Bokbloggsjerka

Jeg har begynt å følge med på Annikas blogg, der det hver helg stilles et bokrelatert spørsmål under headingen Bokbloggsjerka. I dag stilles spørsmålet:

Du står och väljer mellan två böcker: den ena har ett fult omslag men ett till synes intressant innehåll, den andra har ett vansinnigt snyggt omslag men boken i sig intresserad dig inte nämnvärt. Vilken bok väljer du?

Her er det ingen tvil: Jeg elsker god design og liker å ha pene bøker på hyllen, men bøker er tross alt først og fremst til for å LESES, så det vil aldri være aktuellt å velge bort en bok som høres interessant ut til fordel for en som bare ser pen ut. Har jeg penger (og plass i koffert når det er relevant) er det overhengende fare for at begge blir med hjem, men bare dersom innholdet i den flotte boken også kan tenkes å være lesbart. Jeg kjøper IKKE bøker bare for å ha til pynt.

Tjugo snabba

Linda på enligt O vil vite litt om sine lesere. Jeg skal ikke forsøke meg på å svare på svensk, men har lagt fet skrift på mitt valg og kommentert på norsk 🙂

Morgonpigg eller nattuggla? En gang var jeg nattugle, men jeg har såpass sterk innebygd døgnrytme at etter at jeg begynte å måtte opp tidlig for å gå på jobb våkner jeg også rimelig tidlig de dagene jeg kunne sovet lenge. Det medfører selvsagt at jeg også blir trøtt om kvelden, men av og til sitter jeg fortsatt alt for lenge oppe, særlig om det er en bok jeg ikke klarer å legge fra meg…

Bibliotek eller bokhandel? Jeg liker biblioteker i prinsippet, men er dårlig til å bruke dem, det er så mye enklere å kjøpe bøkene selv.

Adlibris eller Bokus? Den har en norsk søsterside ved navn Capris som jeg bruker mye.

Ljudbok eller e-bok? Særlig nå som jeg har en Kindle. Jeg liker lydbøker, men har sjelden anledning til å høre på dem nå til dags.

Inbunden eller pocket? De tar så mye mindre plass.

Vampyrer eller zombies? Ingen av dem.

Camilla Läckberg eller Jan Guillou? Har ikke lest noen av dem (men burde sikkert…)

En i taget eller slalomläsning? Jeg leser som regel en hovedbok, men har alltid en fem-seks jeg egentlig holder på med.

Bokmärke eller hundöra? Helst.

Chips eller choklad? Alltid.

Biografier eller memoarer? Særlig barndomsbeskrivelser.

Skräck eller chicklit? Jeg får mareritt av skrekk, så det leser jeg aldri, men jeg leser ikke mye chicklit, heller (men har lest en del).

Boken eller filmen? Med visse hederlige unntak.

Twitter eller Facebook? Men Facebook er bra for å holde kontakten med folk.

Strindberg eller Heidenstam? Men så har jeg heller ikke lest Heidenstam.

Kokbok eller Bakbok? Men: Ja takk, begge deler.

Te eller kaffe? Det kommer an på tid på døgnet, men kaffe MÅ jeg ha.

Rött eller vitt? Champagne! Eller igjen: Ja, takk, begge deler, men jeg får vel oftest lyst på rødt.

Boklördag eller ViLäser? Kjenner ingen av dem.

Man Booker Prize eller Augustpriset? Har jeg i hvertfall lest vinnere av.

Tematrio

tematrioI think it’s the first time I manage to get in an answer to Lyrans tematrio (thematic trio). Today the challenge is: «berätta om tre av dina favoritklassiker!» («tell us about three of your favourite classics»), and a challenge it is, too. How to chose?

1. I’m sorry, I can’t get past Jane Austen, and today I’m going to go for Persuasion (though I might as well chose Emma. Or Pride & Prejudice. Or Sense & Sensiblility. Or even Mansfield Park). There is something about Anne and her naval hero, her sense of duty and her competing instinct towards rebellion. And there is something about Captain Wentworth, too. How he so wants to ignore the woman who spurned him all those years ago, but how can he? It was obviously meant to be. The dreaming teenager in me loves the love story, but the adult realist in me loves it, too. I also love the intimate and realistic portrait of Anne’s dysfunctional family and the priceless descriptions of the more minor characters that Jane Austen is justly famous for. And since I’m in the middle of my favourite maritime story, whose author, by the way, was a great fan of dear Jane, there is something very appealing about the naval side of the novel. I adore the image of Anne, married, on board ship with her Captain that the film from 1995 provides. To me it’s the perfect happy ending. (Oh, and who could forget the immortal line, uttered by Anne’s useless father in the same film? «You want to marry Anne? Whatever for?»)

2. Hundre års ensomhet (or Cien años de soledad) by Gabriel García Márques is going to be my second choice, partly because it’s one of the books I have an increasing urge to reread. As it is I don’t actually remember too much about it except thinking it exceptionally good. I mostly remember the staggering realisation on reaching the end of the book that… But, hush, that would be a spoiler.

3. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston must be a classic, yes? It’s on the 1001 books list, anyway, and old enough by now to have proven it will stand the test of time. A gem of a book, where Janie Crawford tells the story of her life, and what a life! Another one on my «needs to be reread» list.

Smakebit på en søndag: The Thirteen-Gun Salute

Since it’s time for another Smakebit – a «taster» – (though I skipped a week) here’s another Jack quote:

‘Why, Stephen, some people are in a hurry: men-of-war, for instance. It is no good carrying your pig to market and finding…’ He paused, frowning.

‘It will not drink?’

‘No, it ain’t that neither.’

‘That there are no pokes to be had?’

‘Oh well, be damned to literary airs and graces’

Page 114 in The Thirteen-Gun Salute by Patrick O’Brian.

thirteen-gun_salute

Spørsmål om bøker og lesevaner

Funnet hos Julie.

Hvor leser du helst?
På sofaen, men ellers der jeg har tid; på bussen, på bussholdeplassen, på venterom, på toget, på flyplassen, på fly, på kafé osv.

Hvilke sjangre leser du helst?
Skjønnlitteratur av de fleste slag og populærvitenskapelig faglitteratur om det meste, samt reisebeskrivelser. Jeg er ganske altetende.

… og hvilke sjangre styrer du unna?
Jeg leser langt mindre chicklit enn jeg engang gjorde, den mistet en viktig funksjon når jeg (endelig) traff «den rette». Nå må det være forfattere jeg allerede vet jeg liker og som har fler strenger å spille på enn girl-meets-boy eller bøker som er svært vektig anbefalt for at jeg skal gi meg på den sjangeren.

Har du oversikt over hvor mange bøker du eier akkurat nå?
Kort svar: Nei. Jeg har tenkt å gjøre en innsats for å oppdatere bokdatabasen (selv om jeg vurderer å konvertere til excel for å forenkle), sist den ble oppdatert nogenlunde skikkelig var ved flytting i 2005 og da tok jeg ikke med mannens bøker. På det tidspunktet hadde jeg nesten 5000. Jeg tipper vi har fler nå…

Nevn de fem siste bøkene du leste:
1. The Ionian Mission – Patrick O’Brian (og de 7 bøkene som kommer før den i serien, hopper over dem siden listen ellers blir svært kjedelig)
2. One of Our Thursdays is Missing – Jasper Fforde
3. The Bridge of Sighs – Richard Russo
4. That Old Cape Magic – Richard Russo
5. At Home – Bill Bryson

Nevn fem bøker du har i hylla, som du kjøpte (eller lånte) med store planer om å lese, men som har blitt stående fordi det aldri passer seg sånn:
Dem er det mange av. Ikke at det plager meg nevneverdig, da er det jo alltids noe å lese 🙂 Akkurat nå er det et par ting som står på vent på grunn av den godeste Patrick som jeg gleder meg til å sette i gang med (men når jeg kommer så langt har det kanskje dukket opp noe annet som må leses først):
1. The Last Dragonslayer – Jasper Fforde
2. A. A. Milne – Thomas Burnett Swann
3. Hodejegerne – Jo Nesbø
4. The Gum Thief – Douglas Coupland
5. The Undercover Economist – Tim Harford

Hvilken bok eller bøker har skuffet deg mest?
Det er sjelden jeg blir skikkelig skuffet over bøker, som regel fordi jeg har mest forventninger til de som er skrevet av forfattere jeg stort sett liker all produksjonen til. Men ett eksempel er Robin Hobbs Soldier’s Son trilogi. Den er ikke dårlig, men den er langt mindre sjelsettende fantastisk enn de tidligere trilogiene hennes, så jeg var ganske skuffet over den.

… og hvilken bok eller bøker har du blitt mest positivt overrasket over?
Jeg blir alltid positiv overrasket når jeg leser en bok av en (for meg) ny forfatter som jeg ELSKER. Det nyligste eksemplet jeg kommer på akkurat nå er Never Let Me Go av Kazuo Ishiguro.

Hva synes du om folk som både skriver, skribler og bretter eselører i bøkene sine?
Jeg skriver i bøkene mine når jeg føler behov for det uten det aller minste snev av dårlig samvittighet. Eselører, derimot, prøver jeg å unngå, med mindre det er tvingende nødvendig.

Er det viktig for deg å eie bøkene du leser?
Vel, viktig? Jeg liker å kunne ha dem i hylla på ubestemt tid, så biblioteket har jeg gitt opp litt (en annen ting er at biblioteket her har så få av bøkene jeg vil lese). Jeg er også svært glad i å lese bøker om igjen, og da er det selvsagt praktisk å eie dem. Men jeg bruker jo bookcrossing aktivt, både for å finne bøker jeg vil lese og for å kvitte meg med bøker jeg er ferdig med, så sånn sett er det ikke viktig å eie den boka jeg på ethvert tidspunkt leser. Men liker jeg en bok godt nok vil jeg ha den på hylla, og da er det viktig nok.

Skal smussomslaget på den innbundne boken være på eller av?
På. Men det skal tas av mens man leser boken.

… og hvor viktig er det at boken har et fint omslag?
Lite viktig i forhold til om jeg leser (eller kjøper) en bok, men selvsagt er det større sjanse for at jeg plukker opp en bok i bokhandelen for å lese vaskeseddelen dersom utseende appelerer. Er det fler utgaver av samme bok tilgjengelig kjøper jeg selvsagt den jeg liker utseendet på best (med mindre den andre er en førsteutgave). Og det hender en sjelden gang at jeg kjøper bøker mest på grunn av utseendet.

Kan du kose deg med sakprosa (faglitteratur, dokumentarer, biografier osv) på samme måte som du koser deg med skjønnlitteratur?
Ja, godt skrevne sakprosabøker har det ingen problemer å kose meg med. At Home av Bill Bryson er det siste eksempelet på det, den ble regelrett slukt.

Har du noen gang opplevd at filmatiseringen av en bok har blitt bedre enn boka?
Svært sjelden. Jeg vil helst lese boka før jeg ser filmen, og som regel er filmen enten en skuffelse eller i beste fall «nesten like bra som boka!» Men Ringenes Herre synes jeg er bedre som film(er), faktisk.

Hva skal til for at du avbryter en bok?
Det er sjelden noe konkret, og det er ikke så ofte jeg avbryter bøker med vilje, som regel er det mer det at jeg har lagt den fra meg og av en eller annen grunn har jeg ikke plukket den opp igjen ennå. Jeg kan komme på to eksempler på bøker jeg med vilje har avbrutt. Den ene er Sorting Out Billy av Jo Brand, den synes jeg var så fryktelig at jeg ikke kom lenger enn til side 50 eller så. Synd, for Jo Brand er en kul dame. Den andre er Lessons from the Land of Pork Scratchings av Greg Gutfeld som jeg hadde tenkt å skrive en skikkelig anmeldelse av, men jeg har ikke opparbeidet energi ennå. Den var så forferdelig at jeg for første gang i mitt liv vurderte bokbål.

Hva var den forrige boka du gav bort i gave?
Det er sørgelig sjelden jeg gir bøker i gave til andre enn ungen. Den siste hen fikk var vel Revehiet Barnehage: Oisann, kjøpt på slutten av Mammutsalget og glemt i en pose. Ellers pleier jeg å prøve å finne bøker både til pappa, svigerfar, bruttern og et par venninner når det er gaveanledninger, men jeg kan ikke huske hva den siste voksenboksenboka jeg gav bort er.

… og hva var den forrige boka du fikk i gave?
Nesten like vanskelig… Jeg fikk Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, Sense & Sensibility and Sea Monsters og Torbjørn Ferøviks India til jul, det var kanskje sist jeg fikk bøker?

Finnes det noen bøker du er flau over å ha lest eller likt?
Nei, ikke egentlig. Det er en del bøker jeg leste som tenåring som jeg kanskje ikke ville lest offentlig i dag (vel, ok, jeg ville overhodet IKKE lest dem i dag), men jeg synes det må være lov å ha vært ung og dum…

… og finnes det bøker du er flau over å ikke ha lest eller likt?
Jeg klarer ikke å bli veldig flau over ikke å ha likt bøker, men jeg blir definitivt litt beskjemmet hver gang Bjørneboe dukker opp i samtaler med bruttern, siden jeg VIRKELIG burde ha kommet meg til å lese Bestialitetens historie. Om ikke annet så for å kunne fortelle ham at det er et makkverk (om det nå skulle vise seg at jeg mener det, jeg aner ikke, jeg har jo ikke lest den).

Ja eller nei til e-bøker?
De er greie til sitt bruk, og jeg har en ebokleser på ønskelisten, men jeg ser ikke for meg at det kommer til å erstatte ordentlige bøker for min del. Om ikke annet: Hva skal man gjøre under takeoff og landing når alle elektroniske dingsebomser må skrus av?

I could have told you that.

What Kind of Reader Are You?

Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
 

You’re probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people’s grammatical mistakes make you insane.

Dedicated Reader
 
Literate Good Citizen
 
Book Snob
 
Non-Reader
 
Fad Reader
 
What Kind of Reader Are You?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Yet another list

While I reread the 20 books everyone should really read before they die (or before they do anything else), the Guardian has issued another list to amuse us. This one is all novels (well, including graphic novels, and at least one novelish memoir – My Family and Other Animals). The reasoning behind the list can be found on the Guardian book blog. And now to see how I’m doing. As usual: Bolding the ones I’ve read, italicizing the ones I’ve started and not bothered to finish.

Comedy

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Money by Martin Amis
The Information by Martin Amis
The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Queen Lucia by EF Benson
The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman
A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
Illywhacker by Peter Carey
A Season in Sinji by JL Carr
The Harpole Report by JL Carr
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary
The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
Just William by Richmal Crompton
The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by Peter De Vries
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot
A Fairy Tale of New York by JP Donleavy
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle
Ennui by Maria Edgeworth
Cheese by Willem Elsschot
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Caprice by Ronald Firbank
Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert
Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn
The Polygots by William Gerhardie
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Brewster’s Millions by Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon)
Squire Haggard’s Journal by Michael Green
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgkins
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal
The Lecturer’s Tale by James Hynes
Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
The Mighty Walzer Howard by Jacobson
Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
L’Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Gil Blas) Alain-René Lesage
Changing Places by David Lodge
Nice Work by David Lodge
The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
England, Their England by AG Macdonell
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen
Cakes and Ale – Or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard by W Somerset Maugham
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Puckoon by Spike Milligan
The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills
Charade by John Mortimer
Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
La Disparition by Georges Perec
Les Revenentes by Georges Perec
La Vie Mode d’Emploi by Georges Perec
My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunkett
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym
Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau
Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
Alms for Oblivion by Simon Raven
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
The Westminster Alice by Saki
The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
Hurrah for St Trinian’s by Ronald Searle
Great Apes by Will Self
Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe
Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe
Office Politics by Wilfrid Sheed
Belles Lettres Papers: A Novel by Charles Simmons
Moo by Jane Smiley
Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett
The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
White Man Falling by Mike Stocks
Handley Cross by RS Surtees
A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift
Penrod by Booth Tarkington
The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell
Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
Tono Bungay by HG Wells
Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
The Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson
Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse
Piccadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse
Thank You Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse

Crime

The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Trent’s Last Case by EC Bentley
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake
Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary E Braddon
The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Greenmantle by John Buchan
The Asphalt Jungle by WR Burnett
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
Double Indemnity by James M Cain
True History of the Ned Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter
The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
Ratking by Michael Dibdin
Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin
Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin
A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin
Vendetta by Michael Dibdin
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt
The Crime of Father Amado by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
LA Confidential by James Ellroy
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
A Quiet Belief in Angels by RJ Ellory
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
The Third Man by Graham Greene
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The King of Torts by John Grisham
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
Fatherland by Robert Harris
Black Sunday by Thomas Harris
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill
A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles
Silence of the Grave by Arnadur Indridason
Death at the President’s Lodging by Michael Innes
Cover Her Face by PD James
A Taste for Death by PD James
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman
Misery by Stephen King
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Constant Gardener by John le Carre
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
52 Pick-up by Elmore Leonard
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
Cop Hater by Ed McBain
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
The Great Impersonation by E Phillips Oppenheim
The Strange Borders of Palace Crescent by E Phillips Oppenheim
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Toxic Shock by Sara Paretsky
Blacklist by Sara Paretsky
Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
Nineteen Seventy Seven by David Peace
The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos
Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos
Lush Life by Richard Price
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
V by Thomas Pynchon
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
The Hanging Gardens by Ian Rankin
Exit Music by Ian Rankin
Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell
Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell
Dissolution by CJ Sansom
Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Le Sayers
The Madman of Bergerac by Georges Simenon
The Blue Room by Georges Simenon
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
A Fatal inversion by Barbara Vine
King Solomon’s Carpet by Barbara Vine
The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Native Son by Richard Wright
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

Family and self

The Face of Another by Kobo Abe
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
Epileptic by David B
Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker
Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
A Legacy by Sybille Bedford
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett
G by John Berger
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
Evelina by Fanny Burney
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
The Sound of my Voice by Ron Butlin
The Outsider by Albert Camus
Wise Children by Angela Carter
The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau
The Vagabond by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Quarantine by Jim Crace
The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
Roxana by Daniel Defoe
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
My New York Diary by Julie Doucet
The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
Howards End by EM Forster
Spies by Michael Frayn
Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud
The Man of Property by John Galsworthy
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The Shrimp and the Anemone by LP Hartley
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier
Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Washington Square by Henry James
The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
The Unfortunates by BS Johnson
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
Good Behaviour by Molly Keane
Memet my Hawk by Yasar Kemal
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
How Green was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
Martin Eden by Jack London
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Chateau by William Maxwell
The Rector’s Daughter by FM Mayor
The Ordeal of Richard Feverek by George Meredith
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
At-Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kezaburo Oe
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
The Good Companions by JB Priestley
The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
A Married Man by Piers Paul Read
Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney by Henry Handel Richardson
Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Unless by Carol Shields
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
The Family Moskat or The Manor or The Estate by Isaac Bashevis Singer
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
Death in Summer by William Trevor
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Peace in War by Miguel de Unamuno
The Rabbit Omnibus by John Updike
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Jimmy Corrigan, The Smarest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
Frost in May by Antonia White
The Tree of Man by Patrick White
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
I’ll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Love

Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier
Dom Casmurro Joaquim by Maria Machado de Assis
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis by Giorgio Bassani
Love for Lydia by HE Bates
More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Look At Me by Anita Brookner
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Possession by AS Byatt
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
A Month in the Country by JL Carr
My Antonia by Willa Cather
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
Claudine a l’ecole by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette
Victory: An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
Adam Bede by George Eliot
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
A Room with a View by EM Forster
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Living by Henry Green
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
The Go-Between by LP Hartley
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer
Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by WH Hudson
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
Beauty and Saddness by Yasunari Kawabata
The Far Pavillions by Mary Margaret Kaye
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
Moon over Africa by Pamela Kent
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence
The Rainbow by DH Lawrence
Women in Love by DH Lawrence
The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann
The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
Zami by Audre Lorde
Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
Samarkand by Amin Maalouf
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini
A Heart So White by Javier Marias
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
So Long, See you Tomorrow by William Maxwell
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
The Egoist by George Meredith
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Lolita, or the Confessions of a White Widowed Male by Vladimir Nabokov
The Painter of Signs by RK Narayan
Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
All Souls Day by Cees Nooteboom
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson
Pamela by Samuel Richardson
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
Ali and Nino by Kurban Said
Light Years by James Salter
A Sport and a Passtime by James Salter
The Reader by Benhardq Schlink
The Reluctant Orphan by Aara Seale
Love Story by Eric Segal
Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Waterland by Graham Swift
Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
East Lynne by Ellen Wood
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Science fiction and fantasy

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
The Drowned World by JG Ballard
Crash by JG Ballard
Millennium People by JG Ballard
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
Vathek by William Beckford
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown
Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
The Influence by Ramsey Campbell
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton
Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Under the Skin by Michel Faber
The Magus by John Fowles
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Red Shift by Alan Garner
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Light by M John Harrison
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein
Dune by Frank L Herbert
The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Children of Men by PD James
After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies
Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Shining by Stephen King
The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
The Monk by Matthew Lewis
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
The Night Sessions by Ken Macleod
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Ascent by Jed Mercurio
The Scar by China Mieville
Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Mother London by Michael Moorcock
News from Nowhere by William Morris
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Vurt by Jeff Noon
The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth
A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett
The Prestige by Christopher Priest
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
Air by Geoff Ryman
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Blindness by Jose Saramago
How the Dead Live by Will Self
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Insult by Rupert Thomson
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Affinity by Sarah Waters
The Time Machine by HG Wells
The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
The Sword in the Stone by TH White
The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

State of the nation

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
London Fields by Martin Amis
Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
La Comedie Humaine by Honore de Balzac
They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
Room at the Top by John Braine
A Dry White Season by Andre Brink
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
The Virgin in the Garden by AS Byatt
Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
The Plague by Albert Camus
The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coeztee
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Underworld by Don DeLillo
White Noise by Don DeLillo
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Sybil or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
USA by John Dos Passos
Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane
Independence Day by Richard Ford
A Passage to India by EM Forster
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
The Odd Women by George Gissing
New Grub Street by George Gissing
July’s People by Nadine Gordimer
Mother by Maxim Gorky
Lanark by Alastair Gray
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
South Riding by Winifred Holtby
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Chronicle in Stone by Ismael Kadare
How Late it Was, How Late by James Kelman
The Leopard by Giuseppi di Lampedusa
A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
Passing by Nella Larsen
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Amongst Women by John McGahern
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Of Love & Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Time of Indifference by Alberto Moravia
A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul
McTeague by Frank Norris
Personality by Andrew O’Hagan
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Ragazzi Pier by Paolo Pasolini
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese
GB84 by David Peace
Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Shame by Salman Rushdie
To Each his Own by Leonardo Sciascia
Staying On by Paul Scott
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr
The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon
God’s Bit of Wood by Ousmane Sembene
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge
Richshaw Boy by Lao She
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovtich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
This Sporting Life by David Storey
The Red Room by August Stringberg
The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Couples by John Updike
Z by Vassilis Vassilikos
Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Germinal by Emile Zola
La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola

War and travel

Silver Stallion by Junghyo Ahn
Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington
Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin
Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
Regeneration by Pat Barker
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates
Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Auto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti
One of Ours by Willa Cather
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Monkey by Wu Ch’eng-en
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
Sharpe’s Eagle by Bernard Cornwell
The History of Pompey the Little by Francis Coventry
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Bomber by Len Deighton
Deliverance by James Dickey
Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos
South Wind by Norman Douglas
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Justine by Lawrence Durrell
The Bamboo Bed by William Eastlake
The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
The African Queen by CS Forester
The Ship by CS Forester
Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Beach by Alex Garland
To The Ends of the Earth trilogy by William Golding
Asterix the Gaul by Rene Goscinny
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage
King Solomon’s Mines by H Rider Haggard
She: A History of Adventure by H Rider Haggard
The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Covenant with Death by John Harris
Enigma by Robert Harris
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson
From Here to Eternity by James Jones
Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
Confederates by Thomas Keneally
Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally
Day by AL Kennedy
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
La Condition Humaine by Andre Malraux
Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat
Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville
Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
History by Elsa Morante
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Burmese Days by George Orwell
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell
The Soldier’s Art by Anthony Powell
The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolp Erich Raspe
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Crab with the Golden Claws by Georges Remi Herge
Tintin in Tibet by Georges Remi Herge
The Castafiore Emerald by Georges Remi Herge
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa
Sacaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer
The Hunters by James Salter
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald
Austerlitz by WG Sebald
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
A Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
Williwaw by Gore Vidal
Candide by Voltaire
Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh
The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells
The Machine-Gunners by Robert Westall
Voss by Patrick White
The Virginian by Owen Wister
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
The Debacle by Emile Zola

He. I count 140 out of a thousand. Close to 15%. That’s not so bad.

15 Things About Me and Books (Meme)

Clearly a must. Via lots of people at Metaxu.

1. I can’t remember not being able to read, though I wasn’t that early a starter, so this clearly says more about my memory than my reading skills. My maternal grandmother taught me to read the year before I started school (so I would’ve been 6 years old) using one of those children’s blackboards with a clock (to teach the child how to tell the time, presumably) up top. I can remember the blackboard quite clearly, but not the lessons.

2. One of my favourite picture books as a kid was a book called «Serafin og hans makeløse mesterverk» (Serafin and his incomparable masterpiece) with illustrations by Philipe Fix. A few years ago I was attending some Spanish classes with my parents and one of our assignments was to bring a picture of our ideal place for a holiday – I brought this book and opened it to the picture showing Serafin and his friend Plym in their library reading out loud, where all the characters from the various books have emerged and sit around listening to the story. My father’s comment was «That explains a lot.»

3. I’ve mentioned this before, but I reread books. Any book I really like I’ll reread, most more than once. I sometimes suspect this is mostly because my memory leaks like a sieve, and hence I need to reread in order to remember anything at all. However, I also reread books I know almost by heart, so that is not the full explanation.

4. The book I’ve read the most times is Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Chronicles of Robin Hood. I’ve been through it more than 20 times, certainly, possibly a lot more, and I’m definitely not done with it yet. The copy I used to read is the Bokklubbens barn edition in Norwegian, it was one of the books I brought with me to the Gambia when we went there in 1986 and it also came with me to the UK when I moved there in 1997. I now also own the first edition in English and a later imprint of the same. Hence, when I read it now, I read the imprint. Close on Sutcliff’s heels come C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Jane Austen (Pride & Prejudice, especially if you also count the times I’ve listened to the audiobook). If you count the number of pages, Patrick O’Brian probably wins – as I’ve read the entire Aubrey/Maturin series four times now.

5. I love not only the content of (good) books, but also the physical object. I buy books. Lots of them.

6. I like first editions, though I’m not entirely sure why.

7. Except for newly published books (where I try to get hold of a first issue), I prefer to buy books second hand. I like the way a book that’s already been read feels. Other people’s scribbles in the margins delight me more often than they annoy. Other people’s bookplates or dedications like «To Ann with love, Christmas 1982. Auntie Val» give me a thrill quite out of proportion to their factual interest or relevance to the book.

8. If a book is really good, I have a hard time trying to prevent myself buying more copies of the same book. At some point in Sense & Sensibility Edward says of Marianne (in the event that she should come into a fortune):

I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music enough in London to content her. And books! — Thomson, Cowper, Scott — she would buy them all over and over again; she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands

I think it sums up Marianne pretty well, but though I normally identify more with Elinor, it also to some extent sums up my feelings towards my favourite books. Though with me it’s not so much a question of preventing them falling into unworthy hands – though that comes into it, certainly – as a very unreasonable feeling that having more than one copy of a book will extend the pleasure somehow. Can you tell I like the cut scenes part of DVD extras the best?

9. I seem to have most of my knowledge of the world and of history from fiction. I hardly ever read newspapers or watch the news and I have only recently (as in: in the last few years) started reading non-fiction to any serious degree (apart from school-books, obviously, but I didn’t exactly read those conscientously from cover to cover). I don’t normally perceive this as a problem myself.

10. Partly due to 9. I get annoyed when writers of (historical) fiction think that there is no need to check the facts just because they happen to be writing fiction (a note in the foreword is fine, just let me know, somehow, that you happened to move a whole continent or postpone the French revolution by 50 years).

11. It worries me majorly when people pronounce with bravado that they don’t read books. In fact, it worries me more than most other statements people pronounce with bravado except those that involve hurting or killing other beings (i.e. I’d be somewhat more worried if someone came in with a gun and said – with bravado or without – «I’m going to kill you all»).

12. The burning of books – even just as a «special effect» or illustration on film or tv – makes me feel physically ill.

13. I find some books more interesting in their idea than in their actual storyline. For example, I have yet to finish Franz Kafka’s The Trial (I’ve read the first half twice), despite having it as a set text for two different exams, but I’ve had many wonderful discussions about it nevertheless.

14. My parents used to read to me every night when I was a kid, my father especially. Sometimes he would be so caught up in the story that he forgot to read out loud and I’d have to prod him. After I learnt to read myself, however, I’d just continue where he left off. After a while, I also found that I could get to the end of the page quicker (tempting, if the story was an exciting one) by shutting out his voice and reading to myself instead. I think the point when he decided there was no longer any point in reading to me was when I’d done precicely that and asked him to turn the page so I could continue when he was still only half-way through.

15. The first book I can remember paying for with my own money was a selection of stories from the arabian nights. It was on sale and cost all of 20 kr (appr. USD 2.50 at today’s exchange rate), I think. It seemed like a lot of money at the time, though.