 | Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Buy new: £6.98 / Used from: £7.76 Celine's classic, teeming with riotous and beautiful prose, wonderfully translated by Manheim
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 | The Brothers Karamazov by F.M. Dostoevsky
Buy new: £6.74 / Used from: £3.94 If I had this book on a desert island I probably wouldn't want rescuing. Excellent translation too.
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 | The Big Sleep (Penguin Fiction) by Raymond Chandler
Buy new: £2.97 / Used from: £1.50 Unrivalled for entertainment value as well as his often imitated but never bettered prose. Sharp, funny and addictive.
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 | Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Buy new: £2.85 / Used from: £2.70 A work of devastation to be classed alongside Celine, Dostoevsky and Fante for its depiction of the agonies of pride.
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 | Tropic of Cancer (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Henry Miller
Buy new: £2.89 / Used from: £3.70 Whirling, chaotic prose. The kind of stuff that tugs you along by the collar until you give in and enjoy the free ride.
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 | An American Dream (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Norman Mailer
Buy new: £2.85 / Used from: £2.75 The one that gave me the Mailer bug. At times caustic, at others ethereal, but always inspiring.
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 | Ask The Dust by John Fante
Buy new: £2.51 / Used from: £3.99 by JOHN FANTE!!! Devastatingly clear prose following the damningly complex workings of human nature.
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 | Post Office: A Novel by Charles Bukowski
Buy new: £3.58 / Used from: £2.90 Call him a one-trick pony if you like, but what a pony and what a trick!
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 | The Master and Margarita (Vintage Classics) by Mikhail Bulgakov
Buy new: £5.94 / Used from: £2.92 Magical on so many levels it hurts.
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 | One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Penguin Modern Classics) by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn
Buy new: £5.59 / Used from: £3.26 Possibly better than Dostoevsky's House of the Dead. In my opinion that's all the recommendation you need.
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 | Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £3.64 Brilliant, one of the true classics of the late 20th Century. Peerless prose, genuine wit and damning social commentary.
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 | A Confederacy of Dunces (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Kennedy Toole
Buy new: £3.76 / Used from: £2.95 One of the funniest books ever, with one of the saddest stories behind it.
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 | Humboldt's Gift (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Saul Bellow
Buy new: £4.02 / Used from: £4.00 Of all the Bellow books I've read, this is the most entertaining. By turns hilarious, melancholic and informative, Bellow's genius is displayed on every single page.
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 | Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Buy new: £6.99 / Used from: £3.25 It left me exhausted and in total awe. Don't miss the comic genius amongst all of the PoMo debris.
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 | Slaughterhouse 5: The Children's Crusade - A Dirty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
Buy new: £2.97 / Used from: £3.00 Sublime tragicomedy. Louis-Ferdinand Celine meets the Marx Bros.
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