My blog turning a lot of lists, not that’s a bad thing really! So someone asked for something like this once and I think I did promise to blog something like this a longtime ago or both? Anyway it’s a good way to start December, I’m posting it because I can’t fuck about with this list anymore, well I could but wouldn’t if I just post it now! I guess, it a record of right now and my fave reads before or what books have been important to me, so far!
I would name W. Burroughs, H. Miller and F. Kafka as my three all-time fave authors and they do have the most below. A lot of what’s called classic novels are below too but that’s why they’re classic because they’re great reads. It’s not all fiction because well, I’ve included a few non-fiction I totally love too. What have I got: two Auto-bios, two interview type books, some diary like books, few kind-of essay books, couple of Aussie music books and is that it?
Everything I totally love reading is here, please fill free to ask questions because I’m not going to write something about each book! Maybe I should re-read them and do a blog post for each book, well I might that next year or something? I’ve not blogged any books for a month or two so hopefully all this makes up for that now?
Just in alphabet order by the title below and NOT ranted in anyway at all, OK? Here goes…
The Adding Machine by William S. Burroughs
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare by Henry Miller
And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave
The Autobiography by Malcolm X
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
Bolivian Diary by Ernesto Che Guevara
The Castle by Franz Kafka
The Cat Inside by William S. Burroughs
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Colossus Of Maroussi by Henry Miller
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Crash by J.G. Ballard
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
First Love and Other Novellas by Samuel Beckett
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
Fup by Jim Dodge
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
The Great Wall of China and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
Guignol’s Band by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester
Junky by William S. Burroughs
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Lovesong by Elizabeth Jolley
Lynch on Lynch by Chris Rodley
The Man Who Disappeared (Amerika) by Franz Kafka
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
My Wonderful World of Slapstick by Buster Keaton
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Nexus (The Rosy Crucifixion #3) by Henry Miller
Noise In My Head: Voices From The Ugly Australian Underground Music by James Kritzler
The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind
Plexus (The Rosy Crucifixion #2) by Henry Miller
Proudflesh by Deborah Robertson
Prozac Diary by Lauren Slater
Queer by William S. Burroughs
Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion #1) by Henry Miller
Spider by Patrick McGrath
Spasm by Lauren Slater
Stranded: The Secret History Of Australian Independent Music by Clinton Walker
The Transformation (Metamorphosis) and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller
Tropic Of Capricorn by Henry Miller
Wake In Fright by Kenneth Cook
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Anybody wanna say anything about my list of books? Double dare everyone who’s looking at my blog post today to put your fave books into a list too, please!
Cheers 🙂
a1000mistakes 
Hi William,
An interesting and eclectic list, as usual. I like Henry Miller (or did when I read him 40 years ago), but I haven’t read any of Burroughs, and I didn’t like Kafka too much.
I’ll accept your dare, and put an old top 50 I did a few years ago, with a couple of more recent add-ins. There are a few of yours on it. It’s mainly fiction with a couple of biographies. Cheers, Peter
1. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
2. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
3. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Dirt Music by Tim Winton
5. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
6. Bliss by Peter Carey
7. Stark by Ben Elton
8. Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
9. An Imaginary Life by David Malouf
10. War Crimes (short stories) by Peter Carey
11. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
12. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondatje
13. Shame by Salman Rushdie
14. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
15. Wild Swans by Jung Chang
16. Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James
17. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
18. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (2014)
19. Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes
20. Monkey Grip by Helen Garner
21. 1984 by George Orwell
22. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
23. Animal Farm by George Orwell
24. Steppenwolf by Herman Hess
25. Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
26. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
27. Winnie The Pooh by A. A. Milne
28. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
29. The Americans Baby by Frank Moorhouse (1972)
30. The Sea by John Banville
31. Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler
32. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
33. Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller
34. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
35. The Stranger by Albert Camus
36. The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
37. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
38. Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
39. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally
40. Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
41. The Electrical Experience by Frank Moorhouse (1974)
42. The Sellout by Paul Beatty
43. The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Boll
44. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
45. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
46. Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller
47. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
48. A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1) by Ursula K. Le Guin
49. Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen
50. How To Be Both by Ali Smith
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Wicked cool Peter and thanks for sharing your list! They’re a few I’ve read already on your list too but it’s got more that are on my too read list so those should be read sooner than later, i guess? So much tooooooooooo read! 🙂
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Ok so three of these, possibly four would make my list.
The definite three would be Catch 22, Crime and Punishment and A Fraction of the Whole. Lolita might make it.
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Oh, books instead that’s wicked cool! 🙂 Got any recos for me? I’m reading infinite jest ATM and it’s driving me totally bonkers!!
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Oh, for sure. But I believe I might borrow this post idea and list em up with a link to yours, sir
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Wicked man and why not? Look forward to seeing it! 🙂
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Great list. Interviews with Francis Bacon and Lynch on Lynch are now in my t0-read books. Am a latecomer to Lynch…..got into him with the most recent Twin Peaks, and then snapped up all of the films. Genius.
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Oh, did you know? Lynch has just published his autobiography book called ‘Room To Dream’ which I’ve only just got a copy but haven’t read it yet, should be a great read too!
Cheers 🙂
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