 | Chump Change ("Rebel Inc") by Dan Fante
Buy used from: £11.40 Remember this - Dan Fante is the best living writer. Crazy, utterly honest... and he never wastes a single word. This is the first of the Dante trilogy. Guess what? It's great.
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 | Mooch ("Rebel Inc") by Dan Fante
Buy used from: £6.49 More Dan Fante greatness... second of the Dante books. Picks apart just how crazy love is. You'll never drink coke the same again and ladies... guard that lipstick from Dan Fante!
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 | Spitting Off Tall Buildings by Dan Fante
Buy used from: £6.50 Last Dante novel so far. This time, he concentrates more on the misery of working a job and more perils of MD 20/20. Check out a great Dan Fante interview in a magazine called The Savage Kick.
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 | Hating Olivia: A Love Story by Mark SaFranko (Introduced by Dan Fante)
Hating Olivia charts love's ability to destroy and does an amazing job of it. SaFranko writes straight from the balls, with scenes sleazier than Buk. Brilliant... and with an intro by Dan Fante too.
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 | Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Buy used from: £4.09 Hamsun only wrote one good book - but what a book! About having to starve for your art sometimes... Maybe the first ballsy book written in that pacy way that expresses the inner mind beautifully.
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 | Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
448 pages and yet not a boring line... A refreshingly real coward's eye view of war at first, progressing to his days as a low-rent doctor. Savagely honest at expressing humanity's failings.
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 | The Criminal (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Jim Thompson
Buy new: £8.09 / Used from: £2.57 I think it's easy for people to read Buk, Fante, and their influences and not explore further. Try Jim Thompson. He is a great author of very nasty/sleazy crime tales. The Criminal is just one fave.
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 | Shit Magnet: One Man's Miraculous Ability to Absorb the World's Guilt by Jim Goad
Buy new: £11.69 / Used from: £3.91 Jim Goad has been called bad names, folks. But he's incredibly smart and, above all, completely honest. Read Sh*t Magnet (esp Chap. 5) and you'll find a heart beating under that tough exterior.
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 | Diary of a Mad Old Man (Vintage classics) by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
Buy new: £5.71 / Used from: £3.50 This is one of those gems not many know about. But it's an amazing (and hilariously sleazy) book about a Japanese man nearing death but still having a powerful desire for sex. Smoothy written too.
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 | Ask the Dust by John Fante
Buy new: £4.48 / Used from: £1.71 If you strapped me down and made me choose just one book - this would probably be it. John Fante has the cleanest of writing styles. He lays down stories that are a direct route to his brain...
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 | Wait Until Spring, Bandini ("Rebel Inc." Classics) by John Fante
Buy used from: £9.99 As much about Fante's family as it is about himself (as Arturo). Great stuff, naturally, with cutting (and accurate) thoughts on Catholocism and just about every aspect of small-town life.
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 | The Road to Los Angeles ("Rebel Inc." Classics) by John Fante
The first official book of the Bandini quartet. Bandini flits from job to job, stoked with power from reading Nietsche. More John Fante brilliance.
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 | Dreams from Bunker Hill by John Fante
Buy used from: £6.56 The last Bandini book - dictated (if I remember rightly) to his wife as he lay blind and an amputee from the effects of diebetes. It's brilliant. Get it.
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 | 1933 Was a Bad Year by John Fante
Buy used from: £0.59 Essentially the fifth Bandini book - it's just the character's called Molise. Here, Fante looks at adolescent dreams of hitting the big time... and the fact life always gets in the way. Another fave.
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 | The Bandini Quartet by John Fante
Buy new: £8.24 / Used from: £6.08 Four of the greatest books around are this cheap to get now? Wow. I don't have this edition but I understand it has an excellent Dan Fante intro. Not sure if Buk's Ask the Dust intro is in too.
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 | The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante
Buy new: £5.49 / Used from: £3.08 Not enough people knew about his (and West of Rome, The Big Hunger, and Wine of Youth). It's now been reissued. The older Fante works get progressively more savage - and are wonderful.
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 | West of Rome by John Fante
Buy new: £11.99 / Used from: £6.06 Contains two stories. The novella My Dog Stupid is the nastiest of Fante's career and is up there with my overall favourites. The Orgy helps explain a lot about Fante's father. Buy now, folks.
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 | The Wine of Youth: Selected Stories by John Fante
Buy new: £7.63 / Used from: £3.05 A collection of Fante's short stories. All good... not a single stinker. I've just spent the last hour trying to think up imaginative stuff to say about Fante's books but they're worth it, ok?
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 | The Big Hunger: Stories, 1932-1959 by John Fante
Buy new: £9.02 / Used from: £3.57 More short stories - many from Fante's early stuff. If I remember rightly, this has a prequel to Ask The Dust. Again, interesting reading.
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 | The Harlem Cycle: "Rage in Harlem", "Real Cool Killers", "Crazy Kill" v. 1 by Chester Himes
Buy used from: £9.75 Any of Himes' books could be mentioned here. From If He Hollers... to all of the Harlem Cycle. Like Thompson, Himes is great, ballsy, crime writer - NEVER dull.
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 | The Pimp by Iceberg Slim
Buy used from: £4.84 Pimp is Beck's real-life tale of becoming a pimp, keeping his stable in line, drug addiction and 100 uses for a wire coathanger. It's great, plus you can learn jivetalk with the handy glossary!
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 | Post Office: A Novel by Charles Bukowski
Buy used from: £2.99 Bukowski's first. Sleazy. Brilliant. You would've heard of Bukowski if you are looking at this list. Shame the Black Sparrow Press books aren't available any more. The paper on the covers is tactile!
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 | Factotum by Charles Bukowski
Buy used from: £3.97 Maybe my favourite of Bukowski's work. Although the favourites game is a waste of time. Factotum suits Buk's style beautifully - a series of stories about working bum jobs and survival.
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 | Women by Charles Bukowski
Buy used from: £3.50 Uber-feminists said Bukowski was a misogynist. Idiots. He loves women, he just has the guts to write truthfully about them. People are mostly stupid, he's just saying women aren't excluded from that.
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 | Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
Buy new: £5.40 / Used from: £3.14 Buk as kid. Amazing, as all his novels are. Incidentally, I liked the movie Barfly too - sure Wanda is a little annoying, but Rourke is immensely fun as Buk.
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