Listmania!
When not copulating I read...
Tropic of Cancer (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)Tropic of Cancer (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Henry Miller
Buy new: £2.97 / Used from: £6.31
In short, if you haven't read this then you are to be considered deficient. Tropic of Capricorn is equally brilliant. A remarkably honest, inventive and readable "novel". Written by a bum no less!
On the Road (Penguin Classics)On the Road (Penguin Classics) by Kerouac
Buy used from: £4.64
Iconic and reads at the pace life should probably be lived. Never surpassed by Kerouac, but not for lack of trying
The Complete Short Stories (Vintage Classics)The Complete Short Stories (Vintage Classics) by Franz Kafka
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £10.26
No-one's ever created more alluring nightmares. Progress to The Trial after this, and see the Welles' film, its surprisingly faithful...
Moby Dick: Or, the Whale (Penguin Popular Classics)Moby Dick: Or, the Whale (Penguin Popular Classics) by Herman Melville
Buy new: £1.80 / Used from: £0.01
Utterly impossible to describe, unique in 19thC fiction, and modern fiction too. In my top 5 best ever.
The Third Policeman (Paladin Books)The Third Policeman (Paladin Books) by Flann O'Brien
Buy used from: £0.29
The most comically sinister evocation of hell your ever likely to come across. Ironically this book will be in the library in heaven. Genius.
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Penguin Modern Classics)One Hundred Years of Solitude (Penguin Modern Classics) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Buy new: £6.49 / Used from: £2.86
I had to pick this really, but you can't go wrong with Marquez, Love in the time of cholera, The general in his labyrinth, take your pick...
Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (Penguin Modern Classics)Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (Penguin Modern Classics) by Jorge Luis Borges
Buy new: £3.72 / Used from: £3.30
Read this now! Sublime writing and how he conceives these stories, lord knows, better than punching a ginger nephew!!
The Master and Margarita (Penguin Modern Classics)The Master and Margarita (Penguin Modern Classics) by Mikhail Bulgakov
Buy used from: £2.76
Classic russian literature gets a little pompous and melodramatic, but this comes out of it like the october revolution and establishes an new epoch
Pedro Paramo (Five Star)Pedro Paramo (Five Star) by Juan Rulfo
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £3.32
Difficult to go wrong with Latin American fiction, this is one of the more influential books, mindbendingly accomplished
The HobbitThe Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Buy new: £5.00 / Used from: £0.01
Tolkien's best book by a long way, don't feel you need to read Lord of the Rings, it dissolves into a trite medieval romance, this however, is spot on.
SteppenwolfSteppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Buy used from: £4.93
Excellent in as many ways as there are of reading it, should have won the nobel prize for this not The Glass bead Game, but whadya gonna do?
The Divine Comedy (Oxford World's Classics)The Divine Comedy (Oxford World's Classics) by Dante Alighieri
Buy used from: £7.20
I couldn't begin to say how important this book is. Get out of hell, march up that darned hill and see what a miserable bunch of wretches can become. Bon giorno Beatirce!
The Way of Zen (Arkana)The Way of Zen (Arkana) by Alan Watts
Buy used from: £4.95
You need to engage in a different way to get some of this, but it could be the most important thing you ever read, you never know. If Kerouac liked it...
True History of the Kelly GangTrue History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Buy new: £3.96 / Used from: £0.01
Where'd he learn to write like this? I want to know, dammit!
Lolita (Penguin Classics)Lolita (Penguin Classics)
Buy new: £6.24 / Used from: £2.50
Disturbing, tragic, but the most beautiful prose you're ever likely to find from a Russian exile writing in his third (!!!) language. Or anyone for that matter.
The Outsider (Essential Penguin)The Outsider (Essential Penguin) by Albert Camus
Buy new: £3.58 / Used from: £2.94
You can't live without existentialism. What a terrible joke, however, this is a great book. Meursault, won't you shed a tear? For the sake of society! Oh, so its not just me then, thats reassuring...
Nausea (Penguin Modern Classics)Nausea (Penguin Modern Classics) by Jean-Paul Sartre
Buy new: £3.72 / Used from: £3.62
I read them quite close together when i was about 16, I recommend you try the same thing. If not just pick it up after you've made love, then she'll know what it was like for you,oh yes,she'll know..
Mrs. Dalloway (Wordsworth Classics)Mrs. Dalloway (Wordsworth Classics) by Virginia Woolf
Buy new: £1.99 / Used from: £0.01
Remarkable, revolutionary structure, even enlivens the subject matter, probably ranks as genius, yes, on reflection, it does.
The Bell JarThe Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Buy new: £2.97 / Used from: £0.44
Spoilt sociopath, or supressed woman? Well, depends if your Ted Hughes probably, but this is brilliant, sparse and touching.
If This Is a Man / The TruceIf This Is a Man / The Truce by Primo Levi
Buy new: £6.59 / Used from: £2.91
Don't deny the holocaust, its not big and its not clever! But this is the best account of a human tragedy which no-one seems to have learnt anything from. Rwanda anyone? Bosnia? Iraq? etc,etc.
The Pillow Book of Sei ShonagonThe Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon by Sei Shonagon
Buy new: £6.88 / Used from: £6.27
What? This was written 1000 years ago? No, are you sure?Then comes Tale of Genji,Yukio Mishima,Kenzaburo Oe,Akira Kurosawa,Toshiro Mifune,japanese girlfirend,then hapily ever after (please!)
Rashomon [1950]Rashomon [1950]
Buy used from: £49.95
Speaking of which, best film ever. No, don't argue, THIS IS THE BEST FILM EVER MADE!!!!!!!!!
Breathless [1959]Breathless [1959]
Buy new: £5.98
Second best film ever made.
Last Year At Marienbad [1961]Last Year At Marienbad [1961]
Buy new: £5.98
You're getting the hang of this now, right? Incidentally, The Invention of Morel by Bioy Casares is worth a read (Marienbad was based on it), but don't give away the ending!!!!
O.K ComputerO.K Computer by Radiohead
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £1.38
You'll need this too, the finest album ever crafted (even with track 7), and get the EP, blend them together et voila, literally what heaven sounds like, ask Dante.