My top 10
Ian Rankin
Author
1
"Charles Dickens' masterpiece. It has everything."
2The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
"Robert Louis Stevenson's satisfying, creepy, succinct exploration of human nature and good and evil."
3
"Muriel Spark dusts off Jekyll and Hyde and gives us a charismatic monster reimagined as a prim schoolteacher in Edinburgh. A real Tardis of a book, much bigger on the inside than the outside."
4The Big Sleep
"Chandler brought elegance and a sharp wit to the crime story and helped define the genre, as well as playing merry hell with the American dream."
5
"The most humane and challenging description of a common murderer whose guilt won't allow him a moment's peace."
6A Dance to the Music of Time
"A single narrative constructed as twelve episodes. Brilliantly clever dissection of upper class life in England seen against the backdrop of the whole twentieth century. Witty and caustic and giving us Widmerpool, one of the most extraordinary characters in all literature."
7
"An electrifying novel about Black experience in America, told in the most luminous prose imaginable. A book I could read again and again and never tire of."
8Money
"An evisceration of greed and delusion and privilege. John Self is mesmeric, even as he descends into hell."
9Lanark
"An extraordinary narrative, unlike anything you will ever read. It sent jolts through contemporary Scottish writing and helped start many an author's career."
10Life After Life
"I marvelled at this book, even as I was reading it for the first time. Such a vivid imagination, a clarity of purpose, and perfect execution. It shouldn't work but it does. Atkinson is a genius."
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