off the top of my head and in no particular order
american tabloid - james ellroy
amazeball. the first ellroy i read and i've consumed the lot. a drug driven miasma of language that redfines the term 'hard boiled'
blood in the time of cholera - gabriel garcia marquez
charming, lyrical and romantic from the squeezed out sound of a prostate piss marquez builds a beguiling tale of love.
any human heart - william boyd
a book i've given as a present more than any other. about to be a four part adaptation for channel 4.
i claudius - robert graves
really part of a double pack with claudius the god this is history vividly and cruelly brought to life.
brideshead revisited - evelyn waugh
you should really read everything he has ever done but this is his crowning glory for me.
the bonfire of the vanities - tom wolfe
again i've read everything he's ever done but 'day-glo dickens' pretty much nails it for me. the ultimate novel of the 80s.
from hell - alan moore
an unbelievable meditation on evil that pushes back the boundaries of how we can tell a story. simply a stunning piece of work.
breakfast of champions - kurt vonnegut
hard to pick just one from vonnegut but this is my favourite. the feeling of what its like to be going insane. amazing man, amazing book.
lsd my problem child - dr albert hoffman
a profound book from the creator of the one truly great mind catalyst of the 20th century. i can't tell you how wonderful this man is.
ragtime - el doctorow
again it could be anything from doctorow just for the sheer glee with which he deploys beautiful language.
the road - cormac mccarthy
a book that i had to be goaded into reading - what a pompous little prick i can be - this book is as lean and perfect as the great gatsby.
coming back to this list after a few months i'm stunned at some of my omissions. i mean no ballard? he had been my favourite living writer of english and still lives on my imagination every time i reach a bleak architectural space. its made me feel the need to come back with a revised ten for october though i have to say reading time has recently been massively impacted by our new arrival.
high rise - jg ballardi've loved pretty much everything he's written but i think this best encapsulates his observation of our essential atavism and is dislike of middle class smuggery as a gated chelsea apartment block finds itself at war and its denizens reverting to a primitive state unseen by the outside world. its almost the logical conclusion of 'crash' and 'the concrete island' and encapsulates the essence of what he expands upon in 'cocaine nights'; 'super cannes' and 'kingdom come'.
the magus - john fowlesi'm currently reading 'a maggot' and finding it equally enthralling as 'the magus' which i also first read 20 years ago when staying in montepellier. it tells the story of an amoral young man who seems like the successor to the protagonists of the kitchen sink dramas of the 50s. he's grammar school educated but not rich and when a relationship fails he goes off to teach on a remote greek island. its here that things start to get weird ultimately leaving the character the reader confused as to what is real and what is not. fowles has been dismissive of some of the praise for this book but if you enjoyed something like 'lost' then you will love this.
the new confessions - william boydi mentioned 'any human heart' in my previous ten but this has to go in to round two. almost a precursor in that its a fictional auto-biography of a scottish boarding school boy who goes on to direct some classic black and white films. its about his life and the richness of experience and while its hard for me to put my finger on why its just so special please take my word for it as its a book you won't put down as soon as you've started.
pincher martin - william goldinggenius novel from one the greatest ever. hard to describe without spoiling it starts with a bit of a shit being shipwrecked when his destroyer is torpedoed. he reflects on his life while he clings to a rock in a storm reflecting on a life that could have been lived better. a profound exploration of what used to be called the human condition.
bleak house - charles dickensyou have to have love for the big man and this is him at his labyrinthine best. any novel that features a spontaneous combustion to draw the plot out is ok by me particularly when the sense of space and time so spectacularly well evoked. the subject of two sublime bbc adaptations - given a choice i would go for the diana rigg version - if you can't be bothered reading it do at least try to watch this wonderful adaptations.
the electric kool aid acid test - tom wolfeone of my favourite writers of non-fiction i've chosen this from his journalism due to a profound love of the subject matter - lsd and its dissemination through american by ken kesey and his merry pranksters - as much for the genius of his descriptive prose. to be fair if you want to know about the world of 50, 40, 30 years ago you should really read everything he's done - his essay on the lunchtime mod culture of soho is a peach - but this is a brilliant starting point.
watchmen - alan moorei've now seen the film about 5 times (its really pretty good) but nothing can compare to the luminescent genius of the graphic novel. i came on a pilgrimage to buy the original comics from denmark st's forbidden planet as a teenager. it was a time pre-internet and pre-specialsit comic shops in a 1950s belfast. it remains cannon for me and one of the definitive super hero texts. yes i am hassinator and i am a comic geek.
norwegian wood - murakmaia great place to start with this japanese prose-poet. i've been a frequent visitor to japan but i feel his novels prepared me for what to expect more profoundly than anything else. this explores his familiar themes of emotional alienation and the heavy burden of existence for a young japanese couple set against a background of social turbulence. weapons grade excellence all round.
blood is a rover - james ellroyits hard to believe that someone could come up with a book as good - if not better - than 'american tabloid' but i do believe ellroy has pulled it off. his masterpiece and not to be missed if you are in any way a fan.
the road - cormac mccarthyyes its in my previous ten but this included to be sure, to be sure. a book SO good that when i finished i just started it again. flawless. read it. now.