This is little more than an exercise in list making. The rules were simple: fiction, no more than one book per author, and in the case of short stories it had to be a specific collection that had marked me in some way, or imprinted tself on my consciousness.
In a couple of instances I stretched the definition to include novellas and manga. (In the case of Junji Ito, please take it as written that the manga selected here has been selected to represent all his work.)
I tried to find the exact cover artwork with which I associated the various books, which brought home to me the sad reality that one barely glances at the cover artwork while reading a novel on an ereader, much less comes to associate it with a specific cover image.
I reserve the right to tinker with this list in years to come.
Joe Abercrombie – The Heroes
Robert Aickman – Dark Entries
Kingsley Amis – The Green Man
Martin Amis – Dead Babies
Michael Arlen – The Green Hat
J.G. Ballard – Crash
Honoré de Balzac – A Harlot High and Low
Lynne Reid Banks – The L-Shaped Room
John Franklin Bardin – Devil Take the Blue-tail Fly
Marc Behm – The Ice Maiden
John Bunyan – The Pilgrim’s Progress
Ramsey Campbell – Incarnate
Jonathan Carroll – From the Teeth of Angels
Lewis Carroll – Through the Looking Glass
Michael Chabon – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Robert W. Chambers – The King in Yellow
Raymond Chandler – Farewell My Lovely
G.K. Chesterton – The Man Who Was Thursday
Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None
Colette – La vagabonde
John Collier – Fancies and Goodnights
Wilkie Collins – Armadale
Joseph Conrad – Chance
Philip K. Dick – Ubik
Charles Dickens – Bleak House
Alexandre Dumas – The Three Musketeers
Edward Eager – Knight’s Castle
Guy Endore – The Werewolf of Paris
J.G. Farrell – The Singapore Grip
Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
Ian Fleming – The Spy Who Loved Me
Ford Madox Ford – The Good Soldier
Christopher Fowler – Sharper Knives
Stephen Gallagher – Valley of Lights
Alan Garner – Elidor
André Gide – The Counterfeiters
Nikolai Gogol – Dead Souls
William Golding – Lord of the Flies
Joseph Heller – Catch-22
Carl Hiaasen – Native Tongue
Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr. Ripley
Victor Hugo – The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
J-K Huysmans – Against Nature
Junji Ito – The Enigma of Amigara Fault (Gyo 2)
Henry James – The Turn of the Screw
M.R. James – Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Norton Juster – The Phantom Tollbooth
Stephen King – Salem’s Lot
Alfred Kubin – The Other Side
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos – Les liaisons dangereuses
Fritz Leiber – Conjure Wife
Gaston Leroux – La poupée sanglante
Ira Levin – A Kiss Before Dying
C.S. Lewis – The Magician’s Nephew
Audrey Erskine Lindop – I Start Counting
John Ajvide Lindqvist – Let the Right One In
George MacDonald – The Princess and the Goblin
Jean-Patrick Manchette – Le petit bleu de la côte ouest
Rosemary Manning – The Dragon’s Quest
J.P. Martin – Uncle and His Detective
Herman Melville – Moby-Dick
Gustav Meyrink – The Angel of the West Window
Octave Mirbeau – Le jardin des supplices
Shikibu Murasaki – The Tale of Genji
Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita
E. Nesbit – The Magic City
Kim Newman – Anno Dracula
Beverly Nichols – The Tree That Sat Down
Peter O’Donnell – Modesty Blaise
Oliver Onions – The Beckoning Fair One
Thomas Perry – Pursuit
Edgar Allan Poe – Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Jan Potocki – The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
Marcel Proust – In Search of Lost Time
Raymond Queneau – Les fleurs bleues
Raymond Radiguet – Le bal du Comte Orgel
Anne Rice – Interview with the Vampire
H.F. Saint – Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Saki – Best of Saki
Walter Scott – Ivanhoe
Barbara Sleigh The Kingdom of Carbonel
Muriel Spark – Memento Mori
Stendhal – The Charterhouse of Parma
Robert Louis Stevenson – Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Bram Stoker – Dracula
Koushun Takami – Battle Royale
Junichiro Tanizaki – The Makioka Sisters
Jim Thompson – The Killer Inside Me
John Kennedy Toole – A Confederency of Dunces
Trevanian – Shibumi
Kazuo Umezu – The Drifting Classroom
Boris Vian – Froth on the Daydream
Stephen Volk – Leytonstone
Edith Wharton – The House of Mirth
T.H. White – The Once and Future King
Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray
Charles Willeford – Miami Blues
Cornell Woolrich – Night Has a Thousand Eyes
John Wyndham – The Chrysalids
Emile Zola – The Debacle
Interesting list Anne.
I have the Marc behm anthology pictured but had only ever read ” The eye of the beholder ” which is brilliant.
On your recommendation I am now reading “The ice maiden ” which I am really enjoying- thanks.
Excellent! Enjoy.
Memoirs of an Invisible Man is a brilliant book, I hope the ho-hum film hasn’t put people off giving it a try. The only one Saint ever wrote, I think. Imagine writing something that good and saying, yeah, that’ll do, no reason to write any more!
Read a lot of Carl Hiaasen, but never Native Tongue. I’ll have to give it a try now.
It is a shame that book covers, like good film posters, seem to be a dying art. One of the nice things about Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell reprints is he uses the original art.
Native Tongue is definitely my favourite Hiaasen. I enjoyed his books very much, but there was a point where they started to get a bit samey. He nailed the formula, but after a while it needed shaking up a bit, I think.
I felt so awful for him when his brother was killed by a deranged Trump fan (is there any other kind?) who was inspired by POTUS’s demonisation of the press to shoot up a newsroom.
Yeah, I know what you mean about Hiaasen’s formula, that’s why I tailed off too. But those early ones are terrific, Striptease was so much better than the film even though the film is pretty faithful – they just could not get the tone right.
I did not know that about Hiaasen’s brother, how dreadful. Just when you think the world can’t jump into a handbasket to Hell one more time, it contrives to disappoint you. Or horrify you, which is worse.
Anyway, I got a 2nd hand copy of Native Tongue, will give it a go next. Thanks for the recommendation!
Enjoy Native Tongue! I like the liposuction book too, Skin Tight, I think. Which is the one with the goon who ends up with a pitbull’s severed head attached to his arm, and as it slowly goes septic he imagines it’s speaking to him? Or am I getting Hiaasen confused with another crime writer?
Just looked it up, it’s Double Whammy. All those early ones are gold, but I might look up some of the latterday ones I’ve missed – I could do with some feelgood comfort reading.
It’s amazing that Huysmans’ Against Nature is here, along with Ballard’s Crash. Against Nature is one of my favourite and life-defining novels, while Cronenberg’s Crash is one of my favourite films. Haven’t read the book yet, can’t wait to read it!
I always found Against Nature very funny, though I’m not sure how much of that was intentional. But the episode where he gets all set to go to London but then cries off because he can’t see the real thing living up to his expectations of it… And the poor bejewelled tortoise! Apparently that was taken from a real life incident in the life of Robert de Montesquiou, a model for both des Esseintes and Proust’s Baron de Charlus – when I found out about this, it’s what started me reading Proust! (also a lot funnier than he’s usually given credit for being) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_de_Montesquiou
Well, from a certain point of view, it certainly is very funny. I found it rather sad and emphatized
… with des Esseintes. I found his relationship to Catholicism rather similar to mine, and admired his scholarly attitude toward it. Huysmans is the first author, as far as I know, who was concerned with the concept of lifestyle, even in his Catholic novel En Route. This oddity des Esseintes exhibits can be seen as a slightly comic revolt against the increasingly liberal nature of his times (commerce, profit, cheap earthly pleasures etc.). By the very fact that he exists like that, he is an individual which cannot be surmised under the prevailing order of things. He is the remnant of an aristocracy which tries to preserve the bygone times, and of course that he is comic because of that! It is an endeavor bound to fail and end up in incurable neurosis due to loneliness. As Lynch once said: If I ever alone too much time, I would become funny, but not in a humorous way. This happens to des Esseintes, he becomes an oddball simply because he refuses to conform. And that is heroic to an extent, but in his attempt he becomes some kind of an idiotic and comic hero.
Good point about the “lifestyle”! and lovely analysis too. Thanks!
Hey, I haven’t read this yet, but you might find it interesting. (Recommended on Twitter by “artist, designer and occasional writer”John Coulthart) https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/05/04/a-dandys-guide-to-decadent-self-isolation/
I found it fun and funny at the same time. This passage is in line with your statement that he is funny, even ludicrous.
“Having long held a fascination for Holland, Des Esseintes once visited the land of Rembrandt. There, he expected to find “patriarchal simplicity and riotous joviality,” and, to be frank, he would have settled for “wild revelry or domestic drunkenness,” but the trip proved a bitter disappointment. Begrudgingly, he “had to admit that the paintings of the Dutch School exhibited in the Louvre had led him astray.” Someone inspired with Against Nature in this way as the Australian in the essay (although I think it as an elaborate joke) is the same as des Esseintes only in one point. Disillusionment. When I was living in self-isolation for a half a year, only a bit inspired by Against Nature, I opted out for decorating my apartment in line with my own personality. Simple and spartan. Although I did buy a lot of books (about 40-50), but was content with IKEA bookshelf, dark-brown and simple. Even if I had an unilimited amount of money, it would be the same, I would spend it all on books, and maybe one luxurious rug (this I had planned) but the re-decorating the kitchen and doubts about it were easily solved by an earthquake which destroyed everything. But yes, I always dressed nicely, to the point that some questioned my sexuality (Croatian petty-bourgeoise stereotypes), but not extravagantly. Although my teeth were regularly ruined by too much smoking, so at least that falls in line with a regular dandy lifestyle. And the renunciation of pleasures in favor of imagination. So yes, I agreed with the book 100 percent, but did not copy it, adapted it to myself.