Fifty Favorite Books

Several rules: (1) I have listed these books in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, rather than in order of preference—though I’ve marked each of my ten very favorites with an asterisk. (2) I have chosen no more than one book per author, except in those cases where a pair of books or a trilogy seemed to call for a single shared listing. (3) I have tried to be honest, which is why there are so few classics on this list and so many semi-obscure fantasists and slim, sad coming of age stories.    —Kevin Brockmeier, October 4, 2023

 

1. A Death in the Family by James Agee

2. Ghosts by César Aira

3. The Other City by Michal Ajvaz

4. The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasm

5. The Complete Short Stories by J. G. Ballard (*)

6. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle

7. Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

8. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (*)

9. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler

10. The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati

11. The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino (*)

12. Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

13. Palafox by Éric Chevillard

14. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

15. Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

16. The Latin American Trilogy by Louis de Bernières

17. Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany

18. Yesterday by Juan Emar

19. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

20. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys by Chris Fuhrman

21. Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant

22. The Torturer’s Wife by Thomas Glave

23. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

24. The Cockroaches of Stay More by Donald Harington

25. The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

26. Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban (*)

27. I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal (*)

28. Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

29. White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

30. The Passion According to G. H. by Clarice Lispector

31. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

32. Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels by Giorgio Manganelli (*)

33. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (*)

34. All the Days and Nights: The Collected Stories by William Maxwell (*)

35. My Happy Life by Lydia Millet

36. Essays by Michel de Montaigne

37. The Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan

38. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

39. Esther Stories by Peter Orner

40. Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater

41. The His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

42. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (*)

43. Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables & Problems by Adam Ehrlich Sachs

44. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago

45. The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard

46. Argyll: A Memoir by Theodore Sturgeon

47. The Neighborhood by Gonçalo M. Tavares

48. The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis (*)

49. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

50. Stoner by John Williams


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