The Books I Read in 2019

As you know, I love to read. Mostly, it's my favourite thing to do. Watching films is even secondary to reading and so, I have amounted a great amount of books over the year since I don't really watch TV and all else I do is watch a film or two here and there. If you'd like to check out how and why I read then please proceed to click here and return afterwards: https://vocal.media/psyche/literature

Here are the books I've read in 2019, discussing bits and pieces as we go!

Book I Read in 2019

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by ETA Hoffmann

This book was absolutely magical. I love the Nutcracker and I so enjoyed reading this after finding a recommendation of it on my Instagram feed.

The Tale of the Nutcracker by Alexander Dumas

Alfred Hitchcock by Peter Ackroyd

Bob Dylan: A Retrospective by Craig McGregor

A Woman Makes a Plan by Maye Musk

Marilyn by Jay Harrison

Marilyn Among Friends by Sam Shaw

Wanted Man: In Search for Bob Dylan by John Bauldie

Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith

This was probably one of my favourite books of the year. It was so fluid and poetic that when I was reading it, I was supposed to be playing Scrabble with my family at the same time.

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner

Crying the News by Vincent Digirolamo

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

By Any Means Necessary - Malcolm X

Elvis Presley: A Life from Beginning to End

The Buddy Holly Story by John Tobler

Buddy Holly by John Goldrosen

Michael Jackson: All The Songs, The Story of Every Track

Elvis: A Truly Incredible Life

Elvis: The Comeback ’68 Special

Michael Jackson: King of Pop

Michael Jackson: A Life in Pictures

Michael Jackson: Style

Walden by HD Thoreau

This was a re-read because I'd previously read it a couple of times. To me, it is the perfect escape book. It has this escape nature to it that takes a city girl/boy/non-binary/etc. out of the city and into a different place.

On Michael Jackson by Margo Jefferson

Careless Love by Peter Guralnick

Elvis Presley by Pamela Keough

Elvis Presley: The Unseen Archive

The Pelican Book of English Prose

If It Die by Si Le Grain Ne Meurt

Night Watches by WW Jacobs

Literary Lapses by Step hen Leacock

Poet’s Pub Eric Linklater

The Essential Writings of Gandhi

Deep Blues by Robert Palmer

I love re-reading this book too because it's all about one of my favourite music genres - the blues. But unfortunately I sold my copy on eBay and so, I'm going to have to stop here with my re-reads.

The Secret Barrister

Compulsory Games by Robert Aickman

The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime*

Basic Black With Pearls by Helen Weinzweig

Sunflower by Gyula Krudy

The Great Victorians V1

The Great Victorians V2

Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

This is one of the best accounts of the Fitzgerald's I've ever read. I picked it up on eBay and the copy itself was torn up and in rather bad shape. The book itself was completely intact though and that's really all I cared about.

The Short History of the World by HG Wells

Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller

Cry The Beloved country by Alan Paton

Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling

Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand

The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan

The Death of Arthur

I've read this book so many times. Again, it's an escape book. You go into a world far different to your own and it's a brilliant story of knights and legends. It's one of those that takes you back to the stories of your childhood. If you like this then read Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Three Poets of the First World War: Ivor Gurney, Isaac Rosenberg, Wilfred Owen

Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley

The Penguin Book of Russian Short Stories

Landscape with Figures by Richard Jefferies

The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson

Romantic Imperialism by Saree Makdisi

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

This was my final Greene Novel and now, I've read all his stuff. Nothing compared to my favourites: Our Man in Havana, The Third Man etc.

Love Among the Haystacks by DH Lawrence

The Lawless Roads by Graham Greene

My penultimate Graham Greene Novel, this wasn't as good as his others but I still wanted to read it, I was far too focused on getting the author's bibliography finished.

Vagabond by Colette

Forever Words by Johnny Cash

The Grassling by Elizabeth Jane-Burnett

This is written by one of my lectures from my undergraduate degree. So if you can, give it a read.

Groucho Marx and Me: The Autobiography by Groucho Marx

Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley

Oh god, I can't tell you how much I loved reading the loving words of Priscilla Presley - a woman who just misses her ex-husband. This is the perfect book for us ladies here - sorry fellas but this book is a real chick one. Not to be sexist but it is...

Sinatra by J Randy Taraborrelli

Chaplin: His Life and Art by David Robinson

Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed by Michelle Morgan

Saturday by Ian McEwan

Amritsar 1919 by Kim Wagner

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

I couldn't stand this book when I was 17 and I can't stand it now. It's god awful but I did try to read it again. Yeah, this book is pretty unbearable alright. See this book soon in 'The Worst Books I've Ever Read" (TBA)

Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger

The Autobiography of Errol Flynn

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Matsuo Basho

The Conference of Birds by Farrid Ud-Din Attar

Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed

The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole

Letters to a Young Poet by RM Rilke

The British in India by David Gilmour

Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote

Cocaine Nights by JG Ballard

Elvis in Vegas

I read most of this book in the Birmingham Foyles Bookshop when my family decided to leave me in there one day and go shopping. I fell in love with this book because it went through all the Vegas culture that was developing by the time Elvis hit there. Oh, it was amazing.

Roots by Alex Haley

The Fog by James Herbert

Creature by John Saul

The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry

Crossfire by Malorie Blackman

I read the rest of the series when I was young and yet, this book just didn't measure up to them. It was good, but not "Noughts and Crosses" good.

Judy Garland: A Biography by Anne Edwards

Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote

I've read so much on the life and times and works of Truman Capote it's unreal and this book did not disappoint. You can literally hear his voice as you're reading the letters.

Capote by Gerald Clarke

Possibly one of the best biographies of Capote I've ever read. It was a brilliant treat of a book and very entertaining just like Capote was in life.

Dark Water by Robert Bryndza

My Soul’s High Song by Countee Cullen

From the man who taught James Baldwin to write like he did, Countee Cullen is mostly forgotten but his poetry hits hard on your heart and makes you want to get up and fight a Civil Right's War.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Truman Capote by George Plimpton

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter

Penguin German Reader

The New Yorker Book of the 50s

I love the 50s and I think if you want a dictionary on it then you should look no further. Everything from Science to Music to Acting and Literature and Motorcycles etc. this book had it all. From fashion, culture, lifestyle and news - it was the most expansive 50s book I've ever read.

The Pelican Book of Film by Roger Manvell

An Anthology of Canadian Poetry (Pelican Books)

Mozart’s Letters (Pelican Books)

Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge

A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres

The Astonishing History of Troy Town

An American Romance by Hans Koningsberger

Essays in English History by AJP Taylor

Beethoven (Pelican Books)

Tales From Tchehov translated by Constance Garnett

James Baldwin: Living in Fire by Bill V Mullen

This is a fairly new book on the market and yet, it is a brilliant account of a fiery young writer who makes his name writing some of the most controversial identity novels of all time. I am a massive Baldwin fan and made a point of reading all of his novels at least once and I can honestly say that this biography really does him justice.

Strawberry Roan by AG Street

This book is fairly short if anyone wants to know I read most of it whilst in line at the chippy.

Soviet Short Stories by Penguin Publishing

Scenes from a Provincial Life by William Cooper

Disturbance: Surviving Charlie Hebdo by Philippe Lancon

This book was one of the most horrific things I'd ever read. Please read it, it is so important. The author was actually in the tragedy and involved. It is brutal and so damn honest.

The Last Temptation by Nikos Kazantzakis

Well, at least the book is better than the film...

The Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

Women, Race and Class by Angela Davies

The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy

Apostle by Tom Bissell

This is one of my favourite modern books on Jesus and the Apostles because it is very investigatory. There is something that tells you that a lot of time and research went into writing this. I'd been wanting to read it for a while before I did.

Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Mortal Echoes by Greg Buzwell

Selected Journalism by Charles Dickens

Silence by Diamaid MacCullough

Lost Time by Josef Czapski

Sagittarius Rising by Cecil Day-Lewis

I love this work. I've read it a ton of times as I have many of Day-Lewis's writing. Plus, his son is hot.

The Penguin Book of Hell

Prophecies by Nostradamus

Really the Blues by Mezz Mezrow

I loved this. Published by the New York Review of Books, it is one of the most incredible books on the blues I've ever read and it made me laugh and cry

Principles of Shakespearean Performance by G Wilson Knight

Dracula’s Guest and Others by Bram Stoker

Berlin Stories by Robert Wassler

Jejuri by Arun Kolkatar

Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter

Blood on the Forge by William Attaway

Beyond Time by Mike Ashley

Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown

99 different thoughts about Princess Margaret. It is a book of great humour and satire - a brilliant portrait of a rebellious and slightly scandalous princess. I just recently sold it - so it looks like others like it too!

Memoirs from Beyond the Grave by Francois Chateaubriand

The Seven Madmen by Roberto Arlt

Notes on the Cinematograph by Robert Bresson

Any film nerd would want to read this. It's a brilliantly clever book that teaches you so much

JFK’s Last 100 Days by Thurston Clarke

The Invention of Morel by AB Casares

How to Be a Brit by George Mikes

Names on the Land by George R Stewart

Dante: Poet of the Secular World by Erick Auerbach

This book said it didn't want to exist when I was doing my undergraduate dissertation and Dante was in it. For some reason I never came across it back then but it sure would've helped.

The Storyteller Essays by Walter Benjamin

Oh I loved reading this book. All about why and how storytelling exists, it is a brilliantly critical account of one of history's greatest methods of recollection.

Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz

The Red Thread by Edwin Frank

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker

Nineteenth Christmas by James Patterson

33 1/3 Hits V 1

33 1/3 Hits V 2

The Magic Cottage by James Herbert

What Do We Need Men For? by E. Jean Carroll

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The White Album by Joan Didion

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman

Normal People by Sally Rooney

10 Minutes and 38 Seconds by Elif Shafak

I love Shafak's work and I've even met her and got my book signed by her. I spent most of my A-Level's re-reading "The Architect's Apprentice" by her as well. This book is all about mortality and dying - it is just so strikingly beautiful I can hardly describe. All you need to do is read the opening to understand.

This is Marketing by Seth Godin

Tyrant: Shakespeare and Power by Stephen Greenblatt

The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jeff Buckley by Mary Guibert and David Browne

I'd been waiting for this book for well over a year and when it came I was just so happy. If you're a Buckley fan then you definitely need this book in your life.

As I Went Out One Morning by Laurie Lee

Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac

The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

The Vanity of Duluoz by Jack Kerouac

Satori in Paris by Jack Kerouac

Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview

Pic by Jack Kerouac

Mexico City Blues by Jack Kerouac

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Mr. Bridge by Evan S Connell

The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray

Big Sur by Jack Kerouac

Tristessa by Jack Kerouac

The Upanishads

Kingdom of Fear by Hunter S Thompson

Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview

Because Internet by Gretchen McCullough

Ernest Hemingway: The Last Interview

The Cask of Amontillado by EA Poe (x)

The Haunting of Lannister Hall by Amy Cross

The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

David Foster Wallace: The Last Interview

James Baldwin: The Last Interview

Hunter S. Thompson: The Last Interview

David Bowie: The Last Interview

Fiends in the Furrows: An Anthology of Folk Horror

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: The Last Interview

Christopher Hitchens: The Last Interview

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

From the Depths: Strange Stories of the Sea

I actually can't get enough of these Weird Tales from the British Library Collection. I really need someone else to read them to so I can stop sitting here being obsessed by myself. This is probably one of the better ones, there's stuff out there in the ocean that we don't know about and so - it'll frighten the pants off of you to read this.

Catullus Complete Poems

Homeric Hymns

The Lives of the Caesars

Billie Holiday: The Last Interview

Promethean Horrors by Xavier Reyes

Seinfeld and Philosophy

You read that correctly. Seinfeld and Philosophy, a book about everything and nothing

Doorway to Dilemma: Dark Fantasy

The House is on fire and the kids are eating ice cream

This is quite possibly the worst poetry book I've ever read and is clearly self-published. It lacks any amount of heartiness that makes you want to read and draws you into the poem. I call this 'incel poetry'. (Sorry, I'm laughing so much).

Wanted Man: In search of Bob Dylan

No One is Too Small by Greta Thunberg

The Lives of Poets by Samuel Johnson

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic by Daisy Butcher

Selected Poetry by Thomas Hardy

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

I loved this book when I read it at school and I still love it now. Moll Flanders is such a rebellious character and such an incredible woman who is also a completely horrible human being. The way she treats others like commodity is just simply awful but it is just so funny.

Bob Dylan and Philosophy

Sanditon by Jane Austen

The Masterpiece by Emile Zola

The Life of Christina of Markyate

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan

Missing Person by Patrick Modiano

Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal

Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay

Grace by Jeff Buckley by Daphne A Brooks

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves

Will I Ever Be Good Enough? by Karyl McBride

A Little Larger Than the Universe by Fernando Pessoa

The Topmost Yoga System

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas

The Wichita Lineman by Dylan Jones

Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector

Ornament and Crime by Adolf Loos

The Language of Cities by Deyan Sedju

Oh gosh I can't tell you how much I loved learning about dialects and languages of the city life. Being someone who is from the city, I loved learning about why people from the city use certain words to describe things and how a city dialect develops.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

I didn't put it down all day and it was one of the most incredible things I've ever read. It's a brilliant sequel to an amazing book. I was one of those people that pre-ordered it, yes.

The Luzhin Defense by Vladimir Nabokov

The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges

Of the Social Contract and Other Writings by Jean Jacques Rousseau

The Pitards by Georges Simenon

The in-laws are the most horrifying people ever and I cannot explain to you how hard this hit home. I think me and my brother must have been laughing about it for a solid five minutes after I told my mom what the book was about.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud

What Red Was by Rosie Price

Chaos by Tom O’Neill

Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

I think I cried after reading this because it was so upsetting. It's one of those working class early 20th century American Novels where you go 'Oh god it can't get any worse that th- Oh no it just got worse!"

The Beauty of Everyday Things by Soetsu Yanagi

Within the Walls by Giorgio Bassani

South by Ernest Shackleton

The coolest expedition ever, a guy goes to the South Pole - this is one of the greatest travelogues ever and I serious think it is a perfect winter read because of its constant references to the cold and its deadliness.

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

This book, about the composition of Doctor Zhivago - was a Book Club Book for Reese Witherspoon's Book Club and I can honestly say I was so happy to read it. All about spies and espionage, prison and family - it has all the elements of a great thriller.

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima

Japanese Ghost Stories (Collection) by Penguin Publishing

Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

This is one of Marlon James' best books. After I read "A Brief History of Seven Killings" I was so looking forward to this book and I can honestly say, with all its identity and all its brash and boldness - it did not disappoint at all.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I've read this so many times that every year, I make a point of reading it again. I just think that it's one of the most important books ever written. All about money, family and how far you'd go for self-gain, this book is a tragic account of misidentification, an intrigue of liars and a story of three brother - one who commits patricide. He is said to have murdered his father. Filled with policing, suicide and gossip, it's a perfect book and my favourite Russian text ever.

Tidelands by Philippa Gregory

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

The Heron by Giorgio Bassani

The Girl on the Via Flaminia by Alfred Hayes

Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

The Hopkins Manuscript by RC Sheriff

The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz

Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata

The Death of the Grass by John Christopher

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers

A Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer

Another Country by James Baldwin

Coming Up For Air by George Orwell

The Kites by Romain Gary

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

The Frolic of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima

Starting off the way it does, it is being very bold but it is Mishima so the way it starts off seem to be just a regular Tuesday for him. You'll know when you read the beginning.

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (x)

The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

I think I read this in the space of one night because it was keeping me up. Again this was a Book Club Read and so, I felt inclined to read it. But it was also an amazing book. It was just so fast-paced, I felt like if I put it down I'd miss the point. I thought I knew what the title meant until I hit the final chapters of the book and then everything about it changed.

And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

It Can’t Happen Here by Upton Sinclair

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart

Lady Sings the Blues by Billie Holiday

I love re-reading the autobiography of Billie Holiday. It is so upsetting and yet you learn all about her story and the way she grew up away from her family and the way she developed her singing. It is such an honest story and I feel like it was just left so unfinished.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Flying Home and Other Stories by Ralph Ellison

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Can we just focus on the fact that I actually enjoyed reading a book by Ayn Rand for the first time in my life. It was actually written pretty well which is unusual for Ayn Rand.

Is God Happy? by Leszek Kolakowski

For Two Thousand Years by Mihail Sebastian

Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

Someone on Instagram was reading this and I wanted to read it too. I read the whole thing in one sitting. It's about Truman Capote but its completely fictionalised. It uses aspects of his biographical data but the book which he's writing in the book itself does not actually exist. I think what it is trying to show us is the way in which Capote seems to use the people around him for his own good and gain.

Charlie Chaplin by Peter Ackroyd

It All Adds Up by Saul Bellow

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

This whole book takes place in the space of one day and so, it is an unusual book. But what is even more unusual is the ending. The ending just really messed with me.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I've read this book a ton of times and every time I read it the book still scares the crap out of me. Never really loses its effect.

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

I read this a few years ago but very recently, I had heard an episode of the "great courses" lectures on it and so I bothered to read it again and really forgot how much I loved it. I remember it being my favourite Orwell novel and so, you can imagine that I enjoyed my second time around.

Marilou is Everywhere by Sarah Elaine Smith

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

This was a Reese's Book Club Monthly Book and so I felt obliged to read it. I can honestly say I spent the entire night reading this book because I wanted to know (though I already had guessed) what happened at the end. About a family going to ruins, one woman looks on as Parker (the brother) becomes angrier and angrier as it is announced that his sister has been murdered.

Three Early Modern Utopias

The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici by Christopher Hibbert

Medieval Writings on Secular Women

What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy

King, Queen, Knave by Vladimir Nabokov

Summer Crossing by Truman Capote

A Capote Reader by Penguin Publishing

Exile’s Return by Malcolm Cowley

Answered Prayers by Truman Capote

Phaedra and Other Plays by Seneca

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

This is one of the few Nabokov novels that has actually made me really laugh my head off.

Helena by Evelyn Waugh

The Essential Groucho Marx

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote

Master and Man and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy

The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide

Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote

Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

This book is literally as good as the book "Go Tell it on the Mountain" by James Baldwin. I love the way it is so heavily realistic about the treatment of African Americans. Ralph Ellison really hit hard with this one. It's got some wicked speeches that I can honestly say make you want to just cry. They are brilliant and the book is amazingly written.

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

The Collected Poems by Vladimir Nabokov

The Years and Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

Wait ‘Till I’m Dead by Allen Ginsberg

These poems of Ginsberg are some of the most philosophical modern poems I've ever read. There's one about being on an airplane which made me re-read the book about three times.

Selected Essays by Virginia Woolf

Victorian Fairy Tales

The Pre-Raphaelites: From Rossetti to Ruskin

The Fight by Norman Mailer

The Complete Odes and Epodes by Horace

An Anthology of Elizabeth Prose Fiction

Papillon by Henri Charriere

The Impatience of the Heart by Stefan Zweig

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre

Tales from the Underworld by Hans Fallada

Nabokov’s Dozen by Vladimir Nabokov

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

The Early Stories by Truman Capote

These are incredible. Written when Truman Capote was very young, these stories are incredibly dark and philosophical in comparison to what we commonly associate with Capote. It is a brilliant book of short stories and my favourite is probably "Ms. Belle Rankin" because of its dark brilliance.

Life with a Capital L by DH Lawrence

My copy of this is completely desecrated with notes now and as you can tell, I enjoyed it. I read it in the hot summer and lay on the floor of my living room next to the screen-glass door whilst doing do. I'd underline these intense great quotations and laugh as he took the piss out of Thomas Mann.

The Complete Stories by Truman Capote

The Portable Emerson

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler

Lonesome Traveller by Jack Kerouac

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov

Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov

A Short History of Decay by EM Cioran

I don't know if anyone remembers this but I spent the whole day critiquing this book on my Instagram story once and just laughed and laughed because it was so funny. Well, I thought it was funny anyway.

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

Despair by Vladimir Nabokov

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick

The Lusiads by Luis Vaz de Camoes

A guy called Hop was trying to get me into Portuguese Literature (because he's Portuguese) and even though I only know him online - I got his book suggestion and read it. It was brilliant. It's an absolute epic.

The Wicker Man by Robin Hardy

Me by Katharine Hepburn

Haunted by James Herbert

Brewster’s Millions by George McCutcheon

Bob Dylan’s Writings and Drawings

Printer’s Devil Court by Susan Hill

The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill

Again, I spent the entire day not being able to put it down. It's a brilliantly clever book. I hope I can read it again this year.

Some Will Not Sleep by Adam LG Nevill

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans

Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris

The Ring by Koji Suzuki

Hell! Said the Duchess by Michael Arlen

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Taking of Annie Thorne by CJ Tudor

The Other by Thomas Tryon

This book scared the hell out of me.

Perchance to Dream by Charles Beaumont

Classical Literary Criticism

The Maias by Eca de Quiroz

This is another one I got from the guy called Hop and this was an incredible book. It's written like a cross between Zola and Marquez, a Portuguese novel about doomed love, war and family - it has such an incredible essence of Portuguese History and yet an amazing family tragedy unfolds from the very beginning.

The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert

A Natural History of Ghosts by Roger Clarke

The Beatles by Hunter Davies

The English Ghost by Peter Ackroyd

Brothers by David Talbot

Nightrunners of Bengal by John Masters

I am Brian Wilson by Brian Wilson

There's a section in this book where Brian Wilson talks about the song "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes and how much he loved the introduction, he stated he'd listen to it over and over and even show his friends the song. Yes, it's a great song but that's slightly obsessive.

18th Abduction by James Patterson

Flashman and the Great Game by GM Fraser

Dream Boogie by Peter Guralnick

A Very Irregular Head by Rob Chapman

Me and a Guy Named Elvis by Jerry Schilling

Jerry Lee Lewis by Rick Bragg

The Redemption by WP Blatty

Glimpses of the Unknown by Mike Ashley

The Old, Weird America by Greil Marcus

Dimiter by WP Blatty

Myths of Mesopotamia

Visiting Bob by Thom Tammaro

No Direction Home by Robert Shelton

Dreaming of Dylan by Mary Lee Kortes

Bob Dylan by Seth Rogovoy

I Put a Spell on You by Nina Simone

Buddy Holly by Ellison Amburn

Possibly the best book on Buddy Holly you can get. A very truthful account, it breaks down the 'good boy' image that has been made of the great Buddy Holly.

Innocent Erendira and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Jesus Before the Gospels by Bart D Ehrman

Frank Sinatra by Spencer Leigh

With Billie by Julia Blackburn

Buddy by Philip Norman

Rave On by Philip Norman

Silent Voices by Shane Brown

Parkland by Dave Cullen

Like a Complete Unknown by David Yaffe

I Want to Tell You by OJ Simpson

Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus

Outrage by Vincent Bugliosi

The Portable 60s Reader

Detroit ’67 by Stuart Cosgrove

David Bowie by Dylan Jones

Atlantis by Stephen Kershaw

And God Created Burton by Tom Rubython

Gothic Ghost Stories

American Tragedy by Lawrence Schiller and James Willwerth

Without A Doubt by Marcia Clarke

The People v. OJ Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin

Mrs. De Winter by Susan Hill

Respect by David Ritz

Guys and Dolls by Damon Runyan

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

After reading this book, I went vegetarian for about a month. I just couldn't eat meat after reading this. I was horrified.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Pigs Might Fly by Mark Blake

Bat Out of Hell by Mick Wall

American Kingpin by Nick Bolton

Haunted Castles by Ray Russell

No Man Knows my History by Fawn M. Brodie

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami

Night Terrors by EF Benson

The Debacle by Emile Zola

The Road Through the Wall by Shirley Jackson

The Portable Beat Reader

A Parisian Affair and Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant

The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

The Portable Jack Kerouac

The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry

The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories

The Beast Within by Emile Zola

This book is brilliant. I love Zola's novels but the satire in this book is brilliant. Especially regarding the ending and the war, there's a certain amount of it that makes you go 'ooh look where that's going, can't be good..."

The Portable Frederick Douglass

The Penguin Book of 19th Century African American Women Writers

On Slavery and Abolitionism by Sarah and Angelina Grimke

I Want it Now by Kingsley Amis

Horror Stories by Darryl Jones

The Pan Book of Horror Stories

Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson

What Is History? by EH Carr

Just an Ordinary Day by Shirley Jackson

Prince by Mick Wall

Positively 4th Street by David Hadju

Beautiful Dreamer by John Bramley

The White Album by Brian Southall

The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault

Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Satchmo by Louis Armstrong

A brilliant account of the upsetting and oppressed life of Louis Armstrong in his own hand, this book tells the story of the greatest jazz artist of all time.

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

The Crime of Father Amaro by Eca de Queiroz

Blindness by Jose Saramago