The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Mine for yours: My favorite novels of all time

* (in no order)

Maurice Blanchot DEATH SENTENCE

Agota Kristof THE BOOK OF LIES (‘The Notebook’, ‘The Proof’, ‘The Third Lie’)

Robert Pinget FABLE

Pierre Guyotat EDEN EDEN EDEN

Ivy Compton-Burnett THE PRESENT AND THE PAST

Kathy Acker GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Ishmael Reed MUMBO JUMBO

Anna Kavan ICE

The Marquis de Sade THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM

Renee Gladman THE RAVICKA SERIES (‘Event Factory’, ‘The Ravickians’, ‘Ana Pavlova Crosses a Bridge’, ‘Houses of Ravicka’)

Lynne Tillman NO LEASE ON LIFE

Paul Metcalf WATERS OF THE POTOWMACK

Alan Warner MORVERN CALLAR

Ronald Firbank VALMOUTH

Alain Robbe-Grillet RECOLLECTIONS OF THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE

Marguerite Duras MALADY OF DEATH

Claude Simon TRYPTICH

Ann Quin BERG

Joy Williams THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

Steven Millhauser EDWIN MULLHOUSE: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF AN AMERICAN WRITER

Natalie Sarraute THE GOLDEN FRUITS

Raymond Roussel LOCUS SOLUS

Derek McCormack CASTLE FAGGOT

Tony Duvert STRANGE LANDSCAPE

Rudolf Wurlitzer THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER

Thomas Bernhard CONCRETE

Jean Rhys GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT

William Burroughs THE WILD BOYS

Max Frisch MAN IN THE HOLOCENE

David Foster Wallace INFINITE JEST

Robert Gluck JACK THE MODERNIST

Dodie Bellamy THE LETTERS OF MINA HARKER

Kevin Killian SHY

Lyn Hejinian MY LIFE

Osamu Dazai NO LONGER HUMAN

JG Ballard THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION

Edouard Leve AUTOPORTRAIT

Laszlo Krasznahorkai THE MELANCHOLY OF EXISTENCE

Michel Butor MOBILE

Dambudzo Marechera BLACK SUNLIGHT

Ingeborg Bachmann MALINA

Christine Brooke-Rose LIFE, END OF

Georges Perec LIFE: A USERS MANUAL

Jean Genet FUNERAL RIGHTS

Raymond Queneau EXERCISES IN STYLE

Philippe Sollers EVENT

William Gaddis CARPENTER’S GOTHIC

John Barth GILES GOAT-BOY

Thomas Pynchon MASON & DIXON

Philip K. Dick UBIK

James McCourt TIME REMAINING

Denton Welch IN YOUTH IS PLEASURE

Andre Gide THE COUNTERFEITERS

Marie Redonnet THE HÔTEL SPLENDID TRILOGY (‘Hotel Splendid’, ‘Forever Valley’, ‘Rose Mellie Rose’)

Samuel Beckett HOW IT IS

Blake Butler 300,000,000

W.G. Sebald THE RINGS OF SATURN

Julio Cortazar 62: A MODEL KIT

Muriel Spark THE DRIVER’S SEAT

Jacques Roubaud THE GREAT FIRES OF LONDON: A CASEBOOK

Vladimir Nabokov PALE FIRE

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. So, I’m absolutely positive I’ve forgotten some novels I revere, but there’s a shot at listing my current all-time very favorites. Obviously, the biggest reason I’m sharing my faves is in hopes that you reading this might share some of your favorite novels in return. If you could spare the memory and brain power and typing habits re: that request over the weekend, that would be awesome. ** Misanthrope, Whatever happened to that band whose name was !!! ? I suppose they’re still around somewhere. One day a week isn’t bad, obvs. Your co-worker sounds more than a wee bit paranoid. Unless he has a compromised immune system or something. Your poor mom. I hope her spirits lift considerably and instantaneously. Fun: that festival, Um, dude, I not only know who those artists are, I have informed opinions about their stuff, I’ll have you know. Not shabby outside here today, warm but not too, bell clear. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Renaud Camus, that old thing? I haven’t heard him or his work discussed here in ages. He’s definitely frowned upon when the subject is raised. He used to be published by my publisher back in the ‘Tricks’ days, but they dumped him for the obvious reasons. Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein needs your kind assistance: ‘My monetary needs are acute as they never have been before. Please contribute what you can here.’ Alternately, if you’re in LA: TEAC reel-to-real tape recorder A-33009X-2T. $200.00. David Ehrenstein. 1462 S. Shenandoah St. #7. Los Angeles, Ca. 90035. ** Bernard, Good question. I even liked Lon Jr. when he was a ruin. There’s just something so poignant about him. Your link to Donald’s and my immortalisation didn’t work. Larry was a real pip, that’s for sure. He was my first close friend to die of AIDS. If I’m not mistaken, that Terry Gross interview with Tim occurred when he and I were doing a reading together in Philadelphia. Not that that’s an interesting tidbit. Hit that motherfucking deadline, man. Think of the children. Happy to meet you whenever as soon and as wherever as you like! ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s true! Our next door neighbor was a very famous, now forgotten horse jockey named Johnny Longden. Wink Martindale, who was a very famous DJ in the US, lived down the street as did the actress Tippi Hedren. And Michael Anthony who grew up to be the bass player of Van Halen lived in my hood too. That title ‘The Boy Behind the Door’ is enough to get me to watch it, thanks, Ben! ** Dominik, Hi!!! It was fun, all right. Some parks, not many, have extremely themed hotels like that. It was cool, although that little room had shitty air conditioning. Ooh, I like the sound of that app. What a perfect way to hook up. Gracias. Love reading your mind and then writing your all-time favorite novel, G. ** Nick Toti, Hi. That is trippy. Awesome that you’re doing a project on Chaney Jr. He’s so forgotten and so ripe to be forefronted interestingly. What’s the project, if you can say> ** Bill, Hi. Really, you’re not a classic monster movie guy? He was inescapable in most of them. Ooh, 35mm ‘Eraserhead’. Are people voting on who they like better: Lynch or Cronenberg? I guess I’d go with Lynch, if so. ** Okay. Have a novelistic weekend. See you on Monday.

50 Comments

  1. Conrad

    Hi Dennis !

    Thank you for this list ! wow so many thing I’ve never heard of… pff wow,

    Well, here is my little list, which is very very french, and you probably know all of it :

    Jean Rhys, Good Morning Midnight
    Agota Kristof, Le Grand Cahier
    Robert Pinget, L’inquisitoire
    Pierre Guyotat, Tombeau pour cinq cent mille soldats
    Samuel Beckett, Molloy / Malone meurt / L’innommable
    Tony Duvert, L’île atlantique
    Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu
    Dennis Cooper, Sluts
    Antoine Volodine, Terminus Radieux
    Nathalie Sarraute, Tropismes
    Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Voyage au bout de la nuit
    Steven Millhauser, La vie trop brève d’Edwin Mullhouse
    Théo Casciani, Rétine
    Edouard Levé, Autoportrait

    Voilà… have a great week-end !

  2. Svartvit

    Hi Dennis,

    What an impossible thing to do.

    Derek Jarman – Chroma
    Edouard Leve – Suicide
    Marquis de Sade – Justine
    Pierre Guyotat – Coma
    Samuel R. Delany – Dhalgren / Hogg
    Urs Allemann – Babyfucker
    Georges Bataille – Story of the Eye / Blue of Noon
    Adolfo Bioy Casares – The Invention of Morel
    New Juche – Mountainhead

    + some Celine, Michaux, Blanchot, Acker, Duras, Beckett, Genet, Dick, Le Guin, Mishima, Ballard, Camus & Vonnegut but can’t make up my mind right now

    I will immediately stop thinking about this now, questions like these can drive my insane.

  3. David Ehrenstein

    Marcel Proust “a la recherche du temps perdu”
    Robert Musil “The Man Without Qualities”
    Ronald Firbank “Concerning the Eccentricties of Cardinall Pirelli”
    Henry James “The Wings of the Dove”
    Herman Melville “The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade”
    Mark Twain “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
    Jean Genet “Our Lady of the Flowers”
    Jane Bowles “Two Serious Ladies”
    PaulBowles “The Sheltering Sky”
    Dennis Cooper “The Marble Swarm”
    Denton Welch “A Voice Through a Cloud”
    William S. Burroughs “Naked Lunch”
    Patricia Highsmith “small g”
    James Joyce “Ulysses”
    Samuel R.Dlany “Dhalgren”
    James McCourt “Time Remaining”
    Thomas Man “Doctor Fautus”

  4. Bernard

    Re Stanton portrait: well, shoot. trying this, as I should have realized: Tim, Dennis, Donald on the Larry Stanton website:
    http://www.larrystanton.net/new-gallery/lvgocbuq5z5oswf1l50uhhh4eb4zp5
    along with Dennis and Donald, Brad Gooch. Under “Figures” at the site: I remember “Boy with Horse” and “Boy with Apples” so well.
    I’m having a very good time. I have a(nother) friend from the US who has not seen before this beautiful city, so from Wednesday I will probably take him around for a couple of days. If on Monday or Tuesday you have an hour for a coffee, or to see something — the weather looks iffy for both days, but the temps just as we like them — shoot me the text. Or if there is something to see.
    Novels is hard, and I don’t have my bookshelves to look at. Not surprising that there are a lot of writers, esp French, that you mention whom I admire a lot but not so many I feel I must live with over and over, as I do these:
    Our happy overlaps: Of Bernhard, for me Correction, Old Masters, Wittgenstein’s Nephew, Extinction all too amazing to choose among.
    Perec–Life, A User’s Manual (again too many others to choose)
    Queneau – Exercises in Style (funny, I never think of it as a novel but of course it reads beautifully as one)
    Philip K Dick – UBIK (Yes!)
    André Gide – The Counterfeiters
    Samuel Beckett – How It Is (Perfection)
    W. G. Sebald – The Rings of Saturn (cool we both have the same #1)
    Muriel Spark – The Driver’s Seat (! I did not expect that one)
    Nabokov – Pale Fire (genius)

    And then. Of course I have a lot of oldies, with a bent toward unreliable or otherwise weird narrators:
    James Hogg – The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
    William Godwin – Caleb Williams
    Mary Shelley – Frankenstein
    Charles Dickens – Bleak House
    Leo Tolstoy – Anna Karenina
    J W von Goethe – Elective Affinities
    Gustave Flaubert – Sentimental Education
    Stendhal – The Red and the Black
    Bram Stoker – Dracula
    E F Benson – All the Lucia novels
    Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent
    Ford Madox Ford: Parade’s End (4-novel sequence)
    Virginia Woolf – Orlando, To the Lighthouse
    Marcel Proust – Swann’s Way (only one I’ve read yet)
    Robert Musil – Young Törless
    Thomas Mann – The Holy Sinner
    George Orwell – 1984
    Flann O’Brien – The Third Policeman
    Mikhail Bulgakov – The Master and Margarita
    Dashiell Hammett – The Thin Man
    James M Cain – The Postman Always Rings Twice
    Jim Thompson – The Killer Inside Me
    Patricia Highsmith – All the Ripley novels, esp Ripley’s Game
    Thomas Pynchon – The Crying of Lot 49
    Edmund White – Forgetting Elena
    Italo Calvino – If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler
    Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House
    Russell Greenan – It Happened in Boston?
    Thomas Berger – Killing Time
    Harry Matthews – Cigarettes
    John Ashbery and Janes Schuyler – A Nest of Ninnies
    Dennis Cooper – The Sluts, God Jr, I Wished

    I’m going to call these novellas novels because they are amazing:
    Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol
    Gustave Flaubert – A Simple Heart, The Legend of St Julian Hospitaler
    Mark Twain – The Mysterious Stranger
    Henry James – The Turn of the Screw; What Maisie Knew; The Spoils of Poynton
    Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness
    James Joyce – The Dead
    Ok that got to be a long list, all tip-top, though plus the 47 thousand I haven’t thought of

  5. Misanthrope

    Dennis, God, I have no idea. !!! Hahaha. No idea at all.

    Thanks. Yeah, my mom’s teeth have not improved. Or the infection hasn’t. We’ll be contacting the dentist today for a different antibiotic. If anything, it’s gotten worse, with swelling in her chin up through her jaw on the one side. Erp. We’ll get it sorted.

    Yeah, my co-worker is really, really scared of the ‘ro. Barely leaves his house at all and refuses to go into any place where even one person isn’t masked. I feel bad for him, but I do think he’s overdoing it a bit. I talked to him the other night and tried to calm him down, but I think he’s set on quitting and finding a remote-only job.

    Hahaha, I had a sneaking suspicion you might know those artists. 😉

    Hmm, favorite novels of all time. Lists are fun. I’m not going to include any of yours because that’s…weird, I think, and you already know how I feel about your work. Any other place and yours would be included. I’ll list a few.

    The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann
    Ulysses, James Joyce
    Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
    The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
    Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis
    The Discovery of Heaven, Harry Mulisch
    The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
    The Folding Star, Alan Hollinghurst
    How the Dead Live, Will Self
    The Sorrows of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    2666, Roberto Bolano
    The New Sweet Style, Vasily Aksyonov
    Dorian, Will Self
    The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Just off the top of my head. And yes, there are two Selfs there. Sorry. Just love those novels.

    (Try, My Loose Thread, God Jr, The Sluts, I Wished…hehehe)

  6. Zak Ferguson

    Great list Dennis!

    Oh boy, favourite novels, so many. So, so many.

    I can say, this will be a list of my (current) favourites, that have stuck with me.

    My all time favourites are in the past but also in the future. Maybe in the present.

    It’s an ever shifting tide as you know.

    Here we go:

    H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker

    I am Sovereign by Nicola Barker

    Wide Open by Nicola Barker

    Reversed Forecast by Nicola Barker

    Clear: a transparent novel by Nicola Barker

    Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

    White by Bret Easton Ellis

    Friedrichstrasse 19 by Emma Harding

    I Who Have Known Men by Jaqueline Harpman

    The New Church Ladies by (faux-shock face) Jim Goad

    The Head-Ache Factory by Jim Goad

    William S. Burroughs- A Life by Barry Miles

    All The Living & The Dead by Hayley Campbell

    No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy by Mark Hodkinson

    The Marbled Swarm by Dennis Cooper

    Cock & Bull by Will Self

    The Quantity Theory of Insanity by Will Self

    Grey Area by Will Self

    The Sweet Smell of Psychosis: a novella by Will Self

    Lanky by Max Porter

    Filth by Irvine Welsh

    A Clockword Orange by Anthony Burgess

    Nation by Terry Pratchett

    Adjustment Day Chuck Palahniuk

    Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

    Identity Crisis by Ben Elton

    This Other Eden by Ben Elton

    Blast From The Past by Ben Elton

    Popcorn by Ben Elton

    Stark by Ben Elton

    GOD JR. by Dennis Cooper

    Heck Texas by Tex Gresham

    Box-Hill by Adam Mars-Jones

    Takeaway by Tommy Hazard

    Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff by Sean Penn

    Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

    Queer by William S. Burroughs

    Naked Lunch by Williams S. Burroughs

    The Field by Robert Seethaler

    Shock Value by John Waters

    Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild & True Story of Mad Max Fury Road by Kyle Buchanen

    Virus by Linda Stupart

    Vantablack by Lee Rourke

    In the Desert of Mute Squares by M. Kitchell

    Experimental Men by M. Kitchell

    The Wolf Hour by M. Kitchell

    Prelude to Transgression (also) by M. Kitchell

    Barrage Tapes by N. Casio Poe (of which I was supremely lucky he publish)

    Indelicacy by Amina Cain

    The Well-Dressed Wound by Derek McCormack

    Thatcher’s Tomb by Stephen Barber

    Notes On Suicide by Simon Critchley

    Thick Skin by N/A Oparah

  7. Tosh Berman

    Wow! Your list is pretty great. It’s funny as I sit here, I can list my favorite authors, but my favorite novel?? For instance, I love Osamu Dazai, but then when I think about which novel I think is incredible, it’s very difficult for me. Because I love Dazai’s overall voice in all of his writings, it’s hard for me to separate his works. If there was an author who I don’t normally like, and all of sudden they wrote a novel among their drek, then that stands out. Burroughs to me has three sections. His early narratives like Junkie, then there’s “Naked Lunch, “Soft Machine, Wild Boys, and then his later novels. You listed “Wild Boys” as your favorite, but what about “Soft Machine?” The authors I love such as P.G. Wodehouse, or even the crime (heist) novels by Richard Stark – to me, all of their novels are great. Enrique Vila-Matas and Jean-Patrick Manchette are current faves, but it will be hard for me to pull one of their novels as their masterpiece. I love them all! Today is Saturday, and for sure, I’m going to be thinking about my list of favorite all-time novels. But again, your list is pretty hot!

  8. Jeff J

    Hey Dennis – Always enjoy these list days. Nice to see everyone else’s picks too.

    I am totally unfamiliar with Dambudzo Marechera’s BLACK SUNLIGHT. Have you ever done a post on him or that novel?

    I don’t know that Christine Brooke-Rose novel either. I’ve been meaning to check out her work. Any particular way you’d describe that book?

    There’s a lot of overlap on our lists – at least on authors – so I’m not including anything by fave writers Nabokov, Cortazar, Kristof, Reed, Robbe-Grillet, Warner, Duras, Williams, Bernhard, Rhys, Frisch, Acker, Ballard, Perec, Beckett, Sebald.

    Here’s the rest:
    AT SWIM TWO BIRDS – Flann O’Brien
    AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    BLEAK HOUSE – Charles Dickens
    CAIN’S BOOK – Alexander Trocchi
    CORREGIDORA – Gayl Jones
    DEMOCRACY – Joan Didion
    DOG SOLDIERS – Robert Stone
    END OF THE STORY – Lydia Davis
    EPITAPH OF A SMALL WINNER – Machado de Assis
    FRANNY AND ZOOEY – J.D. Salinger
    INVISIBLE CITIES – Italo Calvino
    INVISIBLE MAN – Ralph Ellison
    IT THEN – Danielle Collobert
    LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN – Hubert Selby Jr.
    MY LOOSE THREAD – Dennis Cooper
    OUTER DARK – Cormac McCarthy
    PORNOGRAFIA – Witold Gombrowicz
    SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION – Flaubert
    SLEEPLESS NIGHTS – Elizabeth Hardwick
    SNOW COUNTRY – Yasunari Kawabata
    THE GOOD SOLDIER – Ford Maddox Ford
    THE OPPOSING SHORE – Julien Gracq
    THE SKIN – Curzio Malaparte
    THE UNFORTUNATES – BS Johnson
    TIME OF THE DOVES – Merce Rodereda
    TOMB FOR BORIS DAVIDOVICH – Danilo Kis
    TWO SERIOUS LADIES – Jane Bowles
    UNDER THE VOLCANO – Malcolm Lowery
    WITTGENSTEIN’S MISTRESS – David Markson
    2666 – Roberto Bolano

    How’re things coming with the film prep? And theater script?

    I’ve been reeling from having to put our beloved cat Simone to sleep a few weeks ago. Very unexpected and brutal. Finally, slowly, getting back to my novel.

  9. fervorxo

    Hey Dennis,

    Thanks always for the favorites list, I’m eager to try everything I’m not familiar with yet. I made a sad slog into the opening pages of *Eden Eden Eden* earlier this year before I returned it to the library, reckon I’ll try those swollen sentences again at a faster tempo if I can help it.

    *Autoportrait* is awesome, it seems to me it’s been building some momentum of influence… Chelsea Hodson did a take on the format, and looks like Jesse Ball has an *Autoportrait* of his own coming out soon. I could get down with a whole genre of the Autoportrait.

    A few of my favorites:
    Samuel Beckett THE UNNAMABLE
    Dennis Cooper TRY
    Helen DeWitt THE LAST SAMURAI
    Bret Easton Ellis THE RULES OF ATTRACTION
    Brian Evenson ALTMANN’S TONGUE
    J.-K. Huysmans A REBOURS
    Franz Kafka THE METAMORPHOSIS
    Flannery O’Connor WISE BLOOD
    Paul Preciado TESTO JUNKIE

  10. Sypha

    Oh wow, I was curious as to when you would update your Top 50 list, but this is even more than that, like 61! I actually think I’ve read 25 or so of these. One question though. When we last discussed this way back when, you mentioned how if you ever did such a list again you would replace MASON & DIXON with AGAINST THE DAY… yet I see MASON & DIXON is still here. Did you change your mind again, or…?

    My own Top Ten (in no order):

    La-bas (J.-K. Huysmans)
    Guide (Dennis Cooper) well, duh!
    American Psycho (Bret Eason Ellis)
    Sea of Fertility (Yukio Mishima) kind of cheating this but whatever
    This Day All Gods Die (Stephen R. Donaldson)
    Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)
    Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll)
    The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (Carson McCullers)
    The Place of Dead Roads (William S. Burroughs)
    Dhalgren (Samuel R. Delany)

    Other candidates: Forbidden Colors (Mishima), Against The Day (Pynchon), Against Nature (Huysmans), Glamorama (Ellis), Angels/Tree of Smoke (Denis Johnson), The Overnight (Ramsey Campbell), The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand), Les Miserables (Victor Hugo), Red Dragon (Thomas Harris), The Recognitions (Gaddis), The Magic Mountain (Mann), Moby Dick (Melville), The Monk (Matthew Lewis), Unlimited Dream Company (Ballard), Other Voices, Other Rooms (Capote), Edwin Mullhouse (Milhauser), Valis (Philip K. Dick), Neuromancer (Gibson), The White Plague (Frank Herbert), Frankenstein (Shelley), Dracula (Stoker), Maldoror (Lautreamont), Star Maker (Olaf Stapledon), Play It As It Lays (Didion), The Waves (Woolf), The Name of the Rose (Eco), The Man Who Fought Alone (Stephen R. Donaldson), etc.

    And that’s not even counting books written by my friends (well, with the exception of you, but I make an exception there as I was a fan first!)

    Speaking of Ellis, did you see how THE SHARDS will be coming out in book form in January of next year? I was very excited about that… and 608 pages! I never thought he would do such a long book again…

  11. Dominik

    Hi!!

    What an excellent weekend! Superb choices on your end – I’ll be feasting on your list for a long time. Thank you! While I was compiling my own list, I had to realize that even though I read lots of novels, the majority of my all-time favorite books are non-fiction. Anyway, here goes:

    Dennis Cooper – My Loose Thread & The Sluts
    Poppy Z. Brite – Exquisite Corpse
    Édouard Louis – History of Violence
    Blake Butler – 300,000,000 (a happy overlap!)
    Bret Easton Ellis – The Rules of Attraction
    Irvine Welsh – Trainspotting & Marabou Stork Nightmares
    Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club

    You know, it’s such a cheesy thing to say, but your love is already reality. You DO write my favorite novels, haha. So, thank you! Love chopping off the end of A Little Life so that it can make my list too, Od.

  12. Stephen M

    Hi Dennis, been reading the blog for a long time, but this is my first time commenting (so let me quick say thank you for your writing and for the blog both of which have been hugely and consistently sources of inspiration and pleasure).

    Re your list, many books I love and many that I’ve not yet read (and many novels I haven’t read by authors whose other books I love…needless to say I’m jotting many down to pick up asap). As for my list, I’m away from home at the moment (away from from my bookshelves) which is good, because it will keep me from overthinking it:

    To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
    The Castle, Franz Kafka
    Beetle Leg, John Hawkes
    Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathanael West
    2666, Roberto Bolaño
    The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
    Berg, Ann Quin
    Last Days, Brian Evenson
    Fabe, Robert Pinget
    Pedro Paramo, Juan Rulfo
    Mao II, Don Delillo
    Almayer’s Folly, Joseph Conrad
    The Vivisector, Patrick White
    Ray, Barry Hannah
    The Joke, Milan Kundera
    The Weight of Things, Marianne Fritz
    Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
    Love Hotel, Jane Unrue
    Carpenter’s Gothic, William Gaddis
    Man in the Holocene, Max Frisch

  13. politekid

    hi dc!! i hope you’re well, and apologies for my absence. it’s really super exciting following the news of movie funding and everything to do with that coming together, btw. congratulations!

    haha another day on which i realise i haven’t read anything like enough. here are my meagre pickings. i don’t wanna repeat anything that’s already on your/other commenters’ lists (you’ll have to take it for granted that reading you, Acker, Burroughs & Joyce at 14yrs old had a profound impact and ruined any chance i might have had at making money yada yada yada) so there are already a bunch of gigantic holes here… and i’m sure i’ve forgotten most of the books i’ve read, so this isn’t fully representative… are these my favourites? are there such things?
    in no particular order:

    Gertrude Stein — THE MAKING OF AMERICANS and BLOOD ON THE DINING ROOM FLOOR (there is a serious lack of love for Stein on this page rn)
    Truman Capote — ANSWERED PRAYERS
    Yukio Mishima — THE SAILOR WHO FELL FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA
    Haruki Murakami — KAFKA ON THE SHORE (for the times when i’m trying to be sensitive in a cafe)
    Ryu Murakami — ALMOST TRANSPARENT BLUE (for the other times)
    Alan Burns — EUROPE AFTER THE RAIN
    June Gibbons — PEPSI COLA ADDICT
    Thomas Nashe — THE UNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER
    Daniel Defoe — A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR
    Bruno Schulz — THE STREET OF CROCODILES (does this count as a novel?)
    Leslie Feinberg — STONE BUTCH BLUES
    Junji Ito — UZUMAKI
    Wilson Harris — JONESTOWN
    Shirley Jackson — THE SUNDIAL
    Italo Calvino — THE BARON IN THE TREES
    Naoki Urasawa — MONSTER
    George Eliot — MIDDLEMARCH
    Andy Warhol — A: A NOVEL
    Richard Adams — WATERSHIP DOWN
    Barbara Comyns — WHO WAS CHANGED AND WHO WAS DEAD
    William Faulkner — AS I LAY DYING
    Raymond Briggs — WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
    Thomas Mann — DR FAUSTUS (okay, i allowed myself one repetition)
    Kim Stanley Robinson — RED MARS
    Raymond Queneau — ZAZIE IN THE METRO
    Mark Z. Danielewski — HOUSE OF LEAVES
    Donna Tartt — THE SECRET HISTORY
    Joseph Heller — CATCH-22
    Marlo Mogensen — SPIKES
    Eileen Myles — CHELSEA GIRLS
    László Krasznahorkai — SÁTÁNTANGÓ
    Henry Darger — THE STORY OF THE VIVIAN GIRLS (what little i’ve managed to track down of it anyway)
    Joseph Roth — THE RADETZKY MARCH
    César Aira — AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A LANDSCAPE PAINTER
    Shusaku Endo — THE SEA AND POISON
    Mary Butts — ARMED WITH MADNESS
    Yuz Aleshkovsky — CAMOUFLAGE
    Henry James — THE AMBASSADORS
    Fernanda Melchor — HURRICANE SEASON
    Lore Segal — LUCINELLA

    (if i can stretch the definition of “novel” just a little, then
    Charles Schulz — PEANUTS
    Alison Bechdel — DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR
    Gary Trudeau — DOONESBURY
    should be here too)

    so many millions of books i need to read! and i’m still looking for those perfect novels: one should read like Galaxie 500 sounds, one like Eric Dolphy sounds, and one like several massive gothic cathedrals all devouring each other. if you’ve read any of these pls let me know

  14. Nightcrawler

    Hi Dennis! I have been reading your blog for the past few months, and I really enjoy every installment. It certainly made my train commute much more worthwhile.

    Some of my favorite novels, in no particular order, are:
    -“Journey to the End of the Night” and
    Death on the Installment Plan” by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

    -“Confessions of a Mask” by Yukio Mishima

    -“Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino

    -“Misery” by Stephen King

    -“Spaniels” by Jukka Siikala

    -And, for good measure, I will just add Franz Kafka, even though I prefer his fragments to his novels.

  15. R.G. Vasicek

    Eager to dig into your list.
    Here’s mine:
    MOTORMAN by David Ohle
    ROADSIDE PICNIC by Arkadiy & Boris Strugatsky
    WE by Yevgeniy Zamyatin
    ICE by Anna Kavan
    LOGAN’’S RUN by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson
    TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE by Bohumil Hrabal
    THE DESERT OF MUTE SQUARES by M. Kitchell
    THE PLAYERS OF NULL-A by A.E. Van Vogt
    THE WILLOWS by Algernon Blackwood
    AGUÀ VIVA by Clarice Lispector
    AUSTERLITZ by W.G. Sebald
    THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES by Roberto Bolaño
    TIME OUT OF JOINT by PKD
    RAY by Barry Hannah
    HUNGER by Knut Hamsun
    DAD SAYS HE SAW YOU AT THE MALL by Ken Sparling
    THE HUMAN WAR by Noah Cicero
    GRAVITY’S RAINBOW & CRYING LOT 49 by Pynchon
    MOLLOY, MALONE DIES, & THE UNNAMABLE by Beckett
    SEVERIN’S JOURNEY INTO THE NIGHT by Paul Leppin
    A GOTHIC SOUL Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic
    SOLARIS by Lem
    2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by A. C. Clarke
    Of course Joyce, Kafka, Melville, Poe, & other Superstars

  16. Steve Erickson

    THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES-David Leavitt
    THE CORRECTIONS-Jonathan Franzen
    TALES OF THE CITY-Armistead Maupin

    Just kidding…

    DHALGREN-Samuel Delany
    FOXFIRE-Joyce Carol Oates
    SHADOWLAND-Peter Straub
    KINDRED-Octavia Butler
    WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU-J.R. Ackerley
    MOTION SICKNESS-Lynne Tillman
    CHILDHOOD’S END-Arthur C. Clarke
    THE COLLECTOR-John Fowles
    PALE FIRE-Vladimir Nabokov
    BLUE OF NOON-Georges Bataille
    MUMBO JUMBO-Ishmael Reed
    LONDON FIELDS-Martin Amis
    OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS-Jean Genet
    BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL-Kathy Acker
    THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH-Philip K. Dick
    THE BLUEST EYE-Toni Morrison
    RUNNING WILD-J.G. Ballard
    NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND-Fyodor Dostoevsky
    THE MASTER AND THE MARGARITA-Mikhail Bulgakov
    INVISIBLE CITIES-Italo Calvino
    THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES-Roberto Bolaño

    At this point in my life, I’m much less interested in fiction and tend to read books about film and music instead. I am not sure why, except that the year in which my vision declined till I got cataract surgery had a permanent affect on my desire to read.

  17. Toniok

    Hello Dennis!!

    Thank you for this! So many books to read…
    Mine (in no order):

    – ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ — Charles Maturin
    – ‘Lunar Caustic’ — Malcolm Lowry
    – ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket’ — Edgar Allan Poe
    – ‘The Sea of Fertility’ — Yukio Mishima
    – ‘Short Stories’ — H. P. Lovecraft
    – ‘On the Road’ — Jack Kerouac
    – ‘The Stranger’ — Albert Camus
    – ‘The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter’ — Carson McCullers
    – ‘The House on the Borderland’ — William Hope Hodgson
    – ‘Les Chants de Maldoror’ — Comte de Lautréamont
    – ‘Moby Dick’ — Herman Melville
    – ‘Guignol’s Band’ — Louis-Ferdinand Céline
    – ‘Giovanni’s Room’ — James Baldwin
    – ‘The Sundial’ — Shirley Jackson
    – ‘Wuthering Heights’ — Emily Brontë
    – ‘The Quest’ — Pío Baroja
    – ‘Domme ou l’Essai d’occupation’ — François Augiéras
    – ‘The Basketball Diaries’ — Jim Carroll
    – ‘Frankenstein’ — Mary Shelley
    – ‘Incarnate’ — Ramsey Campbell
    – ‘The Unlimited Dream Company’ — J. G. Ballard
    – ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ — Ken Kesey
    – ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ — Jean Rhys
    – ’62: A Model Kit’ — Julio Cortázar
    – ‘Alraune’ — Hanns Heinz Ewers
    – ‘The Book of Lies’ — Agota Kristof
    – ‘American Psycho’ — Bret Easton Ellis
    – ‘A Fragment of Life’ — Arthur Machen
    – ‘Tender is the Night’ — Scott Fitzgerald
    – ‘Pale Fire’ — Vladimir Nabokov
    – ‘Martian Time-Slip’ — Philip K. Dick
    – ‘The Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ — James Hogg
    – ‘Vathek’ — William Beckford
    – ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ — John Kennedy Toole
    – ‘Goodbye to Berlin’ — Christopher Isherwood
    – ‘Los planos de la demolición’ — El Ángel
    – ‘The Long Goodbye’ — Raymond Chandler
    – ‘Falconer’ — John Cheever
    – ‘Treasure Island’ — Robert Louis Stevenson
    – ‘The Devil’s Elixirs’ — E. T. A. Hoffmann
    – ‘All the Pretty Horses’ — Cormac McCarthy
    – ‘Steppenwolf’ — Hermann Hesse
    – ‘The Dream Police’ — Dennis Cooper
    – ‘Ferdyduke’ — Witold Gombrowicz
    – ‘The Black Dalia’ — James Ellroy
    – ‘Death in Venice’ — Thomas Mann
    – ‘Leviathan’ — Paul Auster
    – ‘The Purple Cloud’ — M. P. Shiel
    – ‘Manuscript Found in Saragossa’ — Jan Potocki
    – ‘Titus Groan’ — Mervyn Peake
    – ‘The Counterfeiters’ — Andre Gide
    – ‘White Noise’ — Don DeLillo
    – ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ — James M. Cain
    – ‘White Nights’ — Fyodor Dostoevsky
    – ‘L’Automne à Pékin’ — Boris Vian

    • Toniok

      – ‘The Foolish Children’ — Ana María Matute

  18. Nick Toti

    Hi Dennis,

    I can’t spill the beans too much about the Chaney project just yet, but I can tease it a little. My wife and I have spent the past two years laying the groundwork to start a small press that will publish books on horror movies (sort of in the 33 1/3 or Boss Fight Books model). We’re planning on announcing the first five titles pretty soon, one of which may or may not be about our furry friend, Mr. Chaney.

    Another weird synchronicity: I was just discussing with someone yesterday how I’ve become constitutionally unable to compile a list of favorite novels. For some reason, my mind goes blank when I try to think of only fiction. I think it’s a side effect of making documentaries that blend fiction in with fact, or something…

  19. Kyler

    Hi Dennis – saw this and couldn’t resist – let me have a crack at it:
    Paul Auster – Timbuktu, Mr. Vertigo
    Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead
    Somerset Maugham – The Moon and Sixpence, The Razor’s Edge
    Hermann Hesse – Demian, Steppenwolf, Journey to the East
    Haruki Murakami – Kafka on the Shore, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
    Aleister Crowley – Moonchild
    Chaim Potok – The Chosen, My Name is Asher Lev
    Jeff J mentioned Last Exit to Brooklyn (never read it, but I’m in the film!)

    • Kyler

      Could Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra be considered a novel? If so, add that.

  20. Russell

    Hi Dennis,

    Excited to see so much French writing here. I’m a prof at the American University of Paris, and I wonder if I could drop you an email about a possible thing. Nothing urgent, but when you get a moment?

    Russell

  21. CAUTIVOS

    Hi Dennis. I love your new post. Many of your favorite books I have already read, others unfortunately have not yet been translated into Spanish. I remember a similar list from many years ago and they don’t differ much. There are some novelties that right now I don’t remember very well, but in essence they are the same. Anna Kavan, Renee Gladman, Lynne Tillman, Paul Metcalf, Alan Warner… are the novelties among others. Some sound absences Brett Easton Ellis, Louis Celine among others, some surprising additions like Cortázar, Sebald or Duras and the absence of other books that I don’t remember very well what they are. It’s a sunny day in Spain and I don’t know if I feel sad, although your posts always make my life a little brighter. Waiting for the summer that is inexorably upon us and waiting impatiently for the publication of Michel Houellebecq’s new novel. I read Andre Gide’s diaries with enthusiasm and I haven’t gotten to read most of it yet. I try to stay busy as much as I can, I send some emails to family and friends who are far away and I try not to think about certain things. A year ago I published my first book, a text of more or less long stories that an interested publisher did me the favor of publishing entitled Para No Molestar a la Marmota, which has not sold very well and I try and now I try to get another published book but things are not easy because I sent my manuscript a long time ago and they haven’t answered me yet. Nobody seems to want a book of stories so I try to write novels that slip through my hands and I don’t get to redirect my characters and I forget the plot and I have to go back over and over again. I think I’m better at stories and there are many story contests but ultimately what they want from these platforms is to promote a product, a city, etc.

  22. CAUTIVOS

    Chuck Kinder, Lunas de Miel
    Bret Eaton Ellis, American Psycho
    Agota Kristof, Claus y Lucas
    Denton Welch, Primer Viaje
    Jacques Yonnet, Calle de los Maleficios
    Joan Didion, Una Liturgia Común
    Katherine Dunn, Amor de Monstruo
    Dennis Cooper, Guía
    Alexandre Trocchi, El Libro de Caín
    Roberto Bolaño, Los Detectives Salvajes
    Hermann Hesse, Bajo las Ruedas
    Louis Ferdinand Celine, Muerte a Crédito
    Jean Genet, Diario del Ladrón
    Ann Beattie, Postales de Invierno
    J D Salinger, El guardián entre el Centeno
    Jonathan Lethem, La Fortaleza de la Soledad
    David Foster Wallace, La Broma Infinita
    Albert Camus, La Peste
    Knut Hansum, Hambre
    David Mitchel, Escritos Fantasma
    Kathy Acker, El imperio de los Sinsentidos
    Conde De Lautreamount, Los Cantos de Maldoror
    Samuel Becket, El Innombrable
    Thomas Mann, Muerte en Venecia
    André Gide, El Inmoralista
    AM Homes, El Fin de Alice
    Marqués de Sade, Las 120 Jornadas de Sodoma
    Hervé Guibert, El Protocolo Compasivo
    William Faulkner, Santuario
    Gordon Burn, Felices Como Asesinos
    Martin Amis, Niños Muertos
    Michel Houellebecq, Ampliación del Campo de Batalla
    WG Sebald, Austerlitz
    Donna Tartt, El Secreto
    Michael Chabon, Chicos Prodigiosos
    DBC Pierre, Vernon Dios Little
    Tom Spanbauer, La Ciudad de los Cazadores Tímidos
    George Perec, La Vida Instrucciones de Uso
    Jean Rhys, Una Vida Sin Ti

  23. Grant Maierhofer

    Hey Dennis!

    I sent you an email about this but just in case I wanted to share it here. There’s an attempt being made to create a film about P. Lewis, and they’re about half-funded on Kickstarter. I love Lewis’ work a whole lot and thus donated and am hoping this thing comes together. I emailed about maybe even putting a post together for it, but I figured I’d at least comment if nothing else: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/berlinasylum/berlin-asylum?ref=project_build

    Best,

    Grant Maierhofer

  24. _Black_Acrylic

    Umm, off the top of my head…

    Mary Shelley – Frankenstein
    JD Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye
    Kathy Acker – Blood and Guts in High School

    As far as it goes for Leeds United, it all went down to the final game of the season. We won and are staying in the Premier League by the skin of our teeth, so I am massively relieved about it!

  25. dadoodoflow

    There is a lot of overlap with yours so in the spirit of adding more titles I’ll avoid them (especially that Kristofferson & Malady of Death. Mason & Dixon is my fave Pynchon as well. )

    Duras – Blue Eyes, Black Hair
    Quinn – Berg
    Gaddis – Recognitions
    Jönke – Geometric Regional Novel
    Bernhard- Old Masters
    Mackey – What Said Serif
    Smollet- Humphrey Clinker
    Stein – Tender Buttons
    Zürn – The Man of Jade
    Toussaint- Camera
    Rulfo – Pedro Parmor
    Andrews – I Don’t Have Any Paper So Shut Up: Or, Social Romanticism
    Notley- Disobedience
    James – Negrophobia
    Delany – Hogg
    Levy – Beautiful Mutants
    Mosley – Hopeful Monsters
    Fuentes – Terra Nostra
    Forster – Howard’s End
    Calvino – Invisible Cities

  26. Derek McCormack

    Dennis, I’m beyond honoured to be on this list. You’re in my top ten—you’re in my top one!

    Love, Derek

    PS Thanks to you, too, Zak!

    • Billy

      Loved your book

  27. Try Karenina

    Yessssssss, the post we’ve been awaiting is finally here, and it’s a generous treasure! Sad to admit I haven’t read many from your list… I’ve been meaning to read Blanchot and Bernhard for a while, but didn’t know where to start – your faves are obviously the best place to start. I had an epiphany when I first read your novels in 2020; my novel ‘journey’ hasn’t been the same since, and I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a sad thing, but after I read The Sluts in March 2020, my idea and expectation from novels totally changed to the point that now I find it hard to obtain pleasure from reading novels, whereas prior to discovering your work, reading novels was one of my main sources of pleasure and nourishment. Perhaps, I had a basic, standard taste… I was obsessed with many novels, but my faves were Anna Karenina, Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark, The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, Mishima’s Thirst for Love, Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince and A Fairly Honourable Defeat, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, Sadegh Hedayat’s Blind Owl, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, The Picture of Dorian Gray, A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin, Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller, and Tampa by Alisa Nutting. I still love these novels and think about them fondly and often, but after I read The Sluts followed by your Cycle (particularly the first three ones), I now expect extreme scenarios and sensations and situations and explosions from novels, but sadly, that is not common at all. I am now struggling to enjoy good, old school, linear novels like I used to. I am not blaming you lol. Perhaps my pre-DC fave novels can co-exist with my post-DC fave novels (basically your novels), and that would be my list.
    p.s. Hope you had a Phantastic time in Phantasialand xoxo

  28. Mattia

    The Floating Opera – John Barth
    The Laughing Monsters – Denis Johnson
    Fictions – Jorge Luis Borges
    Gerald Murnane – The Plains
    The Marbled Swarm, God Jr. – Dennis Cooper
    To Remain Nameless – Brad Fox (which I have you to thank for as well)
    Claire-Louise Bennett – Pond
    Maggie Nelson – The Red Parts (does it qualify as a novel? Doubt so)
    Michel Houellebecq – The Possibility of an Island (hated with a passion pretty much all of his other books)
    Pierre Drieu La Rochelle – The Fire Within

    (Yes, I have some catch-up to do)

  29. dadoodoflow

    Part two

    Burroughs – Nova Express
    Joyce – Ulysses
    Woolf – The Waves
    Bowles – Three Curious Ladies
    Gener – Our Lady of the Flowers
    Acker – My Mother Demonology
    A – Louis Zukofsky
    Mayer – Midwinter’s Day
    Hejinian – Writing as an aide to memory
    Ellroy – American Tabloid
    Piñera – Rene’s Flesh
    Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo
    Juster- Phantom Tollbooth
    Gide – Pastoral Symphony
    Ballard – Crash
    Spahr – Response
    Celan – Breathturn
    Williams – Spring and All
    Abe – Woman in the Dunes
    Marcus – The Age of Wire and String
    Hawkes – The Lime Twig
    Johnson – Radi Os
    Mackey – Whatsaid Serif
    Bataille – Story of the Eye
    Barbusse – Hell
    Coover – Gerlad’s Party
    Palmer – Sun
    Schulz – Street of Crocodiles
    Ovid (Golding) – Metamorphosis

  30. Billy

    This one brought out so many people. Bookmarking it to come back for tips. Slightly embarrassed to see the ones I have but haven’t read. I love In Youth Is Pleasure but reading and hating Maiden Voyage, weirdly.

    Adding only what I’ve not seen:

    Most of Purdy/Dawn Powell
    Billy Budd
    Satyricon
    Earthly Powers/Enderby
    Hadrian vii
    Brideshead revisited
    For Two Thousand Years

    Hope you’re doing well. England broiling. Trying to get hold of permanent green light on dvd or whatever but I think it’s a region thing.
    Xxx

  31. rafe

    Many of my favorites are on your list. Save for the ones you wrote! And I’m excited to read the ones I haven’t yet. I think about Castle Faggot all the time – I’ve actually wondered how you see your afterward interacting with the novel itself. I remember feeling like it fit into the space of the book strangely.. or in a cool way; different than other afterwards to other books. I wish I could say I’ve been alive at the same time as Kathy Acker though she died before I was even born. I really do love everything she wrote that I’ve gotten my hands on. .. words .. One of the books that’s always haunted me or that’s always felt super important is Coraline by Neil Gaiman. It’s for children I guess but I still read it every year and its pretty amazing. All the exciting reading energy on here always makes my day. Hope your’s is great!

  32. Thomas Moronic

    So cool to see this updated list, Dennis. Will definitely be taking some tips from the updates/changes that you’ve made. And I agree with a ton that’s in your list, no surprise – also, so many books I’ve ended reading and being completely changed on your recommendation. Thanks!

    How’s everything going?

    Love

    Thomas xoxo

  33. M Kitchell

    Hey Dennis!

    Hadn’t thought about this for a while so figured this would be as fun of a time as any to reconsider… no order, just me wander around and looking at my bookshelves, so also possible I’m overlooking some things.

    Murder – Danielle Collobert
    Bataille’s Wound – Michael Greene
    The Ship – Hans Henny Jahnn
    Madame Edwarda – Georges Bataille
    L’Homme Atlantique, The Man Sitting in the Corridor – Marguerite Duras
    Topology of a Phantom City, Recollections of the Golden Triangle, A Sentimental Novel – Alain Robbe-Grillet
    Womens Rites – Catherine Robbe-Grillet as Jeanne de Berg
    Fable, Passacaglia – Robert Pinget
    Period – Dennis Cooper
    boneyard – Stephen Beachy
    The Atrocity Exhibition – JG Ballard
    Rien ne va Plus – Margarita Karapanou
    Candy Story – Marie Redonnet
    The Plight House – Jason Hrivnak
    Teatro Grottesco – Thomas Ligotti
    The Spider’s House – New Juche
    Journey of the Dead – Francois Augieras
    The Acephalic Imperial – Damian Murphy
    The Castle of Communion – Bernard Noel
    The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie – Agota Kristof
    Mercury – Anna Kavan
    Hospice – Gregory Howard
    Holy Terror – Steve Abbott
    Story of O – Pauline Reage

    & some short story collections, b/c I feel like the genre gets overlooked wrt any sort of longevity:
    Fur & Pallaksch, Pallaksch – Liliane Giraudon
    Animal Rights & Pornography – J. Eric Miller
    The Eyes – Jesus Ignacio Aldapuerta

  34. beatnik101

    love a lot of those novels on the list, may have some overlap. thanks for sharing.

    here are mine:
    10:04 – ben lerner
    nausea – jean-paul sartre
    less than zero – bret easton ellis
    hopscotch – julio cortázar
    un homme qui dort – george perec
    the driver’s seat – muriel spark
    state of grace – joy williams
    bonjour tristesse – françoise sagan
    the day of the locust – nathanael west
    after dark – haruki murakami
    and the hippoes were boiled in their tanks – jack kerouac & william burroughs
    ulysses – james joyce
    play it as it lays – joan didion

    i’d go with lynch too. speaking of films, i recently made this 16mm short film if you’re interested: https://vimeo.com/712246904

    xx
    ade

  35. LC

    Sorry to Disrupt the Peace, Patrick Cottrell
    Bad Marie, Marcy Dermansky
    Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
    Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
    Prisoner of Love, Jean Genet
    Xenogenesis series, Octavia Butler
    Pretend I’m Dead, Jen Beagin
    You Are Having a Good Time, Amie Barrodale

  36. Rock Hyrax

    Splendid. And nice to see what has changed and been added the last time I saw one of your lists! For me, at last check:

    The Book of Monelle (Marcel Schwob, 1894)
    The Dragon (Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1913-1931, trans/pub.1966)
    Street of Crocodiles (Bruno Schulz, 1937)
    The Third Policeman (Flann O’Brian, 1940 / pub.1967)
    Pierrot Mon Ami (Raymond Queneau, 1942)
    Ficciones (Jorge Luis Borges, 1944)
    Watt (Samuel Beckett, 1945)
    The Stone Door (Leonora Carrington, 1940s, pub.1977)
    Heartsnatcher (Boris Vian, 1953)
    The Goose of Hermogenes (Ithell Colquhoun, 1961/written early-50s?)
    The Night of Lead (Hans Henny Jahnn, 1956)
    The Vet’s Daughter (Barbara Comyns, 1959)
    A Dreambook for Our Time (Tadeusz Konwicki, 1963)
    V (Thomas Pynchon, 1963)
    The Ice Palace (Tarjei Vesaas, 1963)
    Compact (Maurice Roche, 1966)
    Ice (Anna Kavan, 1967)
    Between (Christine Brooke-Rose, 1968)
    *Steps (Jerzy Kosinski, 1968)
    62: A Model Kit (Julio Cortazar, 1968)
    Joko’s Anniversary (Roland Topor, 1969)
    Ubik (Phillip K Dick, 1969)
    The Atrocity Exhibition (J.G. Ballard, 1970)
    Play It As It Lays (Joan Didion, 1970)
    The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1971)
    Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino, 1972)
    Tripticks (Ann Quin, 1972)
    Dhalgren (Samuel R. Delany, 1974)
    Death, Sleep, and the Traveler (John Hawkes, 1974)
    La Belle Captive (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1975)
    Holy Smoke (Fanny Howe, 1979)
    Night (Bilgé Karasu, 1976 / pub. 1985)
    Island People (Coleman Dowell, 1976)
    Fatale (Jean-Patrick Manchette, 1977)
    Secret Rendezvous (Kobo Abe, 1977)
    The Passion of New Eve (Angela Carter, 1977)
    The Changeling (Joy Williams, 1978)
    Bartholomew Fair (Eric Basso, 1982)
    The Stain (Rikki Ducornet, 1984)
    Beloved (Toni Morrison, 1987)
    Mauve Desert (Nicole Brossard, 1987)
    The Hungry Girls (Patricia Eakins, 1988)
    The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie (Agota Kristof, 1986-1993)
    Nevermore (Marie Redonnet, 1994)
    Defiance (Carole Maso, 1998)
    George Miles Cycle (Dennis Cooper, 1989-2000)
    Aliens & Anorexia (Chris Kraus, 2000)
    Zuntig (Tom LaFarge, 2001)
    Fever Dream (Samanta Schweblin, 2014)
    Destroy All Monsters (Jeff Jackson, 2018)

  37. David Hay

    This is a great list. So many that I have never read or heard of.

    My favourite novels in no order are:

    Camus – The Plague
    Dostoyevsky – Brothers Karamazov
    Woolf- The Waves
    Maxwell – So Long, See you Tomorrow
    Steinbeck – East of Eden
    Denis Johnson – Train Dreams
    Wolfe- Of Time and the River
    Baldwin- Giovanni’s Room
    Bulgakov- The Master and the Margarita
    Ellison- invisible Man
    Kerouac- Visions of Gerard/ Doctor Sax
    Proust- in Search of Lost Time 1
    Hemingway – The Sun Also Rises
    Rodoreda – Death of Spring/ Diamond Square
    Gabriel Garcia Marquez – 100 Years
    Juan Rulfo – Pedro Paramo
    Nella Larsen – Quicksand
    Jean Rhys – Good Morning Midnight and Wide Saragossa Sea.

    Obvs there are a lot more but these spring to mind.

  38. Lynne Tillman

    Thanks, dear Dennis, so glad to be on your list of faves. Your lists are the only ones I’m ever on…and your opinions mean a lot to me. Hoping your keeping OK, here it’s a madhouse, the inmates are more sound then the keepers, but that’s not saying much, lovexx, Lynne

  39. Martí Sales

    Death in Spring, Mercè Rodoreda (https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/death-in-spring)

    René’s Flesh, Virgilio Piñera (https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=7625)

    The Sea, Blai Bonet (https://dalkeyarchive.store/products/the-sea?_pos=1&_sid=d978b8da8&_ss=r)

  40. Craig Young

    Okay, here’s mine…

    Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffmann
    Philip K. Dick, Man in the High Castle
    Gustave Flaubert, Salammbo
    Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony
    Jean Cocteau, Orphee
    Daniel-Paul Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
    Aeschylus, The Oresteia Trilogy
    Kay Dick, They
    Davy Davies, X
    William S. Burroughs, Wild Boys
    Samuel R. Delany, Neveryon Quartet
    Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker
    Mordecai Roshwald, Level 7
    Poppy Z. Brite, Lost Souls
    Poppy Z. Brite, Drawing Blood
    J.G. Ballard, Crash
    Joris Huysmans, La-Bas/Down There
    Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
    Thomas Pynchon, Crying of Lot 49
    George Orwell, 1984
    Margaret Atwood, Handmaid’s Tale
    Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
    Aldous Huxley, Ape and Essence
    George Orwell, Animal Farm
    Kobo Abe, Woman in the Dunes
    Jean Genet, Querelle of Brest
    Vladimir Nabokov, Ada

  41. jmd

    my small contribution to the many interesting selections:

    yambo ouologuem – bound to violence
    bohumil hrabal – harlequin’s millions
    camara laye – the radiance of the king
    flann o brien – at swim two birds
    henry james – the ambassadors
    bruno schulz – the street of crocodiles
    thomas lovell beddoes – death’s jest book
    samuel beckett – molloy
    georges simenon – dirty snow
    venedikt erofeev – moscow to the end of the line
    curzio malaparte – kaputt
    ilf & petrov – the twelve chairs
    gustav meyrink – the golem
    heinrich von kleist – the marquise of o etc
    michel tournier – friday
    and everything by kafka

    thanks all !

  42. David Ehrenstein

    A La Recrche du Temps Perdu (bien sur)

    and

    T
    “TwoSerious Ladies”

  43. anarchoautism

    Hey Dennis (though you’re probably not seeing cause it’s an old blog post now lol), I’m reading Closer and really enjoying it, which I snatched a copy of at my local independent bookshop. I discovered you through my favourite band Xiu Xiu and had you on my reading list for a while.

    As a young, bicurious 21 year old much of the content of the novel feels very relatable despite my lack of sexual irl encounters and having not done any substances, but I love the immediacy and energy of your writing style and how well it captures the tumultuous feelings of adolescence

    My favourites are:

    Georges Bataille – Story of the Eye
    Charles Baudelaire – The Flowers of Evil
    Thomas Bernhard – The Loser
    Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime & Punishment
    T. S. Eliot’s poetry
    Franz Kafka – The Castle
    H. P. Lovecraft stories
    Laszlo Krasznahorkai – Sátántángó
    Thomas Mann – Death in Venice
    Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian
    Gustav Meyrink – The Golem
    Robert Musil – The Confusions of Young Törless
    Anais Nin – Little Birds
    George Orwell – Homage to Catalonia
    Wilfred Owen’s poetry
    Georges Perec – Life: A User’s Manual
    Fernando Pessoa – The Book of Disquiet
    Arthur Rimbaud – A Season in Hell
    Bruno Schulz – Street of Crocodiles
    William Shakespeare – Macbeth
    Georg Trakl’s poetry

  44. L'ED

    My all-time faves (in alpha by author):

    _The Wasp Factory_ *Iain Banks*
    _Blue of Noon_ *Georges Bataille*
    _Nouvelles et Textes pour rien_ *Samuel Beckett*
    _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ *William Blake*
    _Let It Come Down_ *Paul Bowles*
    _I Remember_ *Joe Brainard*
    _Ham on Rye_ *Charles Bukowski*
    _The Wild Boys_ *William S. Burroughs*
    _If on a winter’s night a traveler_ *Italo Calvino*
    _Le Livre blanc_ *Jean Cocteau*
    _Try_ *Dennis Cooper*
    _Naked in Garden Hills_ *Harry Crews*
    _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_ *Philip K. Dick*
    _Play It As It Lays_ *Joan Didion*
    _Rebecca_ *Daphne du Maurier*
    _Under the Skin_ *Michel Faber*
    _As I Lay Dying_ *William Faulkner*
    _The Thief’s Journal_ *Jean Genet*
    _Neuromancer_ *William Gibson*
    _Pornographia_ *Witold Gombrowicz*
    _Hunger_ *Knut Hamsun*
    _Demian_ *Hermann Hesse*
    _The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner_ *James Hogg*
    _The Elementary Particles_ *Michel Houellebecq*
    _Against Nature_ *JK Huysmans*
    _The Cone Gatherers_ *Robin Jenkins*
    _Ulysses_ *James Joyce*
    _How Late It Was, How Late_ *James Kelman*
    _Visions of Gerard_ *Jack Kerouac*
    _Les Chants de Maldoror_ *Comte de Lautrémont*
    _The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things_ *JT LeRoy*
    _The Iron Heal_ *Jack London*
    _A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing_ *Eimear McBride*
    _Child of God_ *Cormac McCarthy*
    _The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter_ *Carson McCullers*
    _Here_ *Richard McGuire*
    _Sebastien Roch_ *Octave Mirbeau*
    _Pale Fire_ *Vladimir Nabokov*
    _At Swim-Two-Birds_ *Flann O’Brien*
    _A Humument_ *Tom Phillips*
    _Narrow Rooms_ *James Purdy*
    _Last Exit to Brooklyn_ *Hubert Selby Jr*
    _The Red and the Black_ *Stendhal*
    _The Color Purple_ *Alice Walker*
    _Morvern Callar_ *Alan Warner*
    _Marabou Stork Nightmares_ *Irvine Welsh*
    _The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone_ *Tennessee Williams*
    _You Can’t Go Home Again_ *Thomas Wolfe*
    _We_ *Yevgeny Zamyatin*
    _Dark Spring_ *Unica Zürn*

  45. Ginger Dali

    Hello Dennis and all,

    I’m so late to the party but I can’t sleep and it’s given me a thrill to see some of my favourites mentioned by others. These are the books I could read again and again.

    The George Miles Cycle is the fiction I come back to most often and which most inspires my own writing. Thank you for this special blog.

    The Ginger Man, JP Donleavy
    Death in Venice, Mann
    Lolita, Nabokov
    Bonjour Tristesse, F Sagan
    Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
    Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin
    Less than Zero, Ellis
    Dancer from the dance, Holleran

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