How strongly I recommend it: 9/10
‘Follow me, reader! Who ever told you there is no such thing in the world as real, true, everlasting love? May the liar have his despicable tongue cut out! Follow me, my reader, and only me, and I’ll show you that kind of love!’
The Master and Margarita – by Mikhail Bulgakov Read More »
How strongly I recommend it: 10/10
‘ “I’m nuts. Cuckoo. Don’t you understand? I’m off my rocker. They sent someone else home in my place by mistake. They’ve got a licensed psychiatrist up at the hospital who examined me, and that was his verdict. I’m really insane.” “So?”
Catch-22 – by Joseph Heller Read More »
How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
‘The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old. At ten o’clock on a morning in early June she was sitting in the back seat of her mother’s Dodge Caravan, wearing her blue Red Sox batting jersey (the one with 36 Gordon on the back) and playing with Mona, her doll. At ten thirty she was lost in the woods.’
I feel that this short quote explains the premise of this story better than I ever could.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – by Stephen King Read More »
How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
Chernobyl is a dramatic adaptation of the nuclear plant disaster which occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, on Saturday 26th April 1986.
Chernobyl (HBO Miniseries) – created by Craig Mazin Read More »
How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
In a far-off future, humanity has spread out across the stars. Aliens and even ghosts are now commonplace and humanity itself, thanks to the popularity and proliferation of ‘cosmeti-surgery,’ has made itself unrecognisable. Galactic civilization is currently embroiled in what is referred to as ‘an invasion,’ a conflict that has apparently lasted a number of years.
Babel-17 – by Samuel R. Delany Read More »
How strongly I recommend it: 10/10
It’s 1970. Gordita Beach, Los Angeles. Nixon is president, The Manson Family is on trial and Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello is a private detective who’s just had a visit from his ex-girlfriend, one Shasta Fey Hepworth, who asks him to investigate a possible plot to kidnap her boyfriend Mickey Wolfmann, a billionaire land developer.
Inherent Vice – by Thomas Pynchon Read More »
How strongly I recommend it: 7/10
‘Justice? –You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.’
So reads the opening line to A Frolic of His Own, William Gaddis’s fourth novel, which won the 1994 National Book Award (Gaddis’s second time, the first being when he won it in ’76 with JR). I stuck the opening line up here for a few reasons.
A Frolic Of His Own – by William Gaddis Read More »
How strongly I recommend it: 9/10
“A picnic. Imagine: a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car pulls off the road into the meadow and unloads young men, bottles, picnic baskets, girls, transistor radios, cameras…A fire is lit, tents are pitched, music is played. And in the morning they leave.”
Roadside Picnic – by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Read More »