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Great 20th-century literature
The Essential Akutagawa: Rashomon, Hell Screen, Cogwheels, a Fool's Life and Other Short FictionThe Essential Akutagawa: Rashomon, Hell Screen, Cogwheels, a Fool's Life and Other Short Fiction by Akutagawa Ryunosuke
Buy used from: £45.64
Classic stories including "Rashomon" and "In a Grove" by the Japanese Kafka
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Vintage classics)Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Vintage classics) by Edward Albee
Buy new: £5.37 / Used from: £1.89
Also see the film with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
Malloy / Malone Dies / the Unnamable (Everyman library)Malloy / Malone Dies / the Unnamable (Everyman library) by Samuel Beckett
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Zuleika Dobson (Modern Library)Zuleika Dobson (Modern Library) by Max Beerbohm
Buy new: £9.57 / Used from: £5.00
Satirical novel of Oxford. Also see the OUP illustrated edition.
The Loser (Vintage International)The Loser (Vintage International) by Thomas Bernhard
Buy new: £6.07 / Used from: £6.15
Bitter observations on Glenn Gould and classical piano
Old Masters: A Comedy (Phoenix Fiction)Old Masters: A Comedy (Phoenix Fiction) by Bernhard
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Bitter observations on art and classical music
Cutting Timber: An IrritationCutting Timber: An Irritation by Thomas Bernhard
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Bitter observations on Viennese society
FictionsFictions by Jorge Borges
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short fiction collected in various volumes. Ficciones is the best introductory volume; Collected Fictions the most complete edition
This Craft of Verse (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)This Craft of Verse (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) by JL Borges
Buy new: £18.00 / Used from: £3.77
The rediscovered Charles Eliot Norton lectures delivered at Harvard in 1967-68. The most wonderful meditations on poetry imaginable.
The Sheltering Sky (Penguin Modern Classics)The Sheltering Sky (Penguin Modern Classics) by Paul Bowles
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Existential novel set in north Africa
The Master and Margarita (Penguin Modern Classics)The Master and Margarita (Penguin Modern Classics) by Mikhail Bulgakov
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Zany but satisfying.