)
Kazuo Ishiguro

Stevens , a butler at Darlington Hall, takes a trip to the West Country . His memories – particularly of the late Lord Darlington , revealed as a Nazi sympathiser – throw into sharp relief the novel’s themes of collusion, betrayal and repression.

Amongst Women (1990)
John McGahern

A powerful meditation on 20th-century Irish history, particularly focusing on the Troubles, this novel was a runner-up for the Booker prize of 1990, and a national bestseller, confirming its author’s reputation as Ireland’s leading novelist.

That They May Face the Rising Sun (2001)
John McGahern

A study of a rural community in Ireland, the changing seasons and the gradual creep of modernity. A genre-bending fiction that incorporates memoir, history, folklore and a therapeutic reprise of the author’s own career.

Flere nominerede på Guardians side (linket ovenfor)