'Almost Great'

Henry Oliver poses an interesting question: “What should be on a list of almost Great Books?” Consider it less a critical exercise than a parlor game. Think of the books you have admired and enjoyed, and perhaps reread, that lie beyond the canonical borders, the Dante/Shakespeare/Tolstoy axis. Oliver considers his own list “personal and partial,” as it should be. Here’s my Top Ten (+ two), listed as the titles occurred to me: Henry Mayhew: London Labour and the London Poor (1851) Whittaker Chambers: Witness (1952) Anton Chekhov: Sakhalin Island (1895) Charles Montagu Doughty: Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888) A.J. Liebling: Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris (1962) Walter Savage Landor: Imaginary Conversations (1824-29) Ronald Knox: Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion (1950) The Complete Essays of J.V. Cunningham (2024) Guy Davenport: The Geography of the Imagination (1981) Jonathan Swift: A Journal to Stella (1766) Michael Oakeshott: Rationalism in Politics (1962) James…