• Have you read every book on the list?

• Then how can you know what the greatest books of all time are?

• Are these the books everyone should read?

• What's your own favourite book of all time?

• I mean what's your favourite modern book?

• No, I mean your favourite book of the past fifty years.

• What's your least favourite book?

• Are there really so many modern books that should be ranked with the greatest of all time on your list?

• Why don't you include great children's literature?

• How do you read so much?

• Do you reread books?

• Isn't all this keeping of lists, this ranking of books, rather superficial? Doesn't it run counter to the spirit of true literary appreciation?