Being a diverse and interesting selection of the most-thumbed volumes (not necessarily the "best", as it turns out) from my collection. I blame Waterstones' three-for-two deals for a lot of this.
The Great Shark Hunt is a collection of the gonzo journalism of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who was the greatest living American writer until he died (with the possibly exception of Kurt Vonnegut). Then Kurt Vonnegut died. Who's left? Like his life, and all his writings, Hunter's death was entirely on his own terms. In this rather large book, there are extracts from his wonderful books "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 1972", and a scary interview with Mohammad Ali.
Crime and Punishment has such a reputation these days for being the most emo book in the world that you may come to it with a bunch of preconceptions - that it's 'difficult' or 'depressing' or 'too long'. Although Dostoevsky clearly meant it to be, at least on one level, a damning attack on the nineteenth-century class-based Russian society, none of that means anything to us now. I wonder what he would have made of the twentieth-century attempts to wipe out class altogether in Russia. He would probably write against that too. There's no pleasing some people. However, the power of his writing is such that you can read this book just as a crime thriller, and although it can be 'depressing' (it would be hard for anyone to write about murder in a cheery fashion), it is certainly not in any way 'difficult'. A man decides to murder an old woman, believing that his brush with higher philosophy will be enough to insulate him against the natural human guilt that would normally follow. He is wrong, however, and it affects him in a physical way. The police chief is onto him immediately, of course, as he is acting like the Most Guilty Man of the Year, but he has no evidence. Hence, drama.
Metamorphosis is another one of those books which comes with a lot of baggage, and has one the most famous opening lines ever: "As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a giant bug." No one could ever accuse Franz Kafka of fucking around, at least not when it came to his writing.
The Blind Watchmaker is the first Richard Dawkins book I ever read. It's typical of his style - hard science and common sense, mixed with an odd sense that the person who wrote the book is a human being. The purpose of the book is to outline in clear, logical terms the only process in the universe which has been demonstrated (so far) to make complicated things out of simple things: evolution. Although our tiny brains might reject some of the realities involved (for example, the fact that we have millions of years to play around with; an amount of time which is for all purposes unimaginable), it really is a wonderful idea. If you like the idea of evolution, but don't get some aspects of it, this is the book for you. In other news, we need more people like Richard Dawkins, who are prepared to stand up in the middle of a crowd and scream logic and common sense. It's so easy to just stand around and nod your head in a bemused fashion while bullshit-merchants peddle their gibberish and end up taking over the world. But don't take my word for it.
Nineteen Eighty-Four may have changed my life. I was only around ten years old, but never again would I take anything for granted, particularly in the area of politics. You may, of course, realise that they're all a bunch of lying scumbags. But this book will explain why.
The Deeper Meaning of Liff asks us some questions. Firstly, are there not many shared experiences for which there exists no name? And secondly, are there not many words sitting around on signposts pointing to places, but which actually mean nothing at all in the English language? This book represents the synthesis of these two basic truths. Although it probably breaks some sort of copyright, I here produce an example from my own country:
Everything about this book is funny. They've even played around with the contents at the start and the index at the back, and there are interesting illustrations throughout. For some reason, it never gets old. A word a warning: no one else seems to understand why I find this book so riotously amusing. It's possible I am entirely alone in this. If you have enjoyed this page, you may also like television, movies and music.
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