Trainspotting
Irvine Welsh, 1993
This family comedy drama about youth life and growing up in peaceful, small town Edinburgh, has all the ingredients of the Great, Epic, Romantic Novel.
Well, sort of.
Anyway, one of the best books I've ever read, hilariously funny and tragic at the same time, it combines short, fast episodes into a quite coherent, breathtaking novel.
Was, of course, later made into the film Trainspotting, which is Good, but this is just So Much More.
Random Quote:
"The trainee manager whae welcomed us wis a mucho spotty punter in a sharp suit, wi dandruff oan the shoodirs like piles ay fuckin cocaine. Ah felt like takin a rolled up fiver tae the cunt's tin flute. His biscuit-ersed face and his plukes completely ruin the image the smarmy wee shite's tryin tae achieve. Even in ma worse junk periods ah've nivir had a complexion like that, the poor wee bastard. This cunt is obviously along for the ride."
Jay McInerney, 1992
Takes place in New York in the months leading up to, and just after the stock market crash in 1987. About publisher Russell and his wife Corrine, who are drawn into the madness and hysteria of the Wall Street world and about what happens to people in an environment where Money is Everything. A story that has been told many times before, of course, but at least I have never read a more well-written, powerful, funny and moving version of it than this one.
"Russell was explaining the gospel of the LBO to Jessie as though he were reciting the Declaration of Independence.
'And you do this all on borrowed money?' Jessie said with guileless admiration, getting right to the heart of the matter.
Russell winked. 'That's the beauty of it. Buy now, pay later.'
'You know, I wanted to ask you - now that the house is mine, I've been thinking of taking out a second mortgage.'
'There are definitive advantages.'"
Nick Hornby, 1995
Donna Tartt, 1992
Yes, it's as well-read as the cover implies; I have only read it once but borrowed it to lots of people and I have never spoken to anyone who's read this book and hasn't liked it. Which says something about it I think. It's just one of those Great Stories. Even if you know nothing about american college life or ancient greek history, which it constantly alludes to, it's still such an exciting, thrilling, surprising novel that you just can't stop reading it til you've finished the very last sentence.
Random Quote:
"But while I have never considered myself a very good person, neither can I bring myself to believe that I am a spectacularly bad one. Perhaps it's simply impossible to think of oneself in such a way, our Texan friend being a case in point. What we did was terrible, but still I don't think any of us were bad, exactly; chalk it up to weakness on my part, hubris on Henry's, too much Greek prose composition-whatever you like."
Douglas Coupland, 1995
'In the first 50 pages there are more one-liners than in a decade of Woody Allen films', it says on the back cover, and indeed, this book about five young Microsoft employees who decide to quit and start their own thing, is full of clever, ironic observations and smart comments about everything from Silicon Valley to Lego. But underneath all this there's a story about People, a great, sensitively written story filled with carefully described characters that feel very real and alive. A Generation Novel in its very best form.
"Many geeks don't really have a sexuality - they just have work. I think the sequence is that they get jobs at Microsoft or wherever right out of school, and they're so excited to have this 'real' job and money that they just figure relationships will naturally happen, but then they wake up and they're thirty and they haven't had sex in eight years. [---] It's like male geeks don't know how to deal with real live women, so they just assume it's a user interface problem. Not their fault. They'll just wait for the next version to come out - something more 'user friendly'."
Paul Auster, 1992
The book begins with the line: 'Six days ago, a man blew himself up by the side of a road in northern Wisconsin'.
The man is the writer Benjamin Sachs and what follows is the tale of his life, told by one of his oldest friends, Peter Aaron, from when he first met him, 15 years ago, til the day he blew himself up. A completely amazing story full of unexpected twists and extraordinary turns, it's another one of those books that totally captures you from first page til last and leaves you disappointed that there isn't more when it's finished.
"He was awake by then, awake enough to feel the urge to stand up. He asked the girl if she was interested in eating breakfast, and when she answered that she was star- ving, he promptly rolled off the couch and put on his shoes, pleased to have this little job in front of him. They took turns using the downstairs bathroom, and once Sachs had emptied his bladder and splashed some water on his face, he moved on into the kitchen to begin. The first thing he saw there was the five thousand dollars - still sitting on the table, in the same spot where he had put it the night before."
Laura Hird, 1997
A collection of short stories, ranging from one about a ten-year-old boy dying from boredom, travelling around on the Edinburgh buses watching the people, to one about a thirty-something couple, dying from boredom, who decides to try partner-swapping to inject some life into a decaying relationship. Reminiscent in parts of Irvine Welsh, this is a well-written, funny book full of slightly twisted tales that may not yet compare with Welsh's, but definitely won't leave anyone dying of boredom.
Random Quote:
"I'm going to have my sweets now in case it gets busy. I got a Mars bar, crisps and a Twix with some of Scott's money. The Paki didnae have any Monster Munch so I had to get like normal shitey ones - fucking salt and vinegar as well, I dinnae even really like them. You crunch each crisp down though and store it in your cheek, then when you've got them all there you sook and sook all the flavour out then eat the soggy bit. It's brilliant. The only way to eat crisps, man."
Joe Queenan, 1994
A collection of articles by American film critic Joe Queenan, a man who seems to hate just about everyone who has ever been involved with a Hollywood movie. A total massacre of the Hollywood industry, extremely funny and entertaining, but could possibly be a bit tiring if you're not in the right mood or your mind is not constantly occupied by the thought of Christopher Reeves being slowly hacked to death with a small knife for his crimes to humanity (i.e. acting).
Random Quote:
"For centuries, Catholic theologians have vainly striven to solve two
seemingly unfathomable mysteries: How is it possible to reconcile the existence of a
merciful, loving God with the existence of people like Mickey Rourke? And if God is truly
all-knowing and all-powerful, an omnipotent force who can make the oceans swell and the
mountains tremble, why doesn't He do something about Daphne Zuniga?"
James Ellroy, 1988
Hard-boiled, 'crime noir' novels is something I don't know too much about but someone recommended this to me and I fell completely for it. Once you break through the thick wall of american 50's police slang and get into the story and the characters, it's an amazingly well-written, entertaining novel, violent and brutal a lot of the time, but underneath lurks a dark, intelligent story, a carefully constructed, surprising plot and a cast of complicated characters that are much more than the usual stereotypes.
"I said, 'When was the last time you saw your daughter, Mr. Short?'
'Betty came west in the spring of '43. Stars in her eyes and hanky-panky on her mind. I hadn't seen her since I left that dried-up old ginch of a wife of mine in Charlestown, Mass., on March 1 1930 A.D. and never looked back. But Betty wrote me and said she needed a flop, so I-'
Lee interrupted: 'Cut the travelogue, pop. When was the last time you saw Elizabeth?'
I said, 'Back off, partner. The man is cooperating. Go on, Mr. Short.'"
John Updike, 1990
The fourth book in the series about Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, spanning four decades of American history, takes place in 1989, and Harry finds himself getting old in a world in total chaos and with his personal life in shatters. Business as usual, in other words, in the Rabbit books.
Start with "Rabbit, Run", and you have four novels of incredibly well-written, fascinating reading in front of you. Some of the best books ever written about America, they say. And I believe them.
"Standing amid the tan, excited post-christmas crowd at the Southwest Florida Regional Airport, Rabbit Angstrom has a funny sudden feeling that what he has come to meet, what's floating in unseen about to land, is not his son Nelson and daughter-in-law Pru and their two children but something more ominous and intimately his: his own death, shaped vaguely like an airplane. The sensation chills him, above and beyond the terminal air-conditioning. But, then, facing Nelson has made him feel uneasy for thirty years."