Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939
I'm going out on a limb here... This is the most useful guide you'll find to reading material in the English-speaking world in the period from the outbreak of WW2 to the year of Orwell's dystopia. He may have had his faults as a novelist but as a critic Burgess was discerning and omniscient. I've even got two copies - one in England and one in Brittany!
