The 25 Greatest Books of All Time: #1 and #2

The History of Literature Podcast's list of the 25 Greatest Books of All Time names #1 and #2 in Episode 789. In this episode, Jacke and Mike Palindrome discuss the imperfections of standard lists of great books and recommend other more compelling works to disrupt these conventional takes.

Here are the opening lines of #1 and #2, a peek into the world created in two of the greatest literary works of all time:

#1: Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time. 

For a long time I would go to bed early. Sometimes, the candle barely out, my eyes closed so quickly that I did not have time to tell myself: "I'm falling asleep."

#2: James Joyce, Ulysses

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

—Introibo ad altare Dei.