JAKE'S THING by Kingsley
Amis
Late Amis. A forceful blast in the 1980s battle of the sexes. Rude,
prejudiced, unfair, sour and very funny polemic, whose wit was far beyond
that of its opponents.
SUCCESS by Martin
Amis
Early M. Amis was treasured by his many dazzled admirers, including this one.
This stylistically brilliant and structurally interesting novel enabled him
to display all that bravura talent to its best comic advantage.
TIM ALL ALONE by Edward
Ardizzone
I read this book many times as a child. Jeopardy, adventure, rescue...and,
above all, those wonderful illustrations.
THE
GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINIS by Giorgio Bassani
This short, beautiful novel about an Italian Jewish family just before the
Second World War is part Proustian recollection, part fairytale, part harsh
social history. Its young heroine, Micòl, is pure delight - one of my
favourite girls in all literature.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony
Burgess
No sooner dead than near-forgotten; but Burgess was a real force and here is a
novel in a foreign language that somehow, from the off, we understand.
Amazing.
DAVID COPPERFIELD by Charles Dickens
The author's favourite of his novels and who are we to disagree? The death of
Steerforth is perhaps the greatest scene in Victorian literature, but there
are many other moments when the world seems to hold its breath.
THE WASTE LAND by T.S.Eliot
These poems were utterly new and original in their time, yet the half-familiar
rhythms made it seem as though they had always been there. Timeless, yet of
their time, and good to read aloud.
THE BLUE FLOWER by Penelope Fitzgerald
A short novel of mysterious power about the poet Novalis (1772-1801) and his
love for a plain 12-year-old girl. Art of such refinement that it defies
attempts to explain how it works.
MOONRAKER by Ian
Fleming
Early Bond. He doesn't sleep with the girl and the big dénouement is in Kent.
It breaks all the rules and it really only has three scenes. But what good
scenes they are.
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
Fowles has fallen from favour with British readers, but in the arid terrain of
the 1970s he was an oasis of daring and brio. This book is a paean to the
power of pure story-telling - and perhaps also to its dangers...
QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE
by George MacDonald Fraser
The best Second World War memoir that I have read. This, you feel, is what it
was really like. Funny, too, and with unforgettable characters.
TOWARDS THE END OF THE MORNING by Michael Frayn
The only novel that has caused me physical injury. I was laughing so hard that
I fell out of bed and bruised my shoulder. I should have sued, really.
LOVING, LIVING, PARTY GOING by Henry Green
Green was in my view the best English novelist of the mid-20th century and I
have tried to explain why in the introduction. These novels are wonderful.
Try also Caught and Back.
THE LAST ENEMY by Richard Hillary
The memoir of a Spitfire pilot in the early days of the Second World War.
Wonderful descriptions of flying, crashing and of the agonies of plastic
surgery on burnt hands and face. It says something essential about young men
and war.
THE LINE OF BEAUTY by Alan Hollinghurst
A contemporary British novel that has an interest in language, that has themes
and a musician's skill in orchestrating them. How rare is that? Brideshead
Revisited for the 21st century.
THE PRICE OF GLORY by Alistair Horne
A scholarly, complete but highly readable, and moving, account of the Battle
of Verdun (1916) and what it meant to France. I don't think you can
understand that country without knowing about Verdun.
AN EVIL CRADLING by Brian
Keenan
This account of how the author was kidnapped and held captive in Beirut begins
as reportage or memoir, but develops into a profound and moving meditation
on human frailty.
THE LAKE by Yasunari Kawabata
Gimpei is an outcast who is in search of beauty. His story is told partly in
cherry-blossom lyricism, and partly in harshly lit flashbacks to a troubled
childhood. Odd, alien, enthralling. The author won the Nobel prize.
THE
UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera
I remember the exhilaration with which I read this novel for review when it
came out. I had never before seen big ideas so excitingly integrated into
human lives.
THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS by Philip Larkin
Each time “poetry” beckons, Larkin stubbornly turns back to “life” - but with
such honesty and skill that what emerges from his denials is poetry - pure,
because refined by doubt.
THE RAINBOW by D.H.Lawrence
Poor Lawrence has fallen out of fashion and some of his writing does now seem
hysterical. But no novelist before had cared so much for his characters or
written about them with such tenderness. It was a revelation to me.
DOCTOR DOLITTLE STORIES by Hugh Lofting
The best children's book I read as child or parent. Utterly modern and
enlightened, without being PC, high concept, funny, touching, exciting and
well written.
THE SCENT OF DRIED ROSES by Tim Lott
This autobiographical account of a young man's depression and the inexplicable
suicide of his mother says something about England that no one else has
said, and it still feels important.
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN by Thomas Mann
Was ever there a more memorable Valentine than an X-ray of the beloved's
tubercular chest? Mann's unwieldy Modernist masterpiece is a reading
experience that demands - and repays - total immersion.
THE HOUSE OF ELRIG by Gavin Maxwell
The author became famous for his otter books, but this is the story of his
Scottish childhood, with grouse moors and draughty castles. It is very good
on nature and even better on adolescent sexuality.
THE FIRST DAY OF THE SOMME by Martin Middlebrook
A reconstruction of the events of July 1, 1916, perhaps the blackest day in
British history, by a poultry farmer-turned-historian. Calm, detailed and
horrifying, it was written at a time (1970) when no one seemed to care.
BIRDS OF AMERICA by Lorrie Moore
These short stories are sad, funny, sharp, etched in acid but conceived in
love and tolerance. Above all, each one seems full, like a novel. The
reading pleasure is almost indecently pure.
THE BLACK PRINCE by Iris
Murdoch
Another beacon from the 1970s. Of Murdoch's many novels, this seemed the one
that most exhilaratingly fused philosophical themes and narrative daring. It
was a book that left its readers dazed and elated.
LOLITA
by Vladimir Nabokov
Ludic, dandified, euphuistic - and then some. Nabokov's most story-driven
book. The hero in the end is not H.H., Lolita or moral ambivalence, but
Style.
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH by Zoe Oldenbourg
I don't really like “historical” novels - too much costume and “authentic”
detail. But if anyone invested the genre with gravity it was Mme O. Her
setting - 12th-century France - is fascinating, and her characters live.
SABBATH'S THEATER by Philip Roth
You don't really like late Roth if you don't love Sabbath. Here are Eros,
Thanatos and their puppetmaster in a grand guignol that is vibrant, filthy,
shocking, pitiless and somehow essential.
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D.Salinger
You think you've read this - but try again. It yields something different
every time. One of those rare, inexplicable literary events: a word-perfect
novel.
ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH by Alexander Solzehenitsyn
Life in the Gulag. The economy and dignity of narrative enhance its explosive
moral power.
THE RED AND THE BLACK by Stendhal
Church, army and a lover's revenge vie for the soul of Julien Sorel in early
19th-century France. The love scenes with Mme de Rênal in the early part are
breathtaking - unsurpassed, I would say.
A CRUEL MADNESS by Colin Thubron
Known for his elegant travel writing, Thubron is also a gifted novelist. This
novel has the air of a once-in-a-lifetime inspiration. Measured, sweetly
reasoned and immensely touching.
WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy
Each time Tolstoy takes you back to his characters after the years have passed
he rotates them a fraction beneath a bright light, like a jeweller, to show
a new facet. Cruel, yet humane. No one gives a better sense of time passing.
A PATCHWORK PLANET by Anne Tyler
A novelist so on top of her game that at times she is almost showing off.
Relax - and enjoy her mastery.
A FRINGE OF LEAVES by Patrick White
Very difficult to break into - but hugely worthwhile. White was one of the big
figures of 20th-century fiction and this is a magnificent novel.
LYRICAL BALLADS by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A manifesto and a revolution in verse whose fallout is still being measured.
The strongest single volume of poetry yet published?
GERMINAL by Emil Zola
Flawed and easy to mock, like much of Zola. But as I finished this passionate
and angry book, I found I was emitting strange noises, caused by the fact
that I was crying, but with open eyes - because I had to know what happened
next.
How could anyone, let alone someone like Sebastian Faulks, omit the masters of modern literature, Yeats and Joyce, from a list of books one cannot live without?
Madeline Parsons, Westcliff-on-Sea,
Well at least I've read 15 of these! I've read other books by Penelope Fitzgerald and Michael Frayn and would willingly read more. The Magus by John Fowles was one of the best books ever - I read it twice many years ago and have promised myself to re-read it before the year is out. Thanks
Mary, Scala, Italy