Franz Kafka
Albert Camus
Ovid
John Donne
Shakespeare
Favorite writers include William Faulkner, T.C. Boyle, Raymond Chandler, Mark Twain, Philip K. Dick, Howard Waldrop, R.A. Lafferty, George Pelacanos, Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, john D. MacDonald, Ross MacDonald, Alan Furst, Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, Henning Menkell, Kurt Vonnegut,Jr.,Haruki Murakami, Dan Simmons, George Simenon, Richard Price, Jack Vance,Peter Robinson, Robert Goddard, Michael Malone, Clive Barker, Kack Kerouac, Cormac McCarthy, Don Winslow, Peter Straub, Tony Horwitz, Bill Bryson, Paul Theroux, Nabokov and many others.
i don’t know if he’s been mentioned yet but i love willy vlautin’s novels. if you like raymond carver and john steinbeck you should pick up willy vlautin.
Toby and Elric – just bought a bunch of Paul Auster books. Moon Palace was so great. And I liked in the Country of Last Things.
Allison-The Brooklyn Follies and The New York Trilogy are also very good.
Cool they’re on my list and I’ll check ’em out.
Some of my favorite books:
Abe, Kobo — The Woman In The Dunes
Aquin, Hubert — Next Episode
Auster, Paul — Moon Palace
Auster, Paul — The Book Of Illusions: A Novel
Auster, Paul — The New York Trilogy: City Of Glass; Ghosts; The Locked Room
Auster, Paul — Travels In The Scriptorium
Baer, Will Christopher — Hell’s Half Acre
Baer, Will Christopher — Kiss Me, Judas: A Novel
Baer, Will Christopher — Penny Dreadful
Banks, Iain — The Wasp Factory: A Novel
Barker, Clive — Everville: The Second Book Of The Art
Barker, Clive — Imajica
Barker, Clive — The Books Of Blood
Barker, Clive — The Great And Secret Show: The First Book Of The Art
Barker, Clive — Weaveworld
Bataille, Georges — Story Of The Eye
Bockris, Victor; Malanga, Gerard — Uptight!: The Velvet Underground Story
Brite, Poppy Z. — Exquisite Corpse
Burgess, Anthony — A Clockwork Orange
Burroughs, William S.; Harris, Oliver — The Letters Of William S. Burroughs: 1945 To 1959
Capote, Truman — In Cold Blood: A True Account Of A Multiple Murder And Its Consequences
Carrere, Emmanuel — I Am Alive And You Are Dead: A Journey Into The Mind Of Philip K. Dick
Carver, Raymond — What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories
Cave, Nick — And The Ass Saw The Angel
Clevenger, Craig — Dermaphoria
Cronenberg, David; Rodley, Chris — Cronenberg On Cronenberg
Danielewski, Mark Z. — House Of Leaves
Davis, John H. — Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello And The Assassination Of John F. Kennedy
DeLillo, Don — Libra
Dick, Philip K. — A Scanner Darkly
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor — Crime And Punishment
Dylan, Bob — Chronicles: Volume One
Ellis, Bret Easton — American Psycho: A Novel
Ellis, Bret Easton — Glamorama
Ellis, Bret Easton — Less Than Zero
Ellis, Bret Easton — Lunar Park
Ellis, Bret Easton — The Informers
Ellroy, James — American Tabloid: A Novel
Ellroy, James — Killer On The Road
Ellroy, James — L.A. Confidential
Ellroy, James — The Big Nowhere
Ellroy, James — The Cold Six Thousand: A Novel
Erickson, Steve — Zeroville
Exley, Frederick — A Fan’s Notes: A Fictional Memoir
Fante, John — The Road To Los Angeles
Fante, John — Wait Until Spring, Bandini
Foer, Jonathan Safran — Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
Fowles, John — A Maggot
Fowles, John — The Aristos
Fowles, John — The Collector
Fowles, John — The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Fowles, John — The Magus
Gaarder, Jostein — Sophie’s World: A Novel About The History Of Philosophy
Gardner, John — Grendel
Gardner, John — October Light
Gira, M. — The Consumer
Gran, Sara — Come Closer: A Novel
Grand, David — Louse
Gray, Michael — The Art Of Bob Dylan: Song & Dance Man
Griffiths, Niall — Sheepshagger: A Novel
Grossman, Richard — The Alphabet Man
Grossman, Richard — The Book Of Lazarus
Hall, Steven — The Raw Shark Texts
Hawkes, John — The Blood Oranges
Hesse, Hermann — Narcissus And Goldmund
Hesse, Hermann — Steppenwolf
Heylin, Clinton — All Yesterdays’ Parties: The Velvet Underground In Print: 1966-1971
Heylin, Clinton — Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions 1960-1994: The Recording Sessions 1960-1994
Hogan, Michael — Man Out Of Time
Hogshire, Jim; Alfvegren, Skylaire — Pills-A-Go-Go: A Fiendish Investigation Into Pill Marketing, Art, History & Consumption
Homes, A.M. — The End Of Alice
Homes, A.M. — The Safety Of Objects
Hunt, Laird — The Exquisite
Huxley, Aldous — The Doors Of Perception And Heaven And Hell
Johnson, Denis — Jesus’ Son: Stories By Denis Johnson
Jones, Stephen Graham — All The Beautiful Sinners
Jones, Stephen Graham — Ledfeather
Jones, Stephen Graham — The Long Trial Of Nolan Dugatti
Joyce, James — Dubliners
King, Stephen — The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
King, Stephen — The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
Kurosawa, Akira — Something Like An Autobiography
Lee, Harper — To Kill A Mockingbird
Lee, William; Burroughs, William S. — Junky
Lightman, Alan — Einstein’s Dreams
Ligotti, Thomas — Noctuary
Lynch, David — David Lynch: The Air Is On Fire
Lynch, David; Gifford, Barry — Lost Highway
Lynch, David; Rodley, Chris — Lynch On Lynch
Lynch, Jennifer — The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer: As Seen By Jennifer Lynch
Mailer, Norman — Harlot’s Ghost
Mailer, Norman — Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery
Mailer, Norman — The Executioner’s Song
Marcus, Greil — Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes
Marrs, Jim — Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy
Martin, David — Lie To Me
McCarthy, Cormac — Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness In The West
McCarthy, Cormac — The Road
McGowan, Todd — The Impossible David Lynch
McKenna, Terence — True Hallucinations And The Archaic Revival: Tales And Speculation About The Mysteries Of The Psychedelic Experience (Two Classics By Terrence McKenna In One Volume)
Morgan, Seth — Homeboy
Myers, B.R. — A Reader’s Manifesto: An Attack On The Growing Pretentiousness In American Literary Prose
Nabokov, Vladimir — Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir — Pale Fire
Newton, Michael — The Encyclopedia Of Serial Killers
O’Connell, Jack — The Resurrectionist: A Novel
O’Connor, Robert — Buffalo Soldiers
Orwell, George — Animal Farm: A Fairy Story
Palahniuk, Chuck — Invisible Monsters
Palahniuk, Chuck — Survivor: A Novel
Perry, Charles — Portrait Of A Young Man Drowning
Pierre, D.B.C. — Vernon God Little
Polito, Robert — Savage Art: A Biography Of Jim Thompson
Remarque, Erich Maria — All Quiet On The Western Front
Roszak, Theodore — Flicker
Sagan, Carl — Cosmos
Salinger, J.D. — The Catcher In The Rye
Scaduto, Anthony — Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography
Selby, Jr., Hubert — The Demon
Selby, Jr., Hubert — The Room
Shiner, Lewis — Deserted Cities Of The Heart
Shriver, Lionel — We Need To Talk About Kevin
Simpson, Paul; Bushell, Michaela; Rodiss, Helen — The Rough Guide To Cult Fiction
Somoza, Jose Carlos — The Athenian Murders
Spitz, Bob — Dylan: A Biography
Stahl, Jerry — Permanent Midnight: A Memoir
Straub, Peter — Koko
Sugerman, Danny — Wonderland Avenue: Tales Of Glamour And Excess
Suskind, Patrick — Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
Tarkovsky, Andrei; Gianvito, John — Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews
Thompson, Hunter S. — Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
Thompson, Hunter S. — The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales From A Strange Time: Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1
Thompson, Jim — A Hell Of A Woman
Thompson, Jim — A Swell-Looking Babe
Thompson, Jim — After Dark, My Sweet
Thompson, Jim — Now And On Earth
Thompson, Jim — Pop. 1280
Thompson, Jim — The Getaway
Thompson, Jim — The Grifters
Thompson, Jim — The Killer Inside Me
Thomson, Rupert — The Insult
Tolkien, J.R.R. — The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being The First Part Of The Lord Of The Rings
Tolkien, J.R.R. — The Hobbit: Or There And Back Again
Tolkien, J.R.R. — The Return Of The King: Being The Third Part Of The Lord Of The Rings
Tolkien, J.R.R. — The Two Towers: Being The Second Part Of The Lord Of The Rings
Trumbo, Dalton — Johnny Got His Gun
Williams, Paul — Bob Dylan: Performing Artist: 1986-1990 & Beyond, Mind Out Of Time
Williamson, Nigel — The Rough Guide To Bob Dylan
Wolfe, Tom — A Man In Full: A Novel
Wolfe, Tom — The Bonfire Of The Vanities
Anyone know of a DeLillo Forum?
Roger, is this where I suggest you join goodreads.com? Or if you’re on there already, I’ll add you.
Anything by Joyce and PKD. I’m currently trying to go through The Modern Library’s top 100, which might take the rest of my life, and I probably don’t read enough of what’s current. I would like to read some Cormac McCarthy and I’m open to suggestions on anyone else.
Ah, goodreads.. I should log back into that..
Some favorites:
Kobo Abe (Secret Rendezvous, Woman in the Dunes)
J. G. Ballard (Crash, Atrocity Exhibition)
Georges Bataille (Story of the Eye)
Samuel Beckett (Novels)
Andre Breton (Nadja)
Charles Bukowski
William S. Burroughs
Raymond Chandler
Philip K. Dick
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Marguerite Duras
Dashiel Hammet
Hermann Hesse (Narcissus and Goldmund)
Cormac McCarthy
Yukio Mishima
Vladimir Nabokov
Chuck Palahniuk (Choke, Survivor)
Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)
Marquis de Sade
Mickey Spillane
Neal Stephenson
Hunter S. Thompson
Kurt Vonnegut
Lately it’s been a lot of books on film -)
Blood Meridian, Watchmen, The Road, Preacher by Garth Ennis!!!
Flannery Oconnor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oscar Wild? Importance of Being Earnest…I cant believe they made another Ernest movie!
Thanks for the goodreads recommendation, Allison. I’m already active at a few other book sites, which feel like home. But I’ll check it out.
Cool thanks, Roger. goodreads.com and bookmooch.com are the only sites I have found so far. What other ones are good?
—
Mostly Screenwriting books , Some Novels like: Patricia Highsmith, and Flannery o Conner.
I own some directors Interviews/ Biographys or Auto/ comics :)
A THRID FACE the life and work of Samuel Fuller
The Magic Lantern: and interview with Ingmar Bergman
Trier on Trier: an Interview with Lars Von Trier
I read alot of Graphic Novles mostly the alternative ones like Blankets (Craig Thompson) , Summer Blonde (Adrian Tomine) , Exit Wounds (Rutu Modan) , Jamalti (Rutu Modan) and Daddy’s Girl (Debbie Dreschesler)
To cut a long story short, I’d say Nabokov, Angela Carter, JD Salinger, Nancy Mitford, Emil Cioran, Doestoevsky, Faulkner, Henri Michaux, Doris Lessing and Carlo Levi… yes, eclectic is the word!
A good book site (if it hasn’t been mentioned already): librarything.com. Or how never to leave the house again ;)
Breece D’J Pancake, Marcel Proust, Herman Mellville, and Andre Breton
Nabokov, De Beauvoir, Colette, Wilde, Poe, Borges, Doestoevsky, Plath, Vonnegut, and Tolstoy.
I read Bret Easton Ellis when I’m in that kind of mood.
I’m reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith right now. I like it much better than the other book I read of her’s (On Beauty). In this one, she’s like a female Vonnegut. I’m on goodreads too.
I am in love with anything by Haruki Murakami, Ian McEwan, Paul Auster, Kazuo Ishiguro and Anais Nin.
Favorite books (outside of the oeuvres of the aforementioned authors) include Le Petit Prince, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, The Life of Pi, No Great Mischief, Three Day Road.
My favorites:
Dickens — pretty much any of the major works, but BLEAK HOUSE and OUR MUTUAL FRIEND in particular. DAVID COPPERFIELD never fails to amaze me.
Angela Carter — WISE CHILDREN or her collections SAINTS AND STRANGERS and THE BLOODY CHAMBER.
David Foster Wallace — I’m reading the behemoth INFINITE JEST again for the 5th time, and loving every word all over again.
Patricia Highsmith — Her Ripley novels are marvelously entertaining, quite a change from her darker more twisted thrillers. Try A SUSPENSION OF MERCY or THOSE WHO WALK AWAY, deceptively simple thrillers that surprise.
Anthony Trollope — his Chronicles of Barset are wonderful books. Vast twisty stories that are far more complicated and disturbing than you’d think.
Just finished “The Fall” by Camus.
Does anyone have any short story suggestions?
Hemingway is always good. Men Without Women is a favorite.
I recently finished Herman Melville’s Billy Bud and The Piazza Tales.
Raymond Chandler’s Pulp Stories always leave you wanting just a little bit more.
So it’s good that he has about 50. Lovecraft might be up your aisle. Not mine.
But there is a Thomas Pynchon collection out there as well.
Of course, this is all quick to the thought and of personal taste.
These are also on the popular side of things.
Caligula by Albert Camus is bar far the best thing i have ever read.
Franny and Zooey, In defense of women, The misunderstanding, Nine stories, Invisible Monsters, The bell jar, Daddy long legs, The sun also rises, the wayward bus and Seymour an introduction.
The ethical writings of PETER SINGER have been very important to me.
And I don’t think ALICE MUNRO could write a bad story (mediocre perhaps, but never terrible).
City Girl — BookMooch is awesome for trading books, I use it a lot. Shelfari is fairly good for just cataloging your collection (though I prefer the Collectorz.com software).
But my #1 recommendation for a forum dedicated to discussing great books (and films too) is far and away “The Velvet” at http://www.welcometothevelvet.com/ — go to the “Forum” section in the upper right. I’m there as “RSARAO.” Hope to see you there!
I just finished “2666” by Bolano and highly recommend it as well as his other classic “The Savage Detectives.”
I just ripped through “White Tiger” which was much better than I thought it would be, so enjoy that one. Right now, this minute, today….I’m reading the biography of Buster Keaton again. I can’t help it. I love him.
Bob Stutsman
This is an expanded list of books from a shorter list posted several days ago. This is the fruit of a lifetime of reading and working in a library setting. Some are obscure, some are familiar, all are worth a read to visitors to the autuers – a few have been made into films, too, of course. This is a large trunk full of desert island reading:
Literature & Bell Letters:
Abe – Woman in the Dunes, Face of Another
Aiken – Ushant
J. Banville – The Untouchable, Book of Evidence
M. Amis – Time’s Arrow
D. Barnes – Nightwood
J. Barth – Giles Goat Boy
Bassani – Garden of the Finzi-Continis
De Beauvoir – The Mandarins, Autobiography
Beckett – Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable, Watt
Benet – Meditation
Bernhard – Correction, The Loser
Blais – Durer’s Angel
Boll – The Clown
Borges – *Labyrinths
Broch – Death of Virgil, The Sleepwalkers, The Spell
Butor – Passing Time
Calvino – Mr. Palomar, t zero, Invisible Cities
Camus – *The Stranger, The Plague, The Fall, Notebooks
Canetti – Auto de Fe, Autobiography
Carpentier – Lost Steps
Coetzee – Waiting for the Barbarians, In the Heart of the Country
Cortazar – Hopscotch
Dinesen – Winter’s Tale, Anecdotes of Destiny
Durrell – Alexandria Quartet, Black Book
Faulkner – *Light in August, The Sound & the Fury, As I Lay Dying
Ford – The Good Soldier
Forster – Passage to India
Fowles – The Magus, French Lieutenant’ s Woman
Frisch – I’m Not Stiller
Fuentes – Death of Artemis Cruz
Gaddis – The Recognitions
Gass – Omensetter’s Luck
Gide – The Counterfeiters, Diaries
Giono – Joy of Man’s Desiring
Grass – *The Tin Drum, Dog Years
Gracq – Castle of Argol
Hamsun – Hunger
Handke – Slow Homecoming
Hartley – The Go-Between
Hesse – Steppenwolf, Magister Ludi
Huxley – *Brave New World, Doors of Perception
Ishiguro – Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled
Joyce – *Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, *Ulysses, *Finnegans Wake
Juenger – On Marble Cliffs
Kafka – *The Trial, *The Castle, Diaries, Letters to Felice, *Metamorphoses and Other Stories
Kawabata – Thousand Cranes, Master of Go
Kazantzakis – *Zorba the Greek
Kerouac – On the Road
D.H. Lawrence – *Sons & Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love
D. Lessing – *Golden Notebook
P. Levi – Periodic Table
Lowry – *Under the Volcano
Malraux – *Man’s Fate
Marquez – *One Hundred Years of Solitude
T. Mann – *Magic Mountain, Dr. Faustus
H. Miller – Black Spring, Tropic of Cancer
Mishima – Sea of Fertility tetralogy
Moravia – The Conformist, 1934
Musil – Man Without Qualities
Nabokov – The Defense, Lolita
Orwell – *1984, Autobiographical writings
Proust – *Remembrance of Things Past
Rilke – Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Robbe-Grillet – Erasures, In the Labyrinth
Sarraute – Portrait of a Man Unknown, The Planetarium
Sartre – Nausea
Sebald – Rings of Saturn, Emigrants, Austerlitz
Simon – The Grass
Tanizaki – The Makioka Sisters, In Praise of Shadows
Tournier – The Ogre
R. Walser – Selected Stories
Waugh – Brideshead Revisited
Weiss – Leavetaking & Vanishing Point
Wolf – Look Homeward, Angel
Woolf – *To the Lighthouse, The Waves, Mrs. Dalloway. Letters & Diaries
Yourcenar – Memoirs of Hadrian
Plays:
Albee – *Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Tiny Alice
Beckett – *Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape
Ionesco – Rhinoceros
O’Neill – *Long Day’s Journey into Night, Iceman Cometh
P. Weiss – Marat/Sade
T. Williams – *Streetcar Named Desire, Glass Menagerie
Poetry & Poetics:
Alberti – Concerning the Angels
Auden – New Year Letter – Jan. 1, 1940
Celan – Collected Poems
Cummings – Collected Poems, Eimi
Eliot – *The Wasteland, *Four Quartets
Ginsburg – Howl, Selected Poems
D. Jones – In Parenthesis
Kazantzakis – The Odyssey
Lowell – Notebooks
Olsen – Maximus Poems
Plath – Collected Poems
Pound – *Cantos
Rilke – *Duino Elegies
W.C. Williams – Paterson
Yeats – *Collected Poems
*Essential Book of the 20th Century