50. Gabriel Garcia Marquez You want magical realism? A troll doing tax returns. A goblin working in a call centre. That’s magical realism you Colombian romance-monger. Ha, number 50, you loser.

49. Robert Harris Admit it, reading a thriller about Nazis looking for the lost stone of Lenin is a lot more fun than falling asleep with the second page of Moby Dick open on your lap, dribble all over your face, and shame in your heart.

48. Ralph Ellison Ah, yes, the thing about this wonderful Negro author is the way in which he, ah, infuses the natural rhythms, the cadences if you will, of his people, of the blues, of jazz music and bee-bop, into his written work.

47. Giles Coren You’ve gotta be a real genius to sit in a restaurant and then write about it. Only a genius can do that. You ever see Thomas Pynchon do that? No. Not a genius.

46. Julie Burchill Responsible, alongside “sensitive” adult writer Tony Parsons, for every article about the demise of NME in which the “famed” hip young gunslinger advert is mentioned. They had real punks in the 70s.

45. Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff Romantic German who waxed lyrical about good-for-nothing chaps wandering Europe with naught but a fiddle and a pocketful of dreams. However he didn’t court the English market like Goethe, king of the meet ‘n’ greet…

44. Martin Amis Oi! Yusuf Islam! Get off my lawn.

43. E.B. White Initialised – the only way to go. White was a massive recluse who was too afraid to cross the street, but he wrote Charlotte’s Web and he made the New Yorker. You may use your first name, but what have you actually done?

42. John Milton You want sympathy for the devil? This is where you get it. Jagger’s a part-timer; Milton’s a 24 hour Satan loving quill muncher.

41. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa A provincial aristocrat with nothing to do, he wrote his great novel, The Leopard, after having seen his cousin Lucio published and then applauded for his poetry: “Being mathematically certain that I was no more foolish than Lucio, I sat down at my desk and wrote a novel”, he told a friend.

40. Michael Azerrad Champion of the underground, the DIY scribe, talking up Bob Mould and Thurston Moore while listening to pre-Major label Replacements’ albums in a coffee shop in Seattle. He’s just like you.

39. J.K. Rowling Turns out Dumbledore’s gay! Put that in your pipe Sean Penn.

38. Richard Littlejohn This guy doesn’t just shake his head vaguely and talk about “the immigration problem,” he tells it like it is: That everything is the fault of everyone except for him, his wife and Jeremy Clarkson. He’s giving the country’s racist idiots a voice and he’s picking up 800 grand a year for it.

37. Thomas Mann A man who took himself and the state of his bowels very seriously, as extracts from his diary prove: “Had a bowel movement after breakfast”. “Had breakfast in bed. A tendency to diarrhoea”. “Constipation”. Good thing there’s a toilet on the magic mountain.

36. David Berman “His younger brother who was missing that part of the brain that allows you to make out with your pillow.” We can all relate to that.

35. Bret Easton Ellis That’s bone.

35. Gary Snyder China obsessed proto-hippie who had his limelight stolen by that racist drunk Kerouac. Not cool man.

34. Philip K. Dick Token Science fiction entry. Because they’re awfully clever, but they aren’t that literary, are they?

33. Peter Cook Everyone likes Peter Cook. Technically he’s a comedian, but fuck it, here he is.

32. Jorge Luis Borges Real writers work in the same library every day for 59 years. Didn’t think about that when you were off fighting your bulls and romancing your women, did you Hemingway?

31. Pablo Neruda Tell General Pinochet where to stick it! Reading Neruda is like kicking fascism in the ass (with a really small shoe).

30. Suetonius Wrote about a Roman Emperor who used to get crews of boys to swim around him and nibble his balls while they pretended to be fish.

29. Arthur Rimbaud If you died in poverty in Somalia you’d be comforted to know that Pete Doherty would end up dropping your name in interviews.

28. Gore Vidal Forget his writing, its all about the night of the Obamalection when he nails Jonathan Dimbleby like the insane American aristocrat he is: “I don’t know what you’re saying I’m saying… I don’t even know who you are”. “I know who you are, Mr Vidal”, splutters Dimbleby.

27. Jane Austen No, you’ve never read her, but that doesn’t stop you moaning about how ‘comfortable’ and ‘cheesy’ her writing is based on the TV adaptation you saw. You are everything you pretend to loathe.

26. Francis Bacon I knew a guy at university who wrote these words: “William Shakespeare, who is in reality, Francis Bacon”. His tutor wrote in the margin: “What? WHAT? You have to be joking”. I think he got a 2:1.

25. James Thurber Overcame his rageaholism to write loads of funny shit…

24. Iris Murdoch Novelist, philosopher, freelance trumpeter… She could do it all.

23. Evelyn Waugh During rationing Evelyn once summoned his children, who had never seen a banana, to his table.  He produced one proudly, and then shoved the whole thing in his mouth. What a tool.

22. Saul BellowThe only author who’s name could handle an exclamation mark and six more ‘o’s. Bellooooooow!

21. Marcel ProustHe used to dip biscuits in his tea. Ah, memory…

20. Wole Soyinka Seriously distinguished. Seriously grandfatherly.

19. J.R.R. TolkienA forgotten master who’s name and works have been lost in the surf of time. Why when so many others are lauded so greatly does old ork-face never get a moment in the sun?

18. Don DeLilloThe ash dried on the carpet. I made a list. I am the most prominent postmodern writer on Myspace.

17. Richard YatesYeah that’s right, sit there on the bus reading Revolutionary Road with the Leo DiCaprio on the cover.

16. John Updike Oh, so now he’s dead you’ve decided to read him. That’s real cool.

15. Virginia WoolfFrom the lighthouse to the sea and back to the party, she’s Modernism’s greatest monster.

14. Joseph Conrad Conrad wrote in his third language, lapsed into inexplicable silences in company, and once lived in his bathroom for a week. Plus, his great-uncle once ate a “luckless Lithuanian dog” while in Napoleon’s army.

13. Cormac McCarthy -You think so.

-I think so.

-He is cold.

-But it is cold.

-He is modern.

-Hold me.

-Yes.

-That’s nice.

-Cuddly.

-Yes.

-I mean: bones. Ash. Smoke. The world. Ending.

12. Primo Levi Forget it Levi-Strauss, your stitched denim doesn’t make you eligible for this list so stop going on about being “the greatest Levi”.

11. James Baldwin You knew something was up with Stephen Baldwin when he kept claiming that, despite being a gay black man, James Baldwin was in fact his Dad.

10. William Shakespeare Yeah, greatest playwright ever, the player scribe, no-one knows what he looks like. Simon Callow will hunt me down and beat me with his ruff if he isn’t in this list. Fine, he’s in the list.

9. Woody AllenIf your heart tells you it wants your daughter, just go with that. Who are you to stop it?

8. Leo TolstoyHe was, in many ways, the Boris Yeltsin of his era.

7. George EliotYou’ve got to admire a woman who uses her married lover’s name to publish books. That’s feminism, Germaine Greer.

6. Homer Was he one man or an oral tradition composite given the brand name “Homer”? Either way, Homer was the Ford of storytelling.

5. J.D. Salinger Goddamn, pretend if you will you phoney bastard, but you wanna be Holden, crying crazed tears as he watches his innocent sister riding the carousel. You’d like that. That’s the truth. Now, pick up the gun and wander through Central Park… 

4. F. Scott FitzgeraldYou’re at a Princeton party, F.Scott is being brilliant and dry. What a wit. Wait, you’re counting up the wine bottles at the end of the night, that’s odd, and the F-man is locking himself in the bathroom with four bottles of gin. Oh dear, you wonder, perhaps Scott might be a little troubled.

3. Charles Dickens You know if he were alive now he’d be writing Eastenders. Or he’d be a staff writer at The Wire. What is it with broadsheet arts journalists always saying that shit? Maybe he’d be a butcher. Maybe he’d be illiterate. I can tell you one thing for damn sure: he wouldn’t hang out with you, fuckbreath.

2. Ivan Turgenev The Russian came from a brutal aristocratic family. His grandmother once maimed a serf by hitting the dude over the head with a plank of wood covered in nails. She then sat on his bloody unconscious body, and that’s good enough to get him to number 2 in this list.

1. John DonneI battle with God! I am a preacher but I am drawn to the devil and his works. In my heart I see no afterlife, no salvation. I bother only a small group of friends with poems grappling with these and other weighty issues; like how to get laid by talking about a flea. Now, my books are everywhere and you can buy my DVD, “Rhyming fun with Reverend John Donne”.

Top ten liars. Ever

Top ten bodies of water. Ever

The top ten wars. Ever.