Erm, that came out sounding much harsher than I wanted (Rowling and Dan Brown do that to me). But those sorts of lists always remind me of the old Seinfeld routine about people who share your birthday: "It's always an odd group of people too, isn't it? It's like Ed Asner, Elijah Muhammad and Secretariat." Of course, the soi-disant Greatest Snooty Classics Ever lists leave me cold, too; I would sooner peel each and every one of my fingernails backward until it ripped clean off than read Silas Marner or The Sun Also Rises again.

Ernest Freakin' Hemingway: yeesh.