Showing 1-16 of 24 Results.
I was totally blown away by this collection of the new new new journalism, or however many "news" we’re up to these days. I think I like it as much – at times, even more – than Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never do Again. And that, for me, is saying a lot.
Zadie Smith - 10/08/2012 |
To be honest, I could have put American Psycho, Glamorama and Lunar Park in this list as well – I’m a huge Easton Ellis fan. But since I thought I’d better keep it to one, it had to be Less Than Zero – I don’t think any novel has ever affected me more than this classic account of empty, soulless twentysomethings drifting through a drugs, sex and booze-addled Christmas in LA. The writing is so spare and clean and empty, and the content so bleak and painful. It’s just an absolute masterpiece.
Will Hill - 15/03/2012 |
As with Easton Ellis, I could have put any number of Dahl’s novels on this list – The Witches, Matilda, Danny The Champion Of The World – but this second part of his autobiography (which started with Boy) is utterly joyous. It’s as fantastic and funny and weird and thrilling as any of his fiction, taking in lions, snakes, fighters planes, deserts, and a cast of characters as eccentric as he’s ever had to play with. It’s completely delightful.
Will Hill - 15/03/2012 |
I recently took part in a 48-hour continuous live reading of Stein’s The Making of Americans in Brooklyn, New York. I thought I’d hate reading her aloud, but in fact the section I got was really beautiful. So then I picked this up off my 'should have read it 20 years ago' pile. And it’s so funny and thrilling. What a house they ran together, and what amazing people passed through it: Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Hemingway, Fitzgerald!
Zadie Smith - 10/08/2012 |
Georges Perec; John Sturrock; John... If you read it from front to back you will never be able to move through the everyday spaces of your world unthinkingly ever again.
Zadie Smith - 10/08/2012 |
The writer recalls his time in Paris in the 1920s, in the company of other expat writers such as F Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein.
Barry Fantoni - 11/06/2012 |
Michel de Montaigne; M.A. Screech You can just dip in at any point and find some thing essential. Heavy to carry around, though. One for the e-reader?
Zadie Smith - 10/08/2012 |
Breathtaking twinned story, magical and beautiful. A treat. Endlessly revisitable.
Nick Harkaway - 25/01/2013 |
Ill Seen Ill said is a late, moving masterpiece. Not an easy read, but worth the effort.
John Banville - 18/06/2012 |
Jane Austen; James Kinsley Jane Austen's best and darkest novel.
Julian Barnes - 21/03/2012 |
Geoff Dyer; Maggie O'Farrell Indulge the procrastinator in you by putting off whatever you should be doing in favor of reading this book about not writing a book.
Maya Jasanoff - 29/05/2012 |
Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Maggie... CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN: Gilman’s haunting late 19th century novella, The Yellow Wallpaper, has stuck with me since I read it as a teenager. It was based on her personal experience of postpartum depression (I know it doesn’t sound great – stick with it). Women in the late 19th century were simply locked up when they became troublesome and the protagonist in this story is confined to her attic room by her husband, who is a doctor. Slowly she goes quite mad, seeing a whole world of trapped women in the eponymous yellow wallpaper…
Sara Sheridan - 19/06/2012 |
The best British short story writer of her generation.
Julian Barnes - 21/03/2012 |
This is superb poetry - open the book at any page and be immediately captivated.
John Banville - 18/06/2012 |
Anton Chekhov; Nick Worrall; Michael... The Gayev family is torn by powerful forces deeply rooted in history and the society in which they live in Chekhov's final play.
Barry Fantoni - 11/06/2012 |
I don't think many people would think this is Sontag’s best book - it's a bit histrionic, especially the essay about Hanoi - but I can’t get over how elegant her style was, at only 36. I suppose every girl writer these days holds Woolf and Sontag somewhere amongst their heroes, and in this sense I’m typical. They’re just too great to deny. The essay on silence is my favourite.
Zadie Smith - 10/08/2012 |