Why am I passionate about this?

I confess I was a serious little boy and used to be an excessively serious writer. Stoning the Devil, which is about desperate Gulf Arab women, was longlisted for major prizes and hailed by the feminist press. Poignant, even heart-breaking, but hardly a barrel full of laughsā€”though even then I couldnā€™t resist some black humour. But when I became a professor of Creative Writing at an American university, I found Iā€™d fallen into a world madder than Wonderland, and realised that the best way to tackle woke insanity was through humourā€”as the great comedians are doing. Nearly all the best British fiction is humorous, so I started letting out my own zany side.


I wrote

Our Parent Who Art in Heaven

By Garry Craig Powell,

Book cover of Our Parent Who Art in Heaven

What is my book about?

Welshman Huw Lloyd-Jones teaches Creative Writing at a charming college in the American South, and is in love with hisā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of A Handful of Dust

Garry Craig Powell Why did I love this book?

One of the rare successful tragicomedies. Starting as a witty sendup of the decadent British upper classes, it turns deadly serious in the middle, when John, the young son of Brenda, has an accident while fox-hunting. Because her lover is also called John, she imagines, on being told, that it is her lover who is hurtā€”and thanks God when she discovers that it is her son. Brendaā€™s distraught husband Tony, the one noble character, mounts an expedition to South America, but instead of finding meaning and redemption, as the reader hopes, a nightmarish fate awaits him. With this novel, Waugh proved himself the greatest British novelist of the inter-war yearsā€”and inspired me, showing me how to mix elements of gravity and tragedy with comedy. 

By Evelyn Waugh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Handful of Dust as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Evelyn Waugh's celebrated tale of decadence and social disintegration, now in a beautiful hardback edition with a new Introduction by Philip Eade

After seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last is bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set. Brilliantly combining tragedy, comedy and savage irony, A Handful of Dust captures the irresponsible mood of the 'crazy and sterile generation' between the wars. This breakdown of the Last marriageā€¦


Book cover of Lucky Jim

Garry Craig Powell Why did I love this book?

The greatest, funniest, British campus novel, which is saying a lot. Jim is a lecturer at a mediocre but pretentious university in the English midlands in the 1950s. He is in a sexless relationship with his manipulative, unattractive girlfriend and fellow lecturer, Margaret, and is worried that if he doesnā€™t publish, his probationary period wonā€™t be extended. At the end of the year he must give a lecture which will decide his fateā€”and has the brilliant idea of getting drunk first, which does not prevent him from delivering a devastating verdict on his colleagues. The novel is hilarious, sharply observed, and may also have influenced me subconsciously, since mine also features a hapless but honest pedagogue struggling to keep his job, a disastrous partner, and a fortuitous romance. 

By Kingsley Amis,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Lucky Jim as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling.

Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim was published in 1954, and is a hilarious satire of British university life. Jim Dixon is bored by his job as a medieval history lecturer. His days are only improved by pulling faces behind the backs of his superiors as he tries desperately to survive provincial bourgeois society, an unbearableā€¦


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Book cover of The Mysteries of Marquette

The Mysteries of Marquette by Tyler R. Tichelaar,

When the Marquis de Marquette chooses to spend the summer of 1908 in Marquette, Michigan, a city named for his illustrious Jesuit relative, the residents are all astir with excitement. People begin vying to rub shoulders with the marquis, but he remains very private until he hosts a masquerade ballā€¦

Book cover of Money: A Suicide Note

Garry Craig Powell Why did I love this book?

Money is a quintessential novel of the eighties, on a par with Wolfeā€™s Bonfire of the Vanities. John Self is a director of ads, but also a drunk, addicted to porn, prostitutes, and food, and a spendthrift. Invited to shoot a feature film in the States, unlike the typical Englishman, he feels at home there. The hedonism, materialism, and excesses are second nature to him. Self goes from one scrape to another, but, as his name suggests, identity is a key theme, and it turns out that he is not who he thinks he is. There is even a character called Martin Amis. Money made me laugh non-stop, but also think. What is the point of living in a world as crass as this? And in what ways might I be like John Self?   

By Martin Amis, Bert Krak (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Money as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of Time's 100 best novels in the English language-by the acclaimed author of Lionel Asbo: State of England and London Fields

Part of Martin Amis's "London Trilogy," along with the novel London Fields and The Information, Money was hailed as "a sprawling, fierce, vulgar display" (The New Republic) and "exhilarating, skillful, savvy" (The Times Literary Supplement) when it made its first appearance in the mid-1980s. Amis's shocking, funny, and on-target portraits of life in the fast lane form a bold and frightening portrait of Ronald Reagan's America and Margaret Thatcher's England.

Money is the hilarious story of John Self,ā€¦


Book cover of The Satanic Verses

Garry Craig Powell Why did I love this book?

A complex magic realist novel. Two Muslim Indians are on a highjacked plane that explodes over the English Channel. As they fall into the sea, Bollywood superstar Gibreel Farishta, turns into the Archangel Gabriel, while Saladin Chamcha, a voiceover artist, metamorphoses into the Devil. They struggle with their new identities, with rivalry, with life in Britain, and in Gibreelā€™s case, with mental illness. Like all Rushdieā€™s work, it is a post-colonial perspective on the metropolis and the identity crises of the ex-colonised. There are long dream sequences about an Arabian prophet called Mahmoudā€”who resembles the founder of Islam. The Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced Rushdie to death for blasphemy for this. This all sounds deep and portentousā€”and it isā€”but itā€™s also unfailingly funny and original. And brave. An inspiration. 

By Salman Rushdie,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Satanic Verses as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A masterpiece' Sunday Times

Just before dawn one winter's morning, a aeroplane blows apart high above the English Channel and two figures tumble, clutched in an embrace, towards the sea: Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices.

Washed up, alive, on an English beach, their survival is a miracle. But there is a price to pay. Gibreel and Saladin have been chosen as opponents in the eternal wrestling match between Good and Evil. But chosen by whom? And which is which? And what will be the outcome of their final confrontation?

'Aā€¦


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Book cover of Foster's Revenge

Foster's Revenge by Jack Kelley,

In a kill-or-be-killed world, The Reaper does whatever it takes to survive.

Following the murder of his half-brother, legendary Army Ranger Luke Foster returns to the United States from fighting terrorists. His brother's history with a prominent New York Mafia family was no secret, so it's no surprise his lifeā€¦

Book cover of Don Quixote de la Mancha

Garry Craig Powell Why did I love this book?

Is it a coincidence that the first great novel of Western civilisation is a satire? I think not. It began as a parody of the chivalric romancesā€”of their disconnect from reality, their sentimentality, and dishonesty. I neednā€™t summarise the plot, since everyone knows the story, though usually from films, unfortunately. As with all the great satires, what appears to be a playful romp ends up being an investigation into what it means to be humanā€”the purpose of our lives, and what makes them worthwhile. Initially, Cervantes wants us to laugh at the ridiculous old country gentleman who longs to revive chivalry, but he finds that Quixote makes his life meaningful by creating his quest. He becomes a heroā€”as does my protagonist. And as we all can.  

By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Charles Jarvis (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Don Quixote de la Mancha as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'he thought it expedient and necessary that he should commence knight-errant, and wander through the world, with his horse and arms, in quest of adventures'

Don Quixote, first published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, is one of the world's greatest comic novels. Inspired by tales of chivalry, Don Quixote of La Mancha embarks on a series of adventures with his faithful servant Sancho Panza by his side. The novel has acquired mythic status and its influence on modern fiction is profound.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range ofā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Our Parent Who Art in Heaven

By Garry Craig Powell,

Book cover of Our Parent Who Art in Heaven

What is my book about?

Welshman Huw Lloyd-Jones teaches Creative Writing at a charming college in the American South, and is in love with his beautiful wife, Miranda. But his idyllic life is about to change. His despotic Chair, Frida Shamburger, turns against him, and Miranda reveals that he can no longer count on her love. Huw must fight to save his job and his marriage. Yet can a middle-aged white man survive in the jungle of contemporary academia? And with a sinister psychiatrist and a women's guru encouraging Miranda to be independent, can the couple's love prevail?

Social and political satire. '...the anti-woke campus novel of our times' (David Joiner). 'Pure comical genius' (Gary Buslik). 'I laughed so loud I scared myself' (Kirsten Koza).

Book cover of A Handful of Dust
Book cover of Lucky Jim
Book cover of Money: A Suicide Note

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