Listmania!
a dozen to read in the dark
Reading in the DarkReading in the Dark by Seamus Deane
Buy new: £5.22 / Used from: £0.01
this one is actually called Reading in the Dark; also a masterpiece, should be a big, major book but it doesn't shout and not that many have heard
No BonesNo Bones by Anna Burns
Buy new: £4.52 / Used from: £0.01
A storming writer, whom few seem to have heard of ... the Russian roulette scene is one of best scenes in modern literature
Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear v. 1 (Your Face Tomorrow Trilogy)Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear v. 1 (Your Face Tomorrow Trilogy) by Javier Marias
Buy new: £6.39
Man's a genius, but not that well-known in English-speaking world. Really funny too - read 30pp even if maddened by an initially nutty-seeming style and you will not be able to stop
Manhood: A Journey from Childhood into the Fierce Order of VirilityManhood: A Journey from Childhood into the Fierce Order of Virility by Michel Leiris
Buy used from: £14.18
The best name of any book, the best cover of any book, and maybe the best book of any book. Read it for the little cross-heads: "HURT FOOT, BITTEN BUTTOCK, CUT HEAD'.
Kolyma TalesKolyma Tales by Varlan Shalamov
Buy new: £6.99 / Used from: £7.18
Best book about the Soviet gulag, in short, pared-down stories. Read Berries - 3 pp. - and know you've read one of best stories of 20th century
The Penguin Book of Caribbean Short StoriesThe Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stories
Buy used from: £0.01
Amazing writers not that well known in Britain; introduced me to Pauline Melville, whom I love
Wide Sargasso Sea (Bloomsbury Classic)Wide Sargasso Sea (Bloomsbury Classic) by Jean Rhys
Buy used from: £28.00
Another great book of 20th century, short, brilliant, and in a fiercely minor key; this pocket sized hardback edition is nice and not expensive - a must
Poems and Fragments (Poetica)Poems and Fragments (Poetica) by Friedrich Hölderlin
Buy used from: £16.92
The best translations of Holderlin, great German Romantic poet - if there was one book on this list I'd reccomend it's this one
LikeLike by Ali Smith
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.01
The best writer in Britain. Better known for the awesome Hotel World, but this is my favourite book by her.
The Passion According to G.H. (Emergent Literatures)The Passion According to G.H. (Emergent Literatures) by Clarice Lispector
Buy used from: £12.24
Yet another little-known major classic of 20th century, this one by a Brazilian writer (who was born Jewish in the Ukraine). Woman faces cockroach - philosophical without pretention
Simone Weil: An AnthologySimone Weil: An Anthology by Simone Weil
Buy new: £7.59 / Used from: £6.12
She's wonderful - wonderful thinker, wonderful human being, wonderful woman, wonderful writer - on fire.
A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia: And Other StoriesA Werewolf Problem in Central Russia: And Other Stories by V Pelevin
Buy used from: £22.47
Modern Russian writer hated by some in Russia who built a giant fake toilet bowl outside the Kremlin and threw in books by him and others - what tribute!