Nay, Paul, here are a few of my favourite pens

Or possibly, Nahi, pal.

Nobel Laureate Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul ("Surajprasad" sounds more like my corner paanwalla than a Nobel-man) has seen fit to tear into some icons of English literature including stalwarts such as Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway and Jane Austen. Mark Twain and H.G. Wells are apparently treated with more deference. In the past he has also trashed E.M. Forster and his own acolyte, Paul Theroux.

Where Naipaul roams, I shall not fear to tread.

Authors whose books I have begun then flung from me in disgust, usually before getting through a third of the book: Arundhati Roy, James Joyce, Shobha De (and no I won't chuck in an extraa 'a' or an accent on the 'e' - I'm frugal that way), Umberto Eco (except for The Name of the Rose).

Authors whom I cordially detest, but at least I made it through their books: Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, Jonathan Kellerman, and all the other airport authors. You buy 'em at the airport, you read 'em on the flight (thus inviting deep vein thrombosis) and you leave 'em in the seat pocket for the next unsuspecting traveller. The best you can say about them is that they're more palatable and less indigestible than the airline food.

Authors who I find either incredibly pretentious or tear-inducingly boring but I have (usually) manfully struggled through their opiate opaque opuses: Salman Rushdie, Ayn Rand, practically any Russian great you care to name. Collectively, they have probably knocked a decade off my life span.

Authors whom I devoured in my misspent youth, but now, on revisiting them in middle-age, I wonder what all the fuss was about: Leon Uris, James Clavell. This may have something to do with the size of their offerings and muscular atrophy brought on by my advancing years.

Authors whom I was force-fed in my youth, but whom I nevertheless enjoyed and returned to willingly in my adult life, though I would never have confessed that to my English teachers - that would be selling out: William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Alan Paton, E.M. Forster, Ernest Hemingway.

Authors who are acknowledged "classic greats" whom I have enjoyed, often many times over: Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Saki, Oscar Wilde, Voltaire, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, George Orwell, Jack London.

Authors who kept me awake at night when I was a boy in a hurry to finish the book so I could get to the next one, and who cares if there was school the next day or even an exam: Alistair Maclean, Oliver Strange, Louis L'Amour, Agatha Christie, whoever wrote the Biggles series (I can't imagine I've forgotten his name!), Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charteris, John Creasey, G.K. Chesterton, Jules Verne, John Wyndham, Enid Blyton.

Authors who made me guffaw when I was young and who still make me chuckle: Frank Richards (sadly unavailable nowadays - the Billy Bunter guy), Richmal Compton, Stephen Leacock, Goscinny and Uderzo, Herge (I'd love to do the accent on this 'e', but I can't).

Worthy successors to the chuckle-inducers: Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Tom Holt, Douglas Adams, Scott Adams, Joseph Heller (but only that one book - with a debut that brilliant any follow-up is bound to be a crashing failure).

Authors who will one day be considered "classic greats" if there's justice in this world and if global warming doesn't kill off the human species first: John Fowles, John le Carre (another accent I'd like to do on the 'e', but sadly can't), Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess, E.L. Doctorow, Robert Harris, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes.

Authors of "Indian fiction" - what a nauseating term - who are well worth a read: R.K. Narayan (the godfather and the one to beat), Vikas Swarup, Samit Basu (Indian science fiction and fantasy, no less!), Vikram Seth (but only his poetic epic), Shashi Tharoor.

Authors who provide me a cathartic outlet in glorious prose for my murderous instincts: Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, Elizabeth George, Minnette Walters, John Dickson Carr, Rex Stout, Georges Simenon, Michael Dibdin, Ellery Queen (though he was really two guys).

Authors who provide me a cathartic outlet in hardboiled prose for my murderous instincts: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Eric Ambler, James Cain, James Hadley Chase, Dorothy B. Hughes, Mario Puzo.

Authors who make me wonder and want to live to be four hundred and three so I can live on their worlds: Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Ben Bova, Robert Heinlein, Ursula le Guin, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, C.J. Cherryh.

Authors who make me wonder if they're on illegal substances but who can get me high without a needle: Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkien, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick (unfortunate name in Hinglish, that), Roald Dahl.

Authors who explain this incredible universe of ours and leave my head spinning: Bertrand Russell, John Gribbin, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, James Gleick, Roger Penrose.

But if I was left alone on this earth with only one author's works to keep me company for all of eternity, there is no author I would rather choose than P.G. Wodehouse.