 | The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Buy new: £5.98 / Used from: £0.04 Better than the film, but keep Juliette Binoche & Kristin Scott Thomas in mind as perfect casting.
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 | East of Eden (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Steinbeck
Buy new: £6.46 / Used from: £3.70 My personal Steinbeck favourite, sprawling tale of a family and their sometimes tragic and ultimately hopeful future.
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 | Cannery Row (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Steinbeck
Buy new: £5.20 / Used from: £2.75 Full of lively characters and the joy of simple life - a refreshing read.
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 | Tortilla Flat (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Steinbeck
Buy new: £4.70 / Used from: £1.59 Amusing and engrossing - simple storytelling of the finest kind
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 | Sweet Thursday (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Steinbeck
Buy new: £5.98 / Used from: £3.40 My final Steinbeck choice - but they all satisfy immensely, follow up to Cannery Row, a great sequel
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 | Crime and Punishment (Penguin Classics) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £0.01 I suppose an obvious choice but probably the best place to start with the great Russian author.
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 | Anna Karenina (Penguin Classics) by Leo Tolstoy
Buy new: £6.71 / Used from: £3.23 Much better than War and Peace, fantastic writing and well worth taking the time.
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 | Gabriela: Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado
Buy new: £11.69 / Used from: £7.94 Very entertaining and beautifully written up there with the best of Mario Vargas Llosa....talking of which......
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 | The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa
Buy new: £7.68 / Used from: £4.89 Found it difficult to seperate favourites of this man, so chose the one I'm currently enjoying.
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 | A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes
Buy new: £12.57 / Used from: £10.97 Totally astonishing accomplishment - one of the best history books I've read
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 | Collected Poems: Dylan Thomas (Everyman) by Dylan Thomas
Buy new: £4.99 / Used from: £2.98 The Welsh wizard, where the term "Sheer bloody poetry" was conceived.
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 | Red Sky at Sunrise: Cider with Rosie; as I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning; A Moment of War by Laurie Lee
Buy new: £8.08 / Used from: £3.33 Three for one, the great lyrical writing of Laurie Lee the only hero I've ever met, lovely man, lovely writer, lovely books.
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 | Auto da Fe by Elias Canetti
Buy new: £9.06 / Used from: £6.63 Stunning - a little depressing a good one for misanthropes everywhere
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![Shoah (4 Disc Set & 184 Page Book Special Edition Box Set) [DVD] [1985]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wkDF2%2BmoL._SL75_.jpg) | Shoah (4 Disc Set & 184 Page Book Special Edition Box Set) [DVD] [1985]
Buy new: £39.88 / Used from: £24.95 The only non-book on my lists so far, but absolutely essential, should be compulsory viewing for all human beings
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 | The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Modern Classics) by Fernando Pessoa
Buy new: £6.92 / Used from: £5.47 "I was born in a time when the majority of young people had lost faith in God, for the same reason their elders had had it - without knowing why" - the true nature of human existence.
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 | Naples '44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy by Norman Lewis
Buy used from: £7.15 Norman is a great travel writer, this memoir is one of his finest works about his time in Southern Italy after the allied invasion
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 | The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed by Norman Lewis
Buy new: £7.09 / Used from: £6.05 More of Norman Lewis' great writing, this time the subject is the Mafia and Italian anti hero Salvatore Giuliano - also see Mario Puzo's "The Sicilian"
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 | King of the Mountain: Life and Death of Giuliano the Bandit by Billy Jaynes Chandler
Buy new: £21.38 / Used from: £17.83 Not as good as God Protect Me from My Friends: Story of Salvatore Giuliano by Gavin Maxwell, but easier to come by. Salvatore Giuliano is a fascinating character.
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 | Kolyma Tales by Varlan Shalamov
Buy new: £7.43 / Used from: £8.64 Economical in style, horrifying in impact - astonishing. If you read only one book on Stalins Terror make it this one.
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 | Blood Meridian: Or, the Evening Redness in the West (Picador Books) by Cormac McCarthy
Buy new: £4.78 / Used from: £3.45 Nightmarish vision of the end of the "Wild West" probably more realistic than your average John Wayne movie.
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 | The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
Buy new: £4.85 / Used from: £0.01 First came across Andrea Camilleri about 5 years ago shopping for books for my Italian holiday, they are all as good as this one, plain and simple, enormously witty Montalbano a is brilliant character
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 | Depths by Henning Mankell
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £0.01 Love Mankell's crime writing but this one and its haunting atmosphere kept me gripped for hours
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 | Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
Buy new: £5.84 / Used from: £0.01 Totally riveting true life tale of survival and one man's survival instict
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 | Total Chaos (Marseilles Trilogy) by Jean-Claude Izzo
Buy used from: £6.05 Part one of Izzo's Marseilles Trilogy, "Chourmo", and "Solea" completes the set - crime noir that challenges Chandler
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 | Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco by Jason Webster
Buy new: £5.82 / Used from: £0.01 I have a passion for Flamenco, and this is a great book for an insight into its place in Spanish culture.
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