Ten Books to Get Lost In
Interrupting the usual Agatha Christie-related nonsense I post on here with a blog about book recommendations. I know a lot of you are facing the possibility of reading a little more than you’re used to over the next few weeks. Maybe you haven’t picked up a book since High School. Maybe you didn’t even bother picking up books when you were in High School. Whilst some of us live, eat and breathe books and are currently dreaming of our favourite bookstores, for others picking a book to read can be quite the daunting task.
A few weeks ago I read a fantastic interview with the Irish writer Marian Keyes where she talked about the importance of enjoying reading. Too many of us have been shamed into reading difficult or worthy books which, brilliant as they may be, are the reading equivalent of swimming through cold custard. Forget what your terrible English teacher told you thirty years ago. Reading should be pleasurable. It’s ok to want to read something you’ll actually enjoy. Not every novel you stick under your nose has to be lifted straight from the Guardian’s Top 100 best literary reads of all time. Read what you want to read and let yourself put the book back on the shelf if you’re not enjoying it.
I read a lot. I always have. I started with Sherlock Holmes and Roald Dahl, Joan Aiken and Agatha Christie and still come back to these books because they’re such brilliant reads. I’ll have a go at reading absolutely anything: non-fiction, crime fiction, translated work, poetry, YA, essays, novels, plays EVEN POETRY. If a book is well-written and engaging I don’t care who wrote it, or what it’s about, or which genre it falls under, I’m happy to give it a try. I couldn’t tell you what makes one book good and the next forgettable; there’s no magic formula. However, I could tell you exactly how I feel when I’m reading a really really good book. I become so absorbed in the story, I forget about the real world. I become more interested in the characters than my actual friends and family. I will do anything to get back to these books. I will read while walking. I will stay up all night. I will lie to people I wouldn’t normally lie to and make up some semi-believable excuse as to why I’m cancelling my plans with them. Yes, I have lied and will continue to lie in order to spend more time with a really really good book.
These sort of books don’t come along very often. You’ve to plough through a lot of ok-but-nothing-special books and a fair few why-did-anyone-even-bother-writing this books to get to the gold. So let me cut through the crap for you and offer my list of ten books you can escape into. They may not be your cup of tea and that’s absolutely ok. They’re an eclectic bunch -mostly novels, mostly big novels- so I hope you can find something here which will help you to forget the real world for a few hours. Maybe you might even discover a book good enough to lie for.
If there’s nothing you fancy here, give me a shout on Twitter (@jancarson7280) and let me know a couple of books you’ve enjoyed in the past and I’ll be happy to recommend something you might like. As always, where you can, support our local independent bookstores by buying your books from them or direct from indie publishers. Most will have an online delivery service. I’ll be back next week with ten very comforting books. By that stage we may all be in need of a big wordy hug.
Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca - The most elegant, captivating and disturbing piece of period fiction your eyes will ever encounter. I read this whilst visiting Paris and was so obsessed with it I stayed indoors for two days, ignoring the city outside my door. Afterwards you can double binge by watching the Hitchcock adaptation which is equally marvellous.
Hanya Yangihara - A Little Life - This is a beast of a novel, (nb I recommend not reading the hardback version). It follows four friends really closely from meeting as young men all the way through to adulthood. It is packed full of emotion. It is deeply troubling. It is quite literally, life in a book. Afterwards you will feel bereft because you’ll have spent the duration of the novel thinking of the characters as real people who actually exist. It will be hard to reenter the real world once you have finished this book.
Stephen King - Salem’s Lot - Do not be a snob. Stephen King has written some of the best books in exisence. Aside from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and maybe Let The Right One In, this is, in my opinion, the best vampire book going. It’s also completely unputdownable. Every single chapter ends with the sort of hook that tempts you into reading on. It’s also reasonably terrifying in the very best way. Maybe check the windows are all tightly shut before you read this one.
Michel Faber - The Crimson Petal and the White - Do you like Victorian prostitutes? Then this is the very book for you. It’s another beast of a read but you’ll hardly notice the pages flying by, you’ll be right there in Victorian London rooting for Faber’s lovable ladies of the night. Everything Michel Faber writes is brilliant but I spent almost an entire weekend inside incapable of putting this one down. Start here and then read the rest of his work.
Samanta Schweblin - Fever Dream. A very short novel in translation which had me so hooked I read it in one frenzied sitting at the beach and accidentally sunburnt my shins. It has that uncannily creepy feeling you get in The Turn of the Screw. I still can’t explain why this novel made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up but it absolutely did, both on the first and second read.
Conor O’Callaghan - Nothing On Earth. I usually pair this novel with Fever Dream. There’s a similarly unsettling vibe going on here. O’Callaghan’s story is set on a ghost housing estate in Ireland just after the financial crash. People begin to go missing. Not everyone is what they seem. And the writing’s just so sparse and poetic. This book should be considered a modern Irish classic.
Jennifer Egan - A Visit from the Goon Squad. Multiple different narrative voices and techniques keep this novel really fresh and interesting. It focuses on the music industry in America but is really an exploration of how lives interweave, overlap and influence each other. I’m sorry to say, I also got sunburnt whilst reading this one.
Donna Tartt - The Secret History. Donna Tartt’s fiirst, and arguably best, novel focuses on a group of university friends who get caught up in some sinister shenanigans and begin to unravel. It is a dark, disturbing and whipsmart book. I first read this as an undergrad student. I may have missed lectures to finish it. I remain convinced that reading The Secret History was time better spent.
Mary S. Lovell - The Mitford Girls. This one’s a bit of a wild card. It’s a nonfiction biography of Nancy Mitford and her sisters. It honestly reads more like a novel for the Mitfords lives were so strange and intertwined with 20th century history and politics it’s hard to believe some of these stories actually happened. In 2005 I had the worse dose of flu ever and spent a full week in bed. I read this book and three out of four of Updike’s Rabbit novels and was sad when I finally got better and had to stop reading and go back to work.
Salman Rushdie - MIdnight’s Children. This is Rushdie’s opus. Both a love song and a stunning critique of India’s history, politics and culture, it is a dense book. It is funny. It is smart. It is beautiiful. It is so tightly written you’ll be jealous of Rushdie’s gift. It is probably my all time favourite book. If you lean into it, it will lift you right out of yourself.