I’ve always been fascinated by the human mind. The deeper I spelunked into that cave, the deeper into the dark I wanted to go. It’s not surprising that I became a writer obsessed with the unconscious, a clinical psychotherapist, and now a Professor of English. Before that, I was a professional rock singer/ guitarist, which also gained me entry into parts of life that most people don’t see. I tell my students, “I read because one life isn’t enough.” The books I’m recommending gave me a chance to enter other lives, and to inhabit minds—some strange and twisted, all astonishing—that I could not have accessed on my own.
The first time I read The Magus—I’ve re-read it twice—I barely slept until I finished it. I’m not exaggerating. Conchis, the rich and eccentric psychiatrist (or is he?), and Julie, the mysterious seductress, seemed yanked out of my own unconscious mind. At twenty-something, I identified so strongly with Nicholas, the similarly-aged protagonist, that I felt toyed with and tortured along with him. I was desperate to see how, and if, he would emerge from his sometimes-blissful, sometimes agonizing ordeal. Darkly erotic,The Magus is one of the most psychologically unsettling books I’ve ever read, and one of the best-written. Compellingis an understatement.
The Magus is the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching assignment on a remote Greek island. There his friendship with a local millionaire evolves into a deadly game, one in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas must fight for his sanity and his very survival.
The part of Texas where I grew up has quite a bit in common with the part of Georgia where this book takes place. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time hunting, fishing, and roaming the woods, and have bow-hunted enough to empathize completely with several of the most intense, exciting scenes. Strange and savage things happen in the woods. People revert easily to ancient instincts and behaviors. It doesn’t take a lot to bring the inner cave-man roaring back, as the four friends in Deliverancesoon learn. This is a book of high adventure that reminds me that, beneath our trappings of civilization, we’re still great apes who dress for dinner.
“You're hooked, you feel every cut, grope up every cliff, swallow water with every spill of the canoe, sweat with every draw of the bowstring. Wholly absorbing [and] dramatic.”—Harper's Magazine
The setting is the Georgia wilderness, where the states most remote white-water river awaits. In the thundering froth of that river, in its echoing stone canyons, four men on a canoe trip discover a freedom and exhilaration beyond compare. And then, in a moment of horror, the adventure turns into a struggle for survival as one man becomes a human hunter who is offered his own harrowing deliverance.
I was leery of this book when it was assigned in a college class. The first lines “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul”—intrigued me. One page later, I was hooked. Or seduced. Lolitadrew me into a place where I would not have chosen to be—the psyche of an unregenerate pedophile-turned-murderer. Yet this man proves to be a learned romantic too, desperately in love. Because the prose is brilliant and offers access to the deepest inner longings of the man, I found myself torn between rooting for him and hoping he would die hideously. If you are interested in forbidden places in the human psyche, this book won’t disappoint.
'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.'
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants.
Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all…
Carrieis the ultimate revenge fantasy and a scary, exhilarating plunge into the Dark. I defy anyone not to empathize with Carrie. Raised by an off-the-deep-end-religious single mom, and mercilessly bullied by other girls in her high school, all she wants is to have friends and to fit in. I shared her fear and awe as she began to discover her own formidable “gifts.” When things seemed to improve at school, I hoped the change would last. But I feared it would not, and watched with mixed horror and satisfaction as the full extent of Carrie’s dark power imposed itself on the world.
Stephen King's legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates, is a Classic. CARRIE is the novel which set him on the road to the Number One bestselling author King is today.
Carrie White is no ordinary girl.
Carrie White has the gift of telekinesis.
To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie - the first step towards social acceptance by her high school colleagues.
But events will take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night as she is forced to exercise her…
This novel, translated from Norwegian, features a protagonist who is like a junkie-Christ, and an antagonist who makes Satan look like a kind old man. The atmosphere is as dark as I imagine an Oslo winter would be; the story, full of fascinating characters who propel the plot through twists and turns that kept me guessing and gasping. In one of the first, the junkie-Christ discovers that his father, a once-revered police officer, did not commit suicide as everyone believes, but was murdered. When junkie-Christ kicks heroin, snuffs his nimbus of sweetness and light, and sets out to avenge his father, the book, for me, was un-put-downable.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of the bestselling Harry Hole series comes an electrifying tale of vengeance set amid Oslo's brutal hierarchy of corruption.
“The crime author of the moment.”—The New York Times Book Review
Sonny Lofthus has been in prison for almost half his life: serving time for crimes he didn't commit. In exchange, he gets an uninterrupted supply of heroin—and a stream of fellow prisoners seeking out his Buddha-like absolution. Years earlier Sonny’s father, a corrupt cop, took his own life rather than face exposure. Now Sonny is the center of a vortex of corruption: prison staff,…
Former best friends Scott and Errol meet unexpectedly at Oso Lake, a remote Canadian fly-fishing paradise where, five years before, fresh out of college, they had the time of their lives. Their situations have changed, their high hopes quashed by workaday realities and, in Errol’s case, marriage to Claire, who has come with him, trying to stave off divorce.
But Oso Lake has changed. The fall before, a woman’s severed head was left in a campfire pit. The shadow cast by her murder is darkened further by a fire-scarred white truck driver who claims to be a long-dead Native shaman, and plans to eradicate all of western civilization. The beauty of the wilderness becomes more threatening and perverse. But the worst danger the vacationers face may be themselves.
About myself: As a novelist I’m crazy for detail. I believe it’s the odd and unexpected aspects of life that bring both characters and story worlds to life. This means that I try to be an observer at all times, keeping alert and using all five – and maybe six – senses. My perfect writing morning begins with a dog walk in the woods or on a beach, say, while keeping my senses sharp to the world around me and listening out for the first whisper of what the day’s writing will bring.
This book is a literary historical novel. It is set in Britain immediately after World War II, when people – gay, straight, young, and old - are struggling to get back on track with their lives, including their love lives. Because of the turmoil of the times, the number of losses, and the dangerous and peculiar circumstances people find themselves in, sexual mores have become shaken and stirred.
But what happened after the war, in the time of healing and settling down? This novel examines the emotional, romantic, and sexual lives of three characters searching for a way to proceed.
Love never dies in this novel by “a writer of addictive emotional thrillers” (The Independent).
Told from three perspectives A Particular Man is about love, truth and the unpredictable consequences of loss.
When Edgar dies in a Far East prisoner-of-war camp it breaks the heart of fellow prisoner Starling. In Edgar’s final moments, Starling makes him a promise. When, after the war, he visits Edgar’s family, to fulfil this promise, Edgar's mother Clementine mistakes him for another man.
Her mistake allows him access to Edgar’s home and to those who loved him, stirring powerful and disorientating emotions, and embroiling him…
