155 Book Recommendations.

[milkbutnotsugar]

People often ask me for book recs, because I read a lot/I am a bookseller, so I thought I’d put together a list for those who want new ideas/want to read more in 2014/want to try other genres/want their bookshelves and bank accounts cry.

They’re divided roughly by genre (quick explanations of my interpretations the genre are provided so you know why I’ve put it there). Where possible (and if it’s not too spoilery for the plot), I’ve tried to remember to include basic triggers/squicks so you know what you’re getting into; if I haven’t included one and you get burned, I’m really sorry.

And now I’ve disclaimed the shit out of this, here, have some books I have read and enjoyed. It’s not an entirely comprehensive list and I’m only human, and therefore some books/authors won’t be here because I forgot to include them/I haven’t got to them yet/I hated them. Feel free to add more recs/thoughts in comments/reblogs/whatever medium we’re using this in.



Chicklit.
In other words, largely romantic/silly books about straight white people written for women. But applied in the right circumstances and at the right time, these are really enjoyable. Also, I’m really really picky about my chicklit, so these should be pretty good, for a certain value of “good”.

The She-Hulk Diaries - Marta Acosta.
My god, this was fun. Basically, it’s like Bridget Jones, only our heroine is Jennifer Walters, lawyer by day, She-Hulk by night. It’s got fab cameos from lots of others in the Marvel universe, and is hugely enjoyable and great. There’s another in this weird Marvel chicklit imprint thing, about Rogue, but I found that one fairly disappointing. This one was silly but worked and I hope there’s more like this!

Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe - Jenny Colgan.
I’ve enjoyed Jenny Colgan’s writing in the past, but now she’s found a niche writing about food shops, and I love them. Largely about the lovely female protagonists and their friends, with hints of romance, they’re a bit unlikely but the writing and characters are good, and they are the ultimate pick-me-up. If you like this (and you should; it’s wonderful) you should also read Welcome To Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop of Dreams and The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris. And in March there’s one coming out set in a bakery. Read them all.

Austenland - Shannon Hale.
I really wanted to see the movie of this one, but I missed it! Sigh. Anyway, this is the story of a young American woman who ends up with a special package holiday where she gets to spend time in a themed Jane Austen retreat – where she gets an entire new personality, Regency clothes, and new friends. Romantic, silly, and lovely.

Friday’s Child - Georgette Heyer.
I am reluctant to put my khaleesi Heyer into chicklit because everyone should read her, but anyway, she wrote actually historical Regency romance novels with wonderful heroines and often faily heroes, and if you’re ever a bit sad you should immediately apply like five Heyers to the problem, but this one is my favourite – I’ve read it at least once a year, every year, since I was 16 – because it’s sweet and has huge amounts of failboat young people in it being ridiculous. I also recommend The Grand Sophy, Sylvester and A Civil Contract, but to be honest, literally all her books are wonderful, and I adore them.

I’ve Got Your Number - Sophie Kinsella.
I thought I didn’t like Sophie Kinsella, but it turns out I just find her Shopaholic series really stressful (oh my gosh stop buying things) and her other novels are actually lots of charming fun. This one is my favourite – through an implausible set of circumstances, our heroine acquires a phone belonging to our hero’s business, and they end up texting each other about their lives and helping each other out with problems. It’s adorable and romantic and super fun. If you liked this one, Can You Keep A Secret? is vaguely similar and also lovely.

The Nanny Diaries - Nicole Krauss & Emma McLaughlin.
I’ve read this a few too many times, but this is a lovely, if kind of heartbreaking, story of a live-in nanny to rich New Yorkers. Sort of like The Devil Wears Prada, but with toddlers. Bonus: there’s a film version with ScarJo and Chris Evans.

Don’t Want To Miss A Thing - Jill Mansell.
My favourite cliché: our ludicrously hot party boy hero ends up having to raise his sister’s baby daughter, moving into a little village to try and achieve it. Hot men with babies and BFFs who apparently “look like Idris Elba” (yes please) and a lovely heroine too. Self-indulgent tropes, but done well.

Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl - Tracy Quan.
Oh my gosh, I loved this. Written by an actual ex prostitute, this is a hugely enjoyable, smart and sexy novel about a, well, Manhattan call girl trying to keep her work and personal lives separate. And it’s the first one in a series!

Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann.
Pure, delicious, trash. I have read this book an awkward number of times since I was 14, and it remains amazing and dreadful in equal amounts, as our sparky heroines looking for fame in the 1940s inexorably slide into pill addiction and madness. Seriously, it’s so great.

The Moneypenny Diaries: Guardian Angel - Kate Westbrook.
Someone in the Ian Fleming estate had the bright idea of getting someone to write Miss Moneypenny’s diaries during the various James Bond escapades – though she also gets to live her own life here. Just hugely enjoyable, exciting and fun.

Classics.
I spent a whole bunch of my teenage years deciding to read loads of classics, regardless of whether I understood what was going on or not, so here’s a few I loved and that hopefully won’t take you eight hundred years to read.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen.
This is still my favourite book of all time, and I’m standing by it. You’ve probably seen at least one of the adaptations, but the book remains smart, witty, and hugely romantic. I just love Austen’s writing – she’s hilarious and creates wonderful characters that I just adore. My other favourites are Persuasion and Emma, if you’re a bit Darcy-d out, but you should absolutely read her.

Fanny Hill - John Cleland.
Published in 1749 and still capable of making me blush, this is a bawdy, filthy and hugely enjoyable saga of a young prostitute’s, er, adventures. Considered one of the first erotic novels and frequently and regularly banned since publication, it’s much dirtier than I was expecting, and it’s lots of fun.

The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas.
Did you know Alexandre Dumas was a POC? I only learned this recently and it’s super cool. Anyway, random trivia aside, I fucking love this book (that I obviously read in translation). It’s a super fun adventure story that whips along, with a gloriously nasty female villain, and fabulously arrogant swashbuckling heroes. It’s just stupidly enjoyable, really.

North & South - Elizabeth Gaskell.
Okay, having just expounded my love of Pride & Prejudice, I just have to say that this is a similar thing, but possibly even better, and certainly sexier. Margaret Hale has to move up North with her family, where she finds herself embroiled in the horrifying working conditions of the local mill workers. And she also draws the attention of the Terribly Fucking Damaged Mr Thornton, a local mill owner, who makes Darcy look well-adjusted. I love this book so much. And also the TV drama was the first place I ever encountered Richard Armitage, which, yeah. Get yourself a DVD copy too.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo.
This is not the Disney version: it is maybe the most upsetting thing in the world. But it’s also an amazing read, vivid and evocative and unbearably moving, a stunning imagining of Medieval Paris. And also an option if you maybe read half of Les Miserables, misplaced your copy, and by the time you found it again weren’t ready to start from the beginning, but would still like to read some Victor Hugo.

Philosophy in the Bedroom - Marquis de Sade.
My mum bought me a secondhand copy of this when I was 15, told me never to talk to her about it, and handed it over. It’s an eye-opening and periodically ridiculous series of scripted scenes set during the sexual corruption of a young woman, with some stuff about how much organised religion tossed in in between the orgies. De Sade is where we get “sadism” from, so, you know, there’s everything in here. It’s ludicrous and graphic and kind of horrifying, as well as physically improbable, in places, but it’s a fun experience.

Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray.
Becky Sharp is maybe my favourite female character in fiction ever – she’s a gloriously self-serving social climber who tramples her way up the societal ladder and always lands on her feet, no matter who she has to screw over to ensure that that’s the case. A biting satire of early 19th century Britain, this is a sweeping and glorious saga of everyone caught up in Becky’s frantic web.

Crime.
I don’t actually read that much crime fiction, and have only really started to read it in recent years, so not much in here.

The Gods of Gotham - Lyndsay Faye.
Gosh, I loved this. A dark, harrowing and stunningly written novel that is sadly not about Batman, set in the 19th century New York. It’s vivid and gorgeous, filled with characters I adored and a central character with fabulous amounts of manpain and an amazing fractured relationship with his brother that literally had me clawing my face. Anyway: a multi-layered murder mystery in a richly detailed historical setting. So glad that there’s more.

One For the Money - Janet Evanovich.
Apparently, now the books have got to something like seventeen, she’s sort of phoning them in, but I have no intention of reading that far, so this was fine. Fun, trashy crime with a fabulous female heroine, though I feel I should mention there’s some attempted rape and really nasty violence against women that no one warned me about and it was pretty horrible.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn.
This ended up being one of those “books of the year” things where we sell hundreds of copies, so I actually read it, and I can see why. Nick’s wife has gone missing and the clues are slowly starting to stack up against him – but did he kill her? You’ll see some parts of this coming and other parts you won’t; a twisted, fucked-up psychological thriller with glorious writing.

The Yard - Alex Grecian.
Possibly the author of this Ripper Street-esque Victorian murder mystery novel didn’t want me flooding twitter with hysterical things saying ALL THE POLICEMEN ARE SO ADORBS, I LOVE THEM, but he dutifully found me and retweeted them anyway. So: a book about the police departments set up after the Ripper cases, full of policemen (and their other halves) that I loved, and grimy streets full of crazed lesbian prostitutes and scary child kidnappers. A couple of Americanisms have slid through the editing process, but on the whole this is an exciting and believable Victorian London mystery.

Miss Fisher Investigates - Kerry Greenwood. (Also goes by Cocaine Blues.)
So, we’re all enjoying this delicious television series, right? I decided to read the first in the series and it was silly and fun, full of frothy descriptions of dresses and parties and lots of tea. It’s not brilliantly written, but it’s enjoyable, a little bit naughty, and excellent escapism. Having said that, I got pretty angry about how they used a woman’s pathological fear of rape to manipulate her at the end, so, keep your eyes open.

Heresy - S.J. Parris.
The first in a series of clever and fun Tudor murder mysteries set around the real-life figure of Giordano Bruno, disgraced monk and scholar. He’s a fabulous main character, all charismatic and clever and sexy – ahem – and I really like these books; the writing is great, the plotting intricate and the characters well-drawn. And also there’s lots of homoerotic tension between Bruno and his BFF, the poet Philip Sidney, which I cannot in any way cope with.

Hawthorn & Child - Keith Ridgway.
Heads-up: I had nightmares. This is… difficult to describe, but it’s a set of shortish vignettes tied together by the presence of two policemen trying to bring down a mafia killer. So, there are crimes, but you never find out who actually perpetrated them, and the whole book has a dreamlike, hallucinogenic quality so you’re never sure what actually happened. It’s very, very violent and dark – we’re talking graphic atrocities up to and including dead babies – and incredibly strange, but also really moving and the writing is absolutely stunning. The scene that alternates between a riot and a gay orgy is particularly amazing. I just have endless things to stay about this book, but it’s an acquired taste, so, be careful.

I, Claudia - Marilyn Todd.
I first read this years ago, and it was a real pain the arse tracking down a copy recently, and NOW they’re all on kindle. Sigh. Anyway, this is a really fun series set in Ancient Rome, based around Claudia Seferius, our sexy, self-serving heroine. In this first one, she becomes a high-class hooker/dominatrix to keep her gambling debts from her husband, but her clients start turning up dead. Silly, but decently written, and very, very good fun.

Cult.
I’m not sure how to describe this bit; I’m loath to just call it “pretentious, whiny or violent novels largely teenage boys buy in my shop to look cool”, but, it’s books of that ilk, I guess. You know, the stuff that heavily influenced early Panic! At The Disco and so forth.

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks.
Wow, I did not see the end of this coming at all. Dark and unsettling, about a teenage boy on a remote island who performs strange ritualistic experiments on animals – having grown out of murdering other children – and seems to be ruled by his paganistic “wasp factory” (I won’t tell you what it is; that would ruin the surprise/horror), this is a thought-provoking and perfectly-paced novel that kept me frantically turning pages.

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess.
I have never been grown-up enough to see the film of this, so I can’t comment on what it’s like or how it compares. However, this is dark, fascinating and clever. Trigger warnings for lots of violence and rape, although the graphic details are lessened a little by the fact it’s written in nadsat, which takes a bit of getting used to. Horrorshow.

Shampoo Planet - Douglas Coupland.
I was like thirteen the first time I read most of his novels, so god knows what I actually got out of them! This one’s my favourite, about a young man who has an emotional breakdown and goes on a roadtrip across America, armed with an ill-advised former fling from Europe and a mountain of his favourite haircare products. If you liked this one, I also recommend J-Pod and Miss Wyoming by him, though loads of his are good/super weird.

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis.
I feel I maybe read this just to be able to say that I’d read it, but there’s no denying that it’s a fucked-up, fascinating journey into a rapidly unravelling mind. I’ve heard the film takes a slightly more humorous view (though a pretentious reader I worked with at Christmas told me that he found all the satire etc really really funny, so, you might also find the book hilarious) but bear in mind this contains several-page-long scenes of incredibly gruesome and graphic violence, largely against women, so tread carefully.

The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides.
The title acts as a trigger warning, I guess. A sad, dreamlike novel of adolescence, lost loves (or lusts) and imagined desires, from the collective point of view of the teenage boys of a small town, yearning for the mysterious girls who eventually meet such tragic ends.

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.
One of the original, brilliant dystopian future books. Unsettling partly because the hierarchy makes sense until it doesn’t, this is sharp, angry and oddly prophetic.

The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin.
This is a tiny little book, and one I found much more chilling than I expected to when I decided to actually read it. Stepford Wife is one of those phrases that’s entered the vernacular, and the bits of the recent film I’ve seen look horrendous, but the book is actually very unsettling, the tension spooled out perfectly to the final, awful conclusion.

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov.
Yes, this will fucking creep you out, but the writing is stunning. So tread carefully, and it’s… an experience.

Invisible Monsters - Chuck Palahniuk
Probably my favourite of Palahniuk’s books, this is a fascinating exploration of beauty, family and gender. It’s dark as all hell and funny and gruesome and full-on, twisting and turning as it goes, and I couldn’t put it down. I also recommend Fight Club, Lullaby (depending on your dead kid mileage), Damned (fairly full-on for bodily fluids) and Haunted (tread really carefully with this one; I told a colleague about it and she had nightmares. Plus it contains the infamous fainting story).

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath.
A disquieting and gorgeous story of a young woman’s mental health decline, I should probably stop summarising it as “brilliant, but much less lesbian-y than I was told it would be” because this is so much more than that. If you haven’t read it yet, you absolutely should.

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut.
Strange and beautiful and moving, this is a story about war and its effect on people. And also alien zoos. I can’t promise I understood all of it, but it’s stunning.

Fiction.
Not sure what to call this bit really; it’s the stuff that doesn’t fit in the other more-specific sections really! So, fiction, literature, etc etc.

How I Paid For College - Marc Acito.
A farcical, filthy and fabulous coming of age story, as our hero figures out himself and his sexuality while trying to get the money to get into Juilliard. There’s lots of sex and money laundering and dressing up as nuns, great characters, and an increasingly ridiculous plot that will have you screaming with laughter. One of those ones I just want to shove in everyone’s faces.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood.
I basically want to rec loads of her books here, but this is my favourite and I’ve read it a lot of times, so let’s have this one. The tale of a disturbing totalitarian near-future where women are segregated into a hierarchy and then forced to bear children as fertility falls, it’s gripping, upsetting and gorgeously written. If you like/love this, you should also read her Madaddam trilogy, set in a post-apocalyptic future riddled with the aftereffects of genetic modification, and technically starting with Oryx & Crake, though I think you can read them in any order.

Hope: A Tragedy - Shalom Auslander.
The humour in this is absolutely pitch black, and as a non-Jewish person I often wondered if I was allowed to be laughing at it, but this is the deliciously dark (pay attention to that title) tale of a middle-aged Jewish man who discovers Anne Frank living in his attic. And it’s all downhill from there.

Hello Kitty Must Die - Angela S. Choi.
This is a very dark, very crude, very funny book about a Chinese-American woman and her best friend, who happens to be a serial killer. Fi’s parents just want her to get married, though she is absolutely against the idea, and then her blind dates start dying… It’s a comedy of manners with a pitch-black undertone, and an enjoyably empowering asexual heroine.

The Pirates! In An Adventures With Scientists. - Gideon Defoe.
Your life needs this series of books in your life. They are very very silly, but clever enough to fall on the right side of silly, and so painfully funny you need to read them indoors so that you can ugly laugh to your heart’s content. The next best one, after this one, is The Pirates! In An Adventure With Romantics, where they hang out with Byron and Shelley, but all five of this series are magnificent.

A Visit From The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan.
I’m a bit suspicious of the ending, to be honest, but it’s worth including this because it’s an amazingly cool example of what can still be done with fiction. A time, place and person jumping word-association of a narrative – my favourite is the chapter told in powerpoint slides – this is moving, thought-provoking and smart.

Chaplin & Company - Mave Fellowes.
A melancholy and sometimes gut-wrenching book, this is the story of a would-be mime artist who moves onto a decrepit houseboat on the Thames in the hope of finding her absent father. It’s also the story of the houseboat, through the years. And the story of the waifs and strays around the water, as their lives intersect. Beautiful and sad and enthralling.

Tender Is The Night - F. Scott. Fitzgerald.
Obviously, if you haven’t read Gatsby, do so, but this is my favourite Fitzgerald. The tragic story of a marriage falling apart under the strain of mental illness. Beautifully written, desperately sad, and painfully dark, it’s meant to be fairly autobiographical, mirroring the mess of Scott and Zelda.

About A Boy - Nick Hornby.
Everyone’s seen the film with baby Nicholas Hoult, but the book is actually really enjoyable too: funny and moving and warm. I also really recommend High Fidelity, although it probably helps to have a vague knowledge of 90s Britpop.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka.
Does not do what it says on the tin. I can’t remember how I ended up picking this up, because it’s not my usual type of book, but I was utterly blown away. Nadezhda’s octogenarian father falls for a young, gold-digging divorcee, and she and her sister must step in to stop him making a horrible mistake, unearthing family secrets as they do so. It’s a wonderful, grotesque novel about family ties: hilarious, moving and ultimately uplifting.

Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin.
The first in a truly brilliant series, I have no idea if everyone still reads these or not, so I’m including them. Basically, these are the chronicles of a group of people who live in a ramshackle apartment building in 1970s San Francisco. Clever, funny, moving, addictive and just plain glorious, they’re important in terms of LGBT fiction but also just in terms of being bloody great books.

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell.
I went into this book of interlocking narratives knowing nothing about it, so if you also know nothing I won’t spoil it for you (and no, I haven’t seen the movie of this one either). The writing is gorgeous and the plots, characters and genres are all perfectly depicted, though I can’t help but think it’s not as clever as everyone says it is. Is that bitchy? Anyway, genre-busting, fascinating, and moving.

A Tale For The Time Being - Ruth Ozeki.
A beautiful intertwining narrative of a woman who finds the diary of a girl in Japan just before the tsunami hit. Stunning, sad, and thought-provoking, this drags you on an inexorable, fascinating journey. Possible trigger warnings for those with daddy issues or depression: I seem to have found this much more harrowing than loads of reviewers did!

Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre.
This is the story of a small town torn apart by a high school massacre, and of the teenage boy they pin the blame on. It’s dark, crude, in-your-face and relentless, written like being punched in the face, and hilarious even as you wince while the screws are turned.

The Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick.
As is so often the case, I’ve read the book but not seen the film, so I can’t compare them. I really enjoyed this book – tread carefully if you or a loved one have mental health issues, because this pulls no punches, but it’s a surprisingly uplifting, unusual romance of people struggling to find themselves and some kind of stability in the world.

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys.
My other favourite novel of all time, I always find it a little difficult to like people once they’ve told me they didn’t enjoy it. I’ve read it so much I can recite huge passages. Basically, it’s the prequel to Jane Eyre, about Rochester’s first wife and their mess of a marriage; I actually read this before I read Eyre, so you don’t need to have read that. It’s a slender book, but the words are exquisite and beautiful, heartbreaking and destructive. It’s a story about madness and love and the destroying and freeing qualities of both; dark as it gets, and stunning.

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets - Eva Rice.
The first time I read this, my mum bought me a copy for Christmas, and I then proceeded to read it that day, utterly ignoring my family, the food, and the TV. It’s a warm, sad, hilarious, sumptuously written account of a young woman growing up in the 1950s, of her eccentric and unhelpful family, and of the new friends she makes and the paths they go on. Like being wrapped in a blanket, it’s wonderful stuff.

What In God’s Name - Simon Rich.
A quick but thoroughly enjoyable read, this is about two workaholic angels in Heaven Inc who team up to stop God from getting bored and demolishing earth to open an Asian-fusion restaurant by trying to get two socially inept humans together. As ridiculous and hilarious as it sounds.

Snake Ropes - Jess Richards.
Strange, dreamlike and disturbing, this is about two young women on an isolated island in what I think might be a postapocalyptic future, but which equally might not be. It’s beautifully written, moving and thought-provoking, twined with magic, ghosts and possession. Trigger warnings for abusive parents and underage rape.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple.
I don’t have my original copy of this anymore because I passed it on to a friend who passed it on to a friend who passed it on to a friend; it’s the sort of book you read and then want to give to everyone you know. It does deal with depression and issues relating to it, which I found tricky in places, but is largely a funny, quirky, unusual and just plain fabulous book about a fifteen-year-old’s search for her missing architect mother.

I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith.
A warm and heartbreaking coming-of-age story, I think this, more than almost any other book, has shaped the way I view the world and the way I want to write romance. Sharp, clever, funny, sad and bittersweet, this is about growing up, about family, about falling in love, about redemption, about life. Beautiful and perfect, I think it’s an essential part of growing up, but if you haven’t read it yet, you should absolutely do so now.

The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan.
I wept buckets, oh my gosh. If you haven’t already watched the movie (which I love), this is Chinese women who have moved to America, and their fraught relationships with their Chinese-American daughters. Moving, beautiful and utterly engrossing, this is one of those lovely books about women, family and culture that I just want to press on everyone.

Sense & Sensibility - Joanna Trollope.
I’m as suspicious as anyone about this plan to rewrite all Austen’s books set in the modern day, but this first book from the project is actually really really good – cleverly updated, while still staying true to the spirit of the original. I found myself talking aloud to it in public and grinning at the page. Warm, witty and romantic.

The Color Purple - Alice Walker.
Set in the deep South, this is one of those books that everyone should read at least once. It’s devastating and uplifting in equal amounts, a story of despair and hope, of the power of female love and friendship.

What Ho, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse.
If you want to read these in order, then you can figure out what on earth the first one is. This is my favourite of the Jeeves and Wooster series, hugely entertaining and screamingly hilarious books about a charming if somewhat useless young man, and his clever valet who has to sort out all the scrapes he gets into. This one’s got a country house filled with terrible matchmaking, and it’s glorious.

Historical.
Anything set pre about 1970, really. There’s some stuff from other genres mixed in here, but, you know, basically stuff set in periods without ipods.

The Teleportation Accident - Ned Beauman.
The tagline on the back is the frankly glorious: history happened while you were hungover. Set (loosely) from the drugged-up Weimar Republic to Hollywood in the 40s, this is a gloriously confused novel that’s a little bit historical, a little bit sci-fi, a little bit romantic, and a lot darkly humorous as it follows its gloriously unlikeable protagonist on what is essentially a very convoluted quest to get laid. I laughed out loud in public for far too much of it.

City of Thieves - David Benioff.
Set in Russia during the siege of Leningrad, this is based on the true story of what happened to Benioff’s grandfather. Lev, a shy teenage chess player, and Kolya, a charismatic soldier, end up facing an impossible quest: in a city where people are eating their own shoes to survive, they must somehow find a dozen eggs for a NKVD colonel, or die. Utterly engrossing, bittersweet, sad, funny and unforgettable, I cannot recommend this enough. Also: David Benioff writes for Game of Thrones. Yeah. Just putting that out there.

The Boticelli Secret - Marina Fiorato.
I read this on holiday, so, it’s light and silly and a bit like historical Dan Brown but actually readable and enjoyable, it features a medieval monk and a prostitute going on the run in Renaissance Italy, unravelling clues in a stolen half-finished copy of Boticelli’s Primavera painting. Exactly as ridiculous and fun as it sounds.

Wideacre - Philippa Gregory.
I’ve never read her Tudor stuff, but this seventeenth-century incest saga was ridiculous and really, really enjoyable. Her writing isn’t great but is readable, and yeah, BDSM siblings shagging. And then other really awful stuff happens and they are awful to other people and the main character is a poisonous bitch, although you can’t help but root for her. Looking forward to the second book though, which by the look of things will feature more incest and being terrible to each other.

Pure - Andrew Miller.
This became one of my favourite books of all time shortly after I read it. Set in Paris in 1785, with revolution whispering in the air, a young engineer comes to the city to demolish its oldest cemetery. Dark, disturbing, oppressive and ugly (trigger warning for rape and violence), this is one of those books where I found myself crying while I read it for no reason. The writing is utterly, utterly stunning, and the whole book has a dreamlike, hallucinatory quality: I once looked up to find it was two in the morning and I had no idea how it had got there. One of those very rare, perfect novels.

Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell.
First off: it’s incredibly, incredibly racist, sexist, and all-round offensive. I’m acknowledging that it’s problematic, that Rhett essentially rapes Scarlett at one point, and that black people are treated horrendously by the characters, the narrative and the author. It is also a stunning, unputdownable Civil War epic that I utterly devoured; if you can cope with the deeply problematic sections, it’s definitely worth reading.

Fool - Christopher Moore.
I’m putting this in historical, even though its historical voice goes a bit wavery in places! Basically, this is a retelling of King Lear from the point of view of his fool; it’s incredibly filthy, incredibly funny, and manages to have an actually happy ending.

Beloved - Toni Morrison.
Disturbing, sad and scary, this explores the ending of slavery, and the impact it had on those who suffered under it, as the baby who died at her mother’s hands returns to claim her revenge. Vivid, evocative and devastating.

Tipping The Velvet - Sarah Waters.
I tend to assume everyone’s read this, but just in case you haven’t, this is the definitive Victorian Lesbians Novel (and yes, there actually are a bunch of them). Dirty, sexy, funny and sad, the writing is exquisite, the characters wonderful, the settings grimy and opulent by turns. If you liked this, I also recommend Fingersmith, which has more Victorian lesbians, but a twisting, turning mystery plot of manipulation.

The Sisters Brothers - Patrick DeWitt.
Basically, this is the saddest book ever written, or at least it feels that way. This is a cowboy story set during the Gold Rush, with a pair of assassin brothers on their last job. It’s a thoughtful, upsetting narrative, awash with awful happenings, violence and death, but the writing is incredible and I read it in one sitting.

In Translation.
Wasn’t sure how to sum this up; some of them I’ve read in actual translation (since I don’t read any other languages), and some were written in English but in cultures/countries that aren’t, like, the UK or North America. Hope that’s clear enough!

Twinkle Twinkle - Kaori Ekuni.
It’s been about a decade since I first read this, but it’s stayed with me all that time. A tale of a marriage of convenience in Japan, between a gay man and a mentally unstable woman, it’s thought-provoking, touching and gripping.

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini.
I’ll admit that I haven’t read The Kite Runner yet, but this is the one that I feel everyone should read. Centred around the tormented lives of women in Afghanistan, it’s utterly heartbreaking, beautifully but brutally written, and I think essential reading for everyone.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson.
I didn’t actually expect to enjoy this, but I really did. Sparsely, cleverly written, thought-provoking, dark and filled with unexpectedly endearing characters, this is a violent, gripping novel with mysteries wrapping themselves. Contains (that well-publicised) rape, and really pretty violence against both humans and animals.

The Boy With The Cuckoo-Clock Heart - Mathias Malzieu.
Does what it says on the tin. A strange little story about a boy whose life is saved by a cuckoo clock being attached to his malfunctioning heart, but who can never fall in love in case the clock breaks. Probably something to read if it falls into your path rather than going and hunting it down, this is still a sweet and weird little book.

There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbour’s Baby - Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.
A collection of strange, scary Russian short stories. They have one foot in fantasy and one foot in reality and leave you with a very weird feeling if you read them all in one sitting, as I think they’re supposed to. Brilliant stuff.

Wrecked - Charlotte Roche.
I’m probably supposed to recommend her first book – Wetlands – here, the read-through-your-fingers narrative of a young woman obsessed with sex and eating her own bodily fluids (no, really; there’s some amazing scenes with tampons) but I actually enjoyed this one more. It’s still crude, shocking and graphic, about a woman’s attempt to hold her life together after a horrifying accident happened to her family eight years before, but is more enjoyable and has much more heart than Wetlands did. Either way, you’ll get plenty of bodily functions and sex, so consider yourselves warned.

Kitchen. - Banana Yoshimoto.
I was always going to read something by the author with the greatest name ever, but I’m so glad that I did; this is an absolutely beautiful, short little book with two separate stories contained in it, linked thematically. Even in translation, this is gorgeously atmospheric, sad and thought-provoking and lovely.


Non-Fiction.
When it comes to non-fiction books, my interests are fairly random and varied and I’ve only started reading it in the last couple of years, so I can’t promise you’ll be interested in any of these, but all of them are fascinating and fun.

Shapely Ankle Preferr’d - Francesca Beauman.
How’s this for random: this history of lonely hearts columns! From the early advertising for marriage in the 17th century to the present day, this is fun, intriguing, and ridiculously enjoyable.

The Antidote - Oliver Burkeman.
As a long-term depressive, I was curious about anything describing itself as happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking, and although I’m not sure this has fixed my life, it was a really fascinating read. Burkeman went around testing out lots of the popular self-help techniques – from going on a meditation retreat to hanging out with Eckhart Tolle – with really interesting results.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake - Sloane Crosley.
An honest, wry and hilarious collection of essays about modern life that are not only huge fun to dip into, but also made me feel a little better about my own ridiculous faily moments.

Metrostop: Paris - Gregor Dallas.
Not the book to go to if you want a detailed history of the city/its inhabitants, this is still a fun, quirky look at the literary and cultural history of Paris based around the locations of different metro stations. Interesting, joyfully written and good to dip in and out of.

Beautiful People - Simon Doonan.
There’s a fun BBC sitcom that has basically nothing to do with the book based on this that’s worth tracking down, but anyway. This is a fabulous autobiography of the man who would later become Barneys’ “creative ambassador” (whatever that is), growing up with his crazed family in Reading, nursing big city dreams. It’s funny and touching and increasingly ridiculous, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Wisdom of Psychopaths - Kevin Dutton.
Although it gets a little repetitive in places, this is a really interesting investigation into exactly what a psychopath is, and which psychopathic mental qualities actually make your life easier. There’s a few accounts of murderous/violent psychopaths, of course, but it’s not too graphic, so if that’s not your thing, you can still read it.

Just My Type - Simon Garfield.
This is a fun history of lots of popular and public typefaces – why they were chosen, how they were created, and the weird stories behind the typographers. Plus: why everyone hates Comic Sans.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - Mindy Kaling.
So, if you aren’t watching The Mindy Project, you should be, because it is the best TV. Ahem. Anyway, this is Mindy Kaling’s memoirs of how she got to this point, and they are clever and funny and have given me my new life motto: sometimes you just have to put on lipgloss and pretend to be psyched.

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady - Florence King.
This book is just absolutely magnificent, I choked on laughter and I choked on tears. Florence King’s memoirs of her grandmother’s failed attempts to make perfect Southern Belles out of her and her mother are screamingly funny and incredibly moving. A tale of growing up in the South, of fighting for an education, of bisexuality, of feminism, of an incredible woman. I seriously just want all of you to read this.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened - Jenny Lawson.
If you follow @TheBloggess on twitter, this is her book/autobiography. And it’s amazing. Like, read it literally crying and screaming with laughter and then buying it for everyone you know funny. I seriously can’t recommend this highly enough.

Murder on the Home Front - Molly LeFebure.
Written in the 1950s, these are the memoirs of the secretary of a London coroner during WWII. It’s an eye-opening account of what everyday life was like during the Blitz, interspersed with fascinating and sad stories of the crime victims they investigated. Given the time period, some of the views she holds about women are kind of offensive, but it didn’t detract too much from an unexpectedly wonderful book.

Cuckoo In The Nest - Nat Luurtsema.
An incredibly funny book for the current financial climate, Nat is a struggling comic who ends up having to move back in with her eccentric parents. It’s painfully, wonderfully hilarious and witty, so much so that probably don’t read it in public. Trigger warnings for a (skippable) chapter on a past eating disorder.

Supergods - Grant Morrison.
Be warned: somewhere in the last third of this book, when he starts talking about all the drugs he took and the mental journeys he went on and then maybe tried to turn into comics, you will want to punch Morrison in the face. Maybe several times. However, that doesn’t mean that this biography of superheroes – how they first appeared in print, how they’ve changed as the public have changed, how we’ve changed as they’ve changed – isn’t worth reading. Pretentious as all hell, but really enjoyable and – for the most part – absolutely fascinating.

Desperate Romantics - Franny Moyle.
This one is about the decadent and ridiculous lives of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, their lovers, models, and hangers-on. It’s fun and fascinating in its own right, though even better if you read this and then go watch the BBC TV drama it inspired, which is silly and glorious. Either way, most of my favourite paintings are Pre-Raphaelite, and the lives of the artists are gloriously complex and tragic and backstabby.

Adventures With The Wife In Space - Neil Perryman.
Neil Perryman decided to show his wife every single episode of Doctor Who in existence. He’s been a lifelong Whovian, she’s… got nothing better to do. They wrote a hilarious blog about the experience, and this is the book about it, as well as about being a lifelong Whovian, being insulted by Colin Baker, and coping with the 15 years it vanished off the air. It’s probably best if you have a working knowledge of classic Who (i.e Doctors 1-8) to read this, btw.

Julie & Julia - Julie Powell.
Well, the film of this book is like a big warm blanket, and the book is much like that, albeit with a handful of razorblades hidden inside. It’s sharp and funny and sad and sumptuous, and I loved it a lot. Word of advice: don’t google what Julie went on to do next, because it’ll basically ruin the whole book.

Sirens - Tom Reynolds. (Blood, Sweat and Tea vols 1 and 2)
This is the tidied-up blog of a London Ambulance paramedic, and I ended up devouring the whole thing over a weekend. By turns funny, frustrating, upsetting and uplifting, it’s an interesting window into what it’s actually like to work in the emergency services, sans all the TV drama gloss.

Notes To Boys and Other Things I Shouldn’t Share In Public - Pamela Ribon.
I’m not sure when this is coming out, but anyway, it’s screamingly funny and a little sad. Pamela spent her teenage years writing angsty, pretentious letters to the objects of her affection, and has copies of many of them. There’s an amount of secondhand embarrassment, of course, but it’s absolutely hilarious and weirdly moving. Trigger warnings for some relationship violence and carefully-handled references to child molestation: however, the essay on victim-blaming Ribon writes is worth the price of the book alone.

Bonk - Mary Roach.
Definitely not for the squeamish and faint-hearted, this is a fascinating, laugh-out-loud account of the physicalities of sex and how those are scientifically investigated. Roach is wonderfully immersed in her subject, gleefully volunteering herself (and her poor husband) for experiments and travelling to sex machine shows and pig breeding farms. You’ll want to read some parts through your fingers and tell everyone you know other parts, but again, this is very full-on, so be careful.

Bluestockings - Jane Robinson.
One of those books you want to make every woman everywhere read, this is about the first women to fight for a university education. It’s sad in places, and maddening in others, but Robinson is a wonderful writer and researcher and it’s just a fantastic read. Just have some tissues to hand – it’s often almost unbearably moving, and I tweeted a single page that made a bunch of people on my feed cry. Just – go get one of these.

The Men Who Stare At Goats - Jon Ronson.
I wasn’t sure I’d be that interested in the insane things the US army has done as part of the War on Terror, and then I was halfway through this book laughing my head off in part horror and part delight. This is incredibly funny and, if you think about it, incredibly unsettling, but above that, it’s just hugely enjoyable. Ronson is a great writer and why wouldn’t you want to learn about telepathic – or otherwise – soldiers?

At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream - Wade Rouse.
With that title, how could I not read this? Rouse decided to move himself and his boyfriend into a cabin in the middle of nowhere in order to try and live more like Thoreau, with a variety of disastrous, hilarious and touching consequences. Rouse is deliciously acid-tongued and not afraid to poke fun at himself, whether frantically fighting off a racoon with lip balm and breath spray, or attempting to feed ducks bedecked in designer gear. Amongst other things, this book has taught me that there’s no way I’d survive outside a city.

The Bling Ring - Nancy Jo Sales.
Forgot to see this movie too, oops. This book is for when you want to read what feels a lot like an extended magazine article, without putting too much effort in. That’s not to disparage it: it’s frothy and fun and utterly ridiculous when you realise what these teenagers did to the celebrities they robbed and to each other afterwards. You’ll want to shake all of them.

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris.
A series of essays about Sedaris’ childhood, life, and decision to move to France despite only speaking a handful of the language. Candid, brutally honest, incredibly funny and often sharply touching, this is a glorious collection that I dipped in and out of for days, delighted by his sharp tongue and observant eye.

Behind The Candelabra - Scott Thorson.
I don’t even know that much about Liberace and this was a fucking brilliant read. Like, it’s an unputdownable horrifying rollercoaster from start to finish (the bit where he gets plastic surgery to actually look like Liberace is maybe my favourite part) but also surprisingly moving in places. Mostly, though, I have to apply the phrase batshit insane to most of the content.

SF/Fantasy/Horror (and subgenres)
I can’t be bothered to define all these separately, but they’ve all got something a bit otherworldly/unusual in them.

Turbulence - Samit Basu.
Although a little muddled in places, this is a ridiculously fun superhero romp that’s a bit like the good first season of Heroes, except that everyone receiving incredible powers is Indian. It makes a refreshing change from whiny white guys with their great powers and responsibilities, and I am very excited to read the sequel at some point.

The Corpse-Rat King - Lee Battersby.
A delicious fantasy romp about a thief and con-artist accidentally turned into a zombie, and doomed to stay that way unless he manages to find the Undead a king, this is creepy and funny and clever, sort of like Pratchett with horror in it.

Breathers - S.G. Browne.
Andy and Rita meet at an Undead Anonymous meeting in a world where zombies are barely tolerated, expected to live in the basements of their put-upon former loved ones and keep their heads down. What ensues is a blackly funny and moving love story and journey of self-discovery, though I’m going to tell you what I wish that I’d known before reading: this doesn’t have a happy ending.

Soulless - Gail Carriger.
The first in one of those stupidly enjoyable series that you want to shove at everyone. Victoriana steampunk with vampires and werewolves, these centre around kickass heroine Alexia Tarabotti and a secret supernatural investigative organisation. You’ll fall in love with bloody everyone in the Parasol Protectorate series, there’s plenty of gay and lesbian characters, and the women are all awesome. Basically, scoop up all five and get on with it.

The Woodcutter - Kate Danley.
A blend of fairytales and folklore, this is an atmospheric, creative and thoughtful fairy story about a Woodcutter whose job it is to protect the magical forest in which he resides. When he finds a dead woman identifiable only by her chipped glass shoes, he finds himself drawn into a plot to bring down the forest altogether. Haunting, beautiful and clever.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick.
Dick’s writing quality varies wildly, but there’s no denying that his imagination is awesome (and unsettling). This is my favourite of his, a darker, sadder story than the one in Bladerunner, about a man hunting down robots in a future where it’s uncertain what is and isn’t alive. Other great ones that’ll do your head in are A Scanner Darkly and Flow, My Tears, The Policeman Said.

The Last Werewolf - Glen Duncan.
Sort of like American Psycho, with werewolves. Violent, gory, sexy and graphic, Jacob Marlowe is about to kill himself rather than face one more full moon – then everything changes. And Amazon has just informed me that this is one of a trilogy, so that’s good.

Luck In The Shadows - Lynn Flewelling.
I’ve only read two and a half books in this series, so I can’t say either way if they get super weird later on, but anyway, ignore the dreadful nineties covers, this is the exciting and glorious series I ended up summing up to people as “gay magic spies” (while my coworkers asked questions like how do even you find these things). The characters are wonderful, and the world-building is excellent, and there’s a fabulous slow burning romance there too. So. Go get on these.

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman.
This steadfastly remains my favourite of all his books: a creative reimagining of a London underworld where people slip through the cracks to become part of a glorious and terrifying world. It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s got the greatest characters and a wonderfully imaginary city built around taking tube stations literally. If you haven’t read him before, this is a great place to start. There’s also a fabulous graphic novel, good if hilariously 90s TV series, and recent radio drama, and it’s worth getting all three.

The Radleys - Matt Haig.
The modern vampire novel I always wanted to write, bit jealous that he got there first! It’s funny, clever and a little bit scary, about a family living in the suburbs who have a terrible secret… written in cinematic vignettes, this is vivid, gripping and exciting.

Apocalypse Now Now - Charlie Human.
Set in the supernatural underworld of Cape Town, this is the story of Baxter, a caustic antihero teenager who just wants to run a successful porn syndicate out of his school and keep the other gangs off his back. He actually ends up on the run with an alcoholic magical bounty hunter, into a world peopled with zombie pornstars, arachnid queens, transsexual valkyries, chainsaw-wielding pirates, and corporate warlocks. It’s fucked up, it’s hilarious, it’s got some really disturbing spiders, and when I plagued the author on twitter he says there’s more coming. Hurrah!

Cursed - Benedict Jacka.
Basically a sort of fun mash-up of The Dresden Files and Rivers of London (consider this a rec for both those series if you haven’t read them, btw, they are hugely fun urban fantasies set in Chicago and London respectively), this series centres around Alex Verus, a magician running a magic shop in Camden who keeps getting caught up in other people’s dangerous plots. Super enjoyable.

The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko.
I think reading this in its original language must be stunning, but since I don’t have that option, I’ll say that it’s still beautiful and atmospheric in translation. This depicts the forces of the Dark and the Light in their eternal struggle in Moscow, the sacrifices that must be made, the risks that must be taken. The characters are mysterious but loveable, the city and the world brought to stark, cold life. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch.
The first in the Gentleman Bastards sequence, this is a historic-seeming fantasy set in a sort of futuristic Venice, centred around Locke Lamora: con artist, thief and infamous criminal. The writing is wonderful, the characters are perfect, and you’ll be utterly gripped. The ending will fuck you up, but it won’t stop you wanting to read the next one.

Never The Bride - Paul Magrs.
The Bride of Frankenstein has since retired to run a B&B in Whitby, hoping for a peaceful life of afternoon teas and gossip with her best friend/rival Effie. What actually happens is exactly the opposite, resulting in a clever and hilarious cosy crime book where she and Effie are forced to foil satanic beauty salons, murderous Christmas-themed hotels, and creepy psychic bounty hunters. Seriously, best premise ever.

Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion.
Yet again, I haven’t seen the film, but the book is clever, thought-provoking and weirdly moving (I startled a co-worker by bursting into tears while reading in the staffroom, wailing “it’s so lovely and romantic”) – the perfect zombie love story.

Heart’s Blood - Juliet Marillier.
Less melodramatic than the title makes it sound (heart’s blood is a type of weed), this is a gorgeously atmospheric historical magic/ghost story that’s a sort of reinvention of Beauty and the Beast. Utterly swept me up, this is beautiful and just plain lovely.

I Am Legend - Richard Matheson.
I haven’t seen the Will Smith movie either, I’m terrible at this. Anyway, there’s a reason that this is a horror classic: it’s scary and sad and thought-provoking and amazing.

The Returned - Jason Mott.
The dead have started to return – not as zombies, but perfect, and as they were when they died. But the world has moved on without them, and this small town in America struggles to cope as long-lost children and loved ones reappear with no idea that they’ve been gone. This isn’t afraid to shy away from the awful questions and consequences of this; it’s shatteringly sad and thought-provoking, impossible not to emotionally connect with, and I loved it.

Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake.
I’ll admit I haven’t finished this trilogy yet, but the TV series that came out when I was ten defined me for life (I was creepily obsessed; it’s so worth getting the DVD) and this first book is amazing. Set in a cold and crumbling castle peopled with melancholics and grotesques, a young kitchen boy has a thirst for power and doesn’t care who he hurts on his inexorable route to the top. The writing is stunning, and the world built here is gloriously evocative. It’s a modern classic for a reason.

The Discworld Series - Terry Pratchett.
A short break from the individual titles list here, because I’m forcibly having to stop myself here from writing a whole essay about how great and important these books are, how they’re funny and touching in equal amount, how perfect all of the characters are, and how Pratchett writes better female characters than basically any other male writer ever. Instead, I’m going to say that I’ve got friends who’ve never read Pratchett before and weren’t sure where to start, so if you haven’t read any Discworld before and the title list looks a bit daunting, here’s a few starting suggestions. Word of advice: do not start with The Colour of Magic, because it’ll put you off forever.

Guards! Guards!
Everyone loves the City Watch series, and this is the first in that sequence, featuring our battered and somewhat faily heroes fighting against a dragon.

Wyrd Sisters
Another popular series features the witches, gloriously subversive and hilarious kickass women. This is the first in that sequence, a brilliantly knowing parody of Hamlet.

Mort
Speaking as a necrophobic here, Death is maybe my favourite of all the Discworld characters, and this is the first of his sequence, where he decides to take on an apprentice, and the world has a good go at ending.

Soul Music
Another fun place to start (this was my first), this is a good introduction to lots of the characters in the main Discworld city of Ankh Morpork, as well as being the first in the Susan Sto Helit sequence – Death’s granddaughter, and one of my favourite female characters.

Monstrous Regiment
A standalone book that isn’t one of a sequence, this is basically the internet’s favourite for its brilliant female characters. A glorious satire, this is the story of a young woman who decides to dress as a boy and go to war.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
Another standalone, this is one of Pratchett’s Discworld novels for teens. Featuring a play on the Pied Piper of Hamlet story, this is funny and lovely, and a nice place to start if you fancy reading some YA first.

Poison Study - Maria V. Snyder.
The first in a fantasy trilogy set around a young woman called Yelena who finds herself let out of prison in exchange for becoming a poison taster – trained to recognise poisoned food for the Commander of her kingdom. There’s some unexpected rape in the first one, so, heads-up, but they’re a really enjoyable series.

Bitter Seeds - Ian Tregillis.
Much, much darker than “crazed English warlocks fight battery-powered Nazi superheroes” sounds when I say it aloud, that is still a fairly accurate summary of this book. Gripping and unsettling, I’m so glad this is part one of a trilogy.

John Dies At The End - David Wong.
Rude, crude, violent, disturbing and confusing, this is fabulous but probably only if you’re in the mood or willing to go along with the very definition of an unreliable narrator. Maybe you know what’s happening, maybe you don’t, maybe someone else is exploding or filled with creepy crazed bugs or talking to their friend through a hotdog. It’s a big gory mess of a novel that I enjoyed almost unreservedly, even if I can’t tell you what ninety percent of the plot entailed.

How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe - Charles Yu.
Like many things set around time travel, this will probably do your head in, but it’s worth it. The story of a man trapped in a time loop after accidentally killing his future self, falling in love with his navigation computer, with only an imaginary dog for company, and always, always trying to reconnect with his estranged father, it’s strange and moving and utterly brilliant.

Short Stories.
Does what it says on the tin.

The Girl In The Flammable Skirt - Aimee Bender.
A weird and wonderful collection of fantastical short stories. Sexy, sad, thoughtful, funny, and gloriously written, I loved this.

The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter.
This book is just fucking perfection, really. A collection of retold fairytales, often with a female/feminist slant. Dark, bloody, sexy and sumptuous. You should own this.

Cosmo - Spencer Gordon.
A dark swirl of pop culture influenced short stories, a mixture of the everyday and devastating and the celebrity surreal – I can’t pick between Leonard Cohen advertising for Subway, or Matthew McConaughy driving through the desert and finding dead naked clones of himself for Weirdest Story In Here – that shouldn’t fit together but somehow do. Often deeply upsetting, thought-provoking and sharp, this is creepy and clever and mesmerising.

Pretty Monsters - Kelly Link.
This is a collection of fantasy and horror stories, gorgeously written, unpredictable and enthralling. It’s very hard to pick a favourite, although I think Magic For Beginners should be required reading for every fan of a TV show ever, and the story of the girl with ghosts tied to ribbons has stayed with me for months now. Strange, thoughtful and just plain wonderful.

Little Birds - Anais Nin.
My first discovery of erotic writing, these are still some of my favourites. Erotica written in the 1930s, where she was paid by the page by an anonymous client, this a collection of strange, wonderful and sexy stories. I’m pretty sure Delta of Venus is the one with all the incest, rape, underage and bestiality stuff in it, but just in case I’ve got confused, there might be a couple of things you don’t like in here.

St Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves - Karen Russell.
God, I love Karen Russell. Her short stories are perfect little constructions of delicious language, with no discernable beginnings or endings, the kind of atmospheric jewels that make you just want to bury your face in something and cry hysterically. Essentially, this and Vampires in the Lemon Grove are essential reading if you’re a fan of beautiful writing.

Teen & YA.
Because why not, right?

Anna Dressed In Blood - Kendare Blake.
This is an incredibly fun (and a little bit gory and creepy) beginning of a series that’s a lot like Buffy meets Supernatural, with our lone wolf demon hunter teenage boy falling for the somewhat psychopathic ghost of a girl haunting a local house. Silly, but very enjoyable.

Beauty Queens - Libba Bray.
A bit like Lost, if everyone stuck on the island was a teenage girl on the way to a beauty pageant. Blackly humorous and sharply satirical, this digs a stiletto heel into reality TV, the beauty industry, and the basic state of what today’s girls are expected to live up to.

Heist Society - Ally Carter.
Sort of like Ocean’s Eleven with teenagers, this is the first in an ongoing series about a group of teens who pull international and highly illegal heists. Ally Carter is one of my favourite teen authors at the moment – her books are so much fun and her characters are utterly wonderful, I love them all ridiculous amounts. If you like these, you should also read her Gallagher Girls series, about a teenage girls at a school for spies. I love them so much, ugh.

A Gathering Light - Jennifer Donnelly. (A Northern Light in North America)
This is one of my favourite books of all time. A coming-of-age story set around a real turn-of-the-century murder, this is sad and lovely and heartbreaking, and the writing is the sort you can just fling yourself into and swim around in. Absolutely beautiful, grab a box of tissues and stay up until you finish it.

The Hunt - Andrew Fukuda.
This is basically The Hunger Games with vampires. However, the author has put some excellent thought into the world-building here (the creepy, verging-on-insectoid vampires are brilliant) and it’s utterly gripping. The last couple of chapters get a little lost, but then there is a sequel, so I’m willing to let that slide!

Maggot Moon - Sally Gardner.
Set in a dystopian England in the 1950s, this is an utterly devastating, utterly perfect novel that I don’t even want to tell you about; just get a copy now, read it, and cry your eyes out.

Seraphina - Rachel Hartman.
I recommended this on my twitter after I finished it with “read this if you love dragons or yourself”, and I basically stick by that. An interesting take on the dragon mythology, sumptuously written, and, again, expecting a sequel.

Death Cloud - Andrew Lane.
TEENAGE SHERLOCK HOLMES DOES ACTION-PACKED CRIME SOLVING. I’ve been trying to avoid capslock in this list, but I think it’s important to have it there. Well-written, exciting and loads of fun. See also: Charlie Higson’s Young Bond series.

Throne of Glass - Sarah J. Maas.
A teenaged assassin is offered one chance to escape life imprisonment – to represent her kingdom in a to-the-death tournament. Gripping, exciting and with gorgeous world building and fabulous characters, this is the first in a brilliant fantasy series.

Adorkable - Sara Manning.
This is just plain lovely. One of those opposites-attract love stories between a girl running her own lifestyle website and a popular golden boy, this is better than the average romantic novel because of how brilliantly the characters are written. Jeane is a fabulous female heroine, with a refreshingly open attitude to sex, bisexuality and her own body. That isn’t to say there aren’t tough things she has to overcome, but the ending is a wonderful one that had me in floods of happy tears. It’s also a novel about the power of friends you make on the internet – I’ve since given this to a bunch of friends I’ve made online and all of them have felt the same. Just – really really good, and relevant if you (like me) are a bit surgically attached to twitter.

Cinder - Marissa Meyer.
This is the story of Cinderella, but set in a futuristic Beijing being eaten up by disease, and our heroine is a cyborg. The writing is great, the characters are lovable, and it’s got a dark, sharp undertone that makes this much more interesting than some of the other teen fantasy out there. It’s also the first in a series, which I’m so pleased about.

Hero - Perry Moore.
This is the YA gay superhero novel. I don’t know if there are others – I hope there are – but even if there are, this one is the definitive one. I love it – it’s moving and action-packed and romantic and perfect.

Mortal Engines - Philip Reeve.
Sort of like postapocalyptic steampunk – ignore the hideous covers they’ve put on them now, so angry about that – this is the first in a really clever series with amazing world-building, amazing characters, and huge amounts of exciting action. Get on it.

Dodger - Terry Pratchett
It’s not a Discworld! Pratchett delves into Victorian London for this one, albeit, as he puts into his end notes, “fantasy Victorian London”, with lots of historical figures popping up for fabulous cameos. I have never loved Dickens more. For some reason, Pratchett tends to go darker in his YA than his adult books, so there’s some pretty nasty (though carefully handled) violence against a woman that ends in a miscarriage: just so you’re warned upfront.

The Savages - Matt Whyman.
This is a really, really funny novel about a family of cannibals. Yep, cannibalism is now YA material. The worst part is that the characters are amazing and you love them. I’m aware that this is a hard-limit no-no for most people, but it’s not too graphic, and it’s really clever and enjoyable.

Gossip Girl - Cecily von Ziegesar.
Yeah yeah, the TV show is pretty and ridiculous and they wore great clothes. I read all fourteen books in this series one summer, before even seeing the show, and they are much better than the TV show ever was. Still decadent, bitchy and back-stabby, there’s lots of pretty clothes and parties and characters you care about but also kind of want to punch. I’m annoyed since learning the whole plotline where Chuck decides he’s gay and gets a pet monkey (the two things aren’t mutually exclusive) was invented by ghostwriters and Ziegesar has since written a sequel to the whole series where she pulls the “just a phase” bullshit, but anyway, these books are like popcorn and you will not be able to stop eating them. They are so fucking fun.