Who is the world's greatest living novelist? The Atlantic says Philip Roth.

From Joseph O'Neill in The Atlantic:

It is hard to contemplate a body of work of such magnitude and grandeur without a little melancholy. Few literary writers younger than, say, 60 have much chance of achieving a comparable yield, and one wonders how many would even want to. The Rothic dedication to productivity seems anachronistic, even uncalled-for, in a culture ever less hospitable to the demands made by a lengthy written text, the most basic being that the reader sit down for hours without some powerful electronic agitation of the senses.

We check in with John Freeman, editor of Granta, and Marjorie Kehe, book editor for the Christian Science Monitor, about their picks.

KERRI'S TAKEAWAY

Qualities of a good novelist: Range, ability to influence other writers and willingness to take part in social commentary.

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