Ten books that have stayed with me:
Iain M Banks - Use
of weapons
Anyone that I’ve talked to knows how much I love Iain
Banks and Iain M Banks and choosing just one book was torture but this was the
first of his books I read with my jaw somewhere around my ankles. By turns funny,
brutal and exciting it features my favourite book ‘twist’ of all time.
Hunter S Thompson
- Fear and loathing on the campaign trail 1976
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is his most famous book
but this much larger tome follows the author into the insanity and craziness
that is the American political system in the seventies. His style of Gonzo
Journalism has been much copied but very few authors can tell a story in the
moment like he could. As Mark Twain said “Never let the Facts get in the way of
a good story”
Jeanette Winterson
- Sexing the cherry
It’s a slim volume but filled with the kind of imagery
that will stay with you forever. The first book I ever bought on my now wifes
recommendation and for that reason alone I have to have it.
Transmetropolitan
- Warren Ellis
Bit of a cheat. Transmetropolitan is a comic series comprising
of 60 individual comics telling the story of a grim and dirty future where one
man with an honest heart and a portable bowel disruptor can make a difference.
It’s probably my favourite comic series with a distinct beginning middle and
end that feels like a full length novel and despite the dark tone has moments
of proper heartstopping beauty that are all the more poignant for the squalor
that surround them.
Eisenhorn - Dan Abnett
Blood, death and madness in a dark grim future where
there is only war. Everything you need really. It’s a martial story and no one
writes battles better than Dan Abnett who manages the trick of getting you to
care about characters whose lives can be measured in pages rather than books.
War and peace - Tolstoy
I spent three months reading this monster of a book and
it would be difficult to better a chronicle of the follies and foibles of men
covering a broad swathe of life of the characters. That title isn’t kidding. It
genuinely covers nearly everything.
Pride and
Prejudice - Jane Austen
It’s probably wrong to admit to having had a teenage
crush on a fictional character but Elizabeth Bennet is smart, funny, strong and
occasionally hilariously acerbic. If I could exist in one novel as a minor
character I think it would be this one.
Microserfs -
Douglas Coupland
A Story of Microsoft employees during the mid-nineties
that decide to branch out and create their own company. It’s a good book in its
own right but it stayed with me because it reminded me so much of myself and my
fellow geeks at the time. It’s a proper snapshot of the mid-nineties when the
Geek inherited the earth.
The Hitchhikers
guide to the galaxy - Douglas Adams
I read the first book when I was seven or eight, I didn’t
get 75 % of the jokes but I still loved the idea of traversing the unfathomable
depths of space in a dressing gown with only a towel for company. I also loved
the idea of a portable device that meant you could hold the sum total knowledge
of the universe in your hand. Cough
iphone Cough
That old ace in
the hole -Annie proulux
Annie Proulux has a ability to draw characters so well
that you feel like you’ve known them half your life after a couple of pages.
This book has stayed with me as every time I reread it it’s like visiting old
friends that you haven’t seen in ages. It’s set in the pan handle of Texas
around the windmills that draw up water for the grazing animals which doesn’t
sound like the greatest premise for a book . But It’s an area I’ve driven
through once and will go back to one day.
