I don’t really remember when it was that I first got into reading. I don’t really remember when I stopped reading or when I got back into again. I read a lot as a child, the usual suspects including Choose Your Own Adventures, the Goosebumps books, Roald Dahl as well as celebrated Australian authors Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzmen were all on my reading list up until the age of about 13. A combination of sports and video games meant that I hardly touched a book during my mid to late teens and when I hit 18 it was all about the movies.

My mum and her mum have always been voracious readers and they never gave up on me and when I found out that my dad too loved a good book I must have decided that it was in my blood. I started visiting the library with my mum when I was around 20 years old, it was good to have something in common, and would take out 3 or 4 books at a time. It was all Elmore Leonard and Robert Parker books to begin with but I gradually got more adventurous. Eventually I came across a book called American Psycho, this changed everything.

From that point on I was mostly done with pulp detective novels and cheap genre fiction, I wanted something with a bit more bite, something challenging and controversial. I started reading cult fiction and pretty much anything that could be described as subversive. I got into Bret Easton Ellis, Kurt Vonnegut  amongst others and from there I started to read some cult classics such as those by the San Francisco beat writers as well as existential stuff from guys like Sartre and Kafka. Eventually I just started reading what they call the classics, Charles Dickens, Robert Louise Stevenson and Mark Twain etc. These days I’ll read pretty much anything except whatever it is you call those Danielle Steele/Mills & Boon type novels. I’ll happily read a Batman graphic novel one week and a Jane Austen book the next. Basically, I just love to read

And so that is why I’m writing yet another list. I’ve written a fair bit about the movies and television shows I love yet rarely mention anything about books. To reconcile this lack of diversity on my account I present you with this – my favourite 5 books. I liek to think that it is a fairly diverse selection although it does lean a little more towards the cult side of things rather than the best seller lists. I’v also included a little section on the runners up, the books I love but don’t quite make the Mount Rushmore (to borrow a not particularly appropriate cultural reference by one of my favourite sports writers) of books I’ve read.

Anyway, here is the list:

Runners-Up

I’m a big fan of Hemingway’s style even though I’ve only read 2 of his books. It’s a bit of a shame I couldn’t find room for The Old Man and the Sea in my top 5 but thems the breaks. Likewise, there are 2 George Orwell novels I really liked but of the 2 Animal Farm came closest to making the cut. Every single one of Ron Currie Jr’s books has been amazing to the point that I’d say he is my favourite active author; Everything Matters would be the one I’d squeeze in if I could. Glamorama is my 2nd favourite Bret Easton Ellis novel but I couldn’t find a place for it here. The His Dark Materials trilogy is my favourite fantasy saga narrowly edging the A Song of Ice and Fire books but how would you select just 1 for a top 5? I’d like to include Nick Hornby, most probably with High Fidelity, and Kurt Vonnegut with Slaughterhouse 5 but alas, they were not meant for my 5. The toughest omissions though were Isabelle Allende’s beautiful and haunting The House of the Spirits and Cormac McCarthy’s contemplative but punchy No Country for Old Men. If I ever extend this list to 10 I’d say those 2 are in the prime position for spots 6 & 7.

The List

The Road (2006) Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy’s prose is the most elegantly simple yet sparingly powerful I have ever read. Somehow he manages to convey so much thought and feeling through the most economic combination of words and still have you crawling into a ball willing yourself not to cry. Or jump out of your seat in excitement and/or anticipation; he had the ability to take you on the most subtle of roller-coasters, so subtle that you might not even realise until you get to the end and look back.

The Road is such a simple story of a boy and his father that it would be so easy to dismiss if someone were trying to convince you of its brilliance based solely on the plot. That plot can be effectively summarised as man tried to keep his son and himself alive as long as possible in a post-apocalyptic ruin. There is not back story to The Road and certainly to exposition, everything you need to know about this world and this characters you have to figure out for yourself based on how they react to the obstacles they encounter on their journey.

Almost all life as we know it in The Road is already dead. There is the man and his son, there are a handful of other survivors and that is essential it. There is not plant or animal life and taken as is the world presented is a throughly depressing place. And yet for all it’s bleakness The Road is essentially a tale of cautious optimism and the strength of the human spirit. It is about enduring the worst possible conditions because you have no other choice and it is about a man’s love for his son.

Reading The Road was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and though it may sound cliche or overly cloying to mention, it had me re-evaluating my relationship with people in my life. I urge people to read this book because without knowing it, it will make you a better person. The message of the book is universal and timeless, it transcends almost any prejudice you could think of and, ultimately it is a simple story told as well as it possibly could be told.

American Psycho (1991) Bret Easton Ellis

The book that got me thinking differently about what reading was all about, American Psycho features the most frighteningly realised anti-hero I have ever encountered. Someone who I can’t help but find myself rooting for despite him committing the most heinous acts perhaps ever put on page. Yes this novel is absolutely disgusting and horrifying in places but it is also one of the funniest books I have ever read. After all, it is a satire.

This was the first Bret Easton Ellis novel I had ever read and I most definitely wasn’t prepared. I don’t think you can ever truly be prepared for your first Bret Easton Ellis novel but by way of advice, maybe start with Less Than Zero over this one if you’re a little squeamish. You don’t have to wonder what is going through Mr Ellis’ head when you read one of his books, least of all this one, because he is not frightened to put it all right there n the page. To say that some of the sequences are graphic would be akin to saying John Grisham has minor interest in the court system.

If you are one of the uninitiated, American Psycho concerns Patrick Bateman, wall street hot shot and probable murderer. And again, murderer just doesn’t do justice to what this fella gets up to with an assortment of hobos and hookers, chainsaws and coat hangers. The genius of American Pycho lies in its suggestion that the world of mergers and acquisitions (what Batemen’s hollow paramours think he tells them he does) and murders and executions (what he actually tells them he does) are ultimately not too dissimilar. According Bret Easton Ellis they are both logical conclusions to the coke driven greed indicative of what the 80s were all about.

The other successful element of American Psycho is that it is all told from Patrick Bateman’s point of view and thus you are never quite sure if everything he tells you is true. The unreliable narrator is one of my favourite tools for exploring the nature of truth and if truth really actually matters. American Psycho pushes the ideas that this is could all be happening in Bateman’s head but at the same time it could all be really happening and the people in this world are simply ignoring it. Either of which is a scary eventuality.

Watchmen (1987) Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

Yes there is a comic book in my top 5, although I prefer the term graphic novel, you can try and argue about just how pretentious that label is but basically it tells you exactly what the thing is. Granted that was a defensive opening sentence but I wanted to get it out there before moving on. Watchmen turned superhero stories on their head, at least it should have. Alan Moore tried to envision a world in which superheroes could really exist and thus only one of the heroes in Watchmen has an extraordinary abilities. The explanation for how that character, Jon Osterman nee Dr Manhatten, is only slightly more plausible that the origins of say SpiderMan or the Incredible Hulk but in 1987 the effort put into explaining how this could be a real thing was admirable.

If you can get over the fact that this novel has pictures as well as words then you will be rewarded with an insightful look at what it means to be a hero, what it means to be a person amongst other people and how our actions define us much more than our words ever could (this from an aspiring writer!) Watchmen is a layered examination of all of the above yet at the same time a rollicking action whodunnit that just happens to focus on men and women who dress up in colourful costumes to fight bad guys.

And the fighting of bad guys and what that actually means is central to the story of Watchmen. Alan Moore wanted to deconstruct the myth of the superhero as well as that of the supervillan. I read somewhere that Watchmen is just like any other superhero comic book only if Batman were impotent, Superman did not care about humanity and the bad guy was trying to save the world. That’s a humorous observation but it barely scratches the surface of what Watchmen is.

Time Magazine named Watchmen 1 of the 100 best English language novels from 1923 to 2005, a recommendation that surely carries more weight than anything I can write here. Still, if you think that superheroes are for children and graphic novel is simply a term coined by those children to justify their own arrested development, maybe give Watchmen a go before dismissing an entire art form. I guarantee you will be impressed with the complexity of characters, the ingenuity of the narrative and the underlying maturity of a piece of work that rejects the idea of absolutes and encourages you to ask questions.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) Oscar Wilde

The only published novel by Irish writer, poet, humorist Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray has held up so well both in terms of language and ideas that it’s scary. It’s a scary story as well, in its own way.  Classified as Philosophical Fiction, whatever that means, Dorian Gray could almost be described as the dark counter point to Peter Pan. It is wish fulfilment taken to its, perhaps logical, extreme and yet it is consistently frightening, hilarious and yes, sad.

The Picture of Dorian Gray was just as controversial for its time as American Psycho, perhaps even more so. The thing is, even though it holds up remarkably, ridiculously well for something written over 120 years ago, it is easy to miss much of the subversion and satire because the turns of phrase are so witty and memorable. Wilde wielded words more expertly than Picasso the paintbrush or Leibovitz the lens. It is all too easy to get swept up in the imaginative exchanges of the principal characters, particularly early in the book, that you miss the subtle and not so subtle stabs at hedonism and debauchery.

Dorian Gray as the title character is as devilishly charismatic as they come despite playing dangerously loose with the lives of those around him. Wilde wisely chooses to leave the most depraved of Gray’s activities to the reader’s imagination, and this serves to make the reader that much more intoxicated. It is nice to imagine yourself in Dorian’s shoes, almost certain that you would be more careful with the gift bestowed on you,  only deep down you know that, had you a picture of your own, it would end up looking much the same as poor Dorian Gray’s.

In essence, nothing more than an extended metaphor concerned with morality and the workings of the human soul, The Picture of Dorian Gray once again proves that all you need is a solid idea, expertly told and with a dash of flair and you can have a classic on your hands. Of all the novels on this list it is the one I’m currently most excited about re-reading. I’m certain there is still much for me to discover. If you have yet to dip into this enchanting exploration, I heartily recommend it. Having so effectively penetrated the public consciousness I have no doubt you’re familiar with the basics of the story, to leave it at that though would be to rob yourself of hugely satisfying experience.

Rant (2007) Chuck Palahniuk

The book most unlikely to appear on anyone else’s list of greatest novels, Rant spoke to me in a way that Chuck Palahniuk’s other edgy and entertaining books have yet to do so. Like all of Palahniuk’s books the protagonist is a misfit and outsider someone not entirely there but endearing nonetheless. In Rant however the protagonist actually isn’t there so to speak. The story of Buster Landru ‘Rant’ Casey is told by the various people who had known him throughout his life, a unique yet necessary narrative technique because Rant is already deceased.

The multi-narrator approach works particularly well in this book because it presents conflicting accounts of just what has happened/is happening and combined with the introduction of time travel later in the book, makes the reader question the notion of truth. In Rant history isn’t simply a list of truths or facts from the past it is a dynamic, fluid concept yet one that remains somewhat baffling throughout.

I try and read Rant once a year because, like all good novels there is a lot more going on than first appears, but also because at it’s heart it is a warm, optimistic novel about love and family and just what you might do to protect the ones you love. This last theme it doesn’t go into tremendous depths with but it does touch on just enough.

Palahniuk dials up the weird as he always does and his characters are again more a series or collection of gimmicks bundled together but there is development there particularly with the absentee protagonist. I’m not sure everyone will love this book as much as I do but what I would say is that if you like it on the first read, read it again, and again. That’s when you’re going to fall in love.