Reading Suggestions: Novels Part 1

Anton Shammas Arabesques
The Middle East is a complex place. This story is told in a lyrical fashion and unfolds a human tragedy that continues to this very day. Great paperback cover illustration by Karl Andy Foster also (1989)


Don DeLillo's Underworld
This long book rewards your effort. This book is for baseball fans and subterranean dwellers


Emile Zola's Germinal, La Bete Humaine, L'Assommoir and La Debacle
These earthy naturalistic novels engage with the social forces that shaped France in the late 19 Century. Zola was murdered for his views so grab one of these novels to see if he deserved it


Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
The only crime novel worth reading. Sorry Ian Rankin, P.D. James and Elmore Leonard


George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin
Tale of Barbados becoming a nation and how every small boy deserves favour


Ishmael Reed's Reckless Eyeballing 1986 and Mumbo Jumbo
Reed confronts the hypocrisy's of modern USA. Everyone is subject to his microscopic probing


Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time
To not sleep perchance to think


Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Coming Through Slaughter, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and In the Skin of A Lion
These novels show the authors intelligence and the emotional costs of writing about real people and events


Mikhael Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
This book made me believe in God again. This belief only lasted 2 months however been an agnostic ever since


Miquel Cervantes Don Quixote
Study this book and you will be able to write anything you like with conviction. The most wonderful invention of fiction


Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
Barack Obama might be in the White House but most African Americans are still invisible


Richard Wright's Native Son
The three act play Fear, Flight and Fate tell the story of another son of Chicago who got electrocuted not elected


Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker
The vernacular language in this novel I have used everyday since December 1985. Apocalypse then


Steve Hall's Raw Shark Texts
Writing as a puzzle and modern use of type and layout on the pages bring you the novel of the future. Text led by Image is here to stay