Top Ten English Novels to Read on a Rainy Day

You may think novels are going out of fashion, but did you know that the market for postcolonial, i.e. novels from the third or fourth world is huge in publishing? Yep. Meanwhile, many of the old classics may be considered boring but a lot of other ones are gaining new prominence. Here are some novels you can read when you are all tucked in bed, under a blanket during a storm or incessant rains. Happy reading!
The items in this list have been selected by the author of the list for you to vote and comment on.
The Top Ten
1 Wuthering Heights by Emile Brontë

This might be an old one but it sure has its charm. It is dark, gloomy and beautiful. It has all the makings of an Gothic romance - haunting moors, a brooding pair with a self destructive love and a happy pair just to get you that happy ending you so want.

2 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I am including another Brontë here but damn that sister could write. See what I did there? Hehe.
But really, Jane Eyre starts off a little slow but has another brooding hot hero, an old dark mansion and an unonventional woman forced into the margins of colonial England returning with a vengeance. Give it a try!

3 The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

Tired of the Victorian novel and brooding heroes? We have a brooding heroine who lives outside the set Victorian box, a fallen woman. A modernist retelling of Victorian society, life and customs, this novel is a classic not just for its literary quality but also for the amount of research John Fowles put into this book. It covers a vast expanse of England, from the parlours of country society ladies to the studios of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in London.

4 The White Tiger by Arvind Adiga

If you are one of those people who love books that are unputdownable, this is the one for you. Narrating from the point of view of a migrant worker in Delhi, you will see the dark tunnels of bureaucracy in India where the gap between the rich and poor looms wide. The dark humour of Balram, the protagonist, stuck in a vicious cycle, repeating all the things done to him, but this time harming others is frightening and so true. It exposes the pitfalls of the Indian dream. This is perhaps why it won the Man Booker Prize in 2008.

5 Animal Farm by George Orwell

Are you one of those people who cannot deal with lenghty novels and wished that they could be cut short? Do you edit novels secretly? If so, this is the book for you. It is short, lucid and one of the best political satires of the twentieth century. It tells the story of the early communist days of USSR, and how the original communist agenda of workers' equality was co-opted by Stalin and his policies.

6 The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Alice Walker is a superb storyteller. This novel is not very long and easy to read. It is empowering in the way it narrates the story of a black woman in the Segregated South, fighting through her life with her abusive husband, loveless. You would think this would be a tearjerker but no, the protagonist finds her way through, becomes a successful businesswoman and finds love in other, similar black women. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

7 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Here is another one of the many brooding hero, dark mansion novels for you. This one is a must read for every Gothic fiction lover and was a bestseller from its publication in 1938 to 1965. It has remained a classic ever since.

8 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

A retelling of the story of Jane Eyre's Bertha Mason, this one is a short classic on women in the colonies and the ill effects of colonial patriarchy on women. She is Antoinette Cosway, the daughter of a gentleman in Jamaica, married to Rochester - the Englishman. Rochester is emotionally abusive, flaunts his many affairs to her and ultimately drives her to becoming the "mad woman in the attic".

9 Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Are you the kind who loves art, the Renaissance and books on art? If so, this book is great for a day's reading. Set in the Flemish Renaissance, in the household of painter Johannes Vermeer, it tells the story of the famous painting 'Girl with the Pearl Earring' but from the point of view of Griet, the sixteen year old model for the picture.

10 Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Are you one of those people who are not turned off by horrific descriptions of famine? Do you want to expand your reading to African literature and do you love books featuring strong, believable women characters? Then this book should definitely catch your attention. It is set in the war for Biafra, christened by the Nigerian state as the Nigerian Civil War. Engineered by European powers, uncaring leaders and a food blockade over the secessionist Biafra, war and famine rule over a family who try to survive despite the odds.