This list was intended to be definitive. Which is a foolish endeavour. Definitive lists are never definitive, unless they are lists of actual things in the past. Ongoing lists like this one are definitely not definitive. There are now more than 59 books on it. Don’t let it worry you. It’s only counting. Anyway, the following books have been influences, treasures and favourites. I recommend you read them all. Or not. It’s down to you.
1974, 1977, 1980, 1983, GB84, The Damned United, Occupied City, Tokyo Year Zero, Red or Dead, Patient X by David Peace
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Autumn by Ali Smith. And the rest of that particular quartet.
For the Good Times by David Keenan
The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz, My Dark Places, American Tabloid, Blood’s A Rover, The Cold Six Thousand, Perfidia, This Storm by James Ellroy
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
Bluets by Maggie Nelson
Dirt Music, Cloudstreet, The Riders, The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton
The Queen of the South by Arturo Perez Reverte
Katerina by James Frey
The Dreaming Suburb, The Avenue Goes to War by RF Delderfield
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan
The Sportswriter, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land, Canada by Richard Ford
Collected Poems, 1934-52 by Dylan Thomas
W.B. Yeats Everyman’s Poetry
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The God of Small Things, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Azadi by Arundhati Roy
The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave
Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn
The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Felicia’s Journey by William Trevor
Light Years by James Salter
No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, On Fire by Naomi Klein
Porridge: The Scripts by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais
