Why am I passionate about this?

I think Zoroastrianism got it right: there's a constant knife-edge balance between good and evil, with neither quite winning; but we shouldn't be overconfident that one day that balance will tip to the bad side because that is always more dominant. Art in all forms has served dictators and tyrants as well as criticised them; few works have ever actually changed anything. If they have, it's been through literature most of all. Zola's 'j'accuse' and Sinclair's 'the jungle' are two obvious examples, but all the books I have chosen are powerful tools for self–examination, and as someone who is particularly interested in man's inhumanity to man I have found them useful. 


I wrote

The Journey Back from Hell

By Anton Gill,

Book cover of The Journey Back from Hell

What is my book about?

The Journey Back from Hell is the result of interviews with Jewish and gentile survivors, from all walks of life,…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Les Miserables

Anton Gill Why did I love this book?

Victor Hugo is a consummate novelist with his finger on the pulse of the social and political history of his time, coupled with an ability to create strong and vibrant characters. You just have to look at the chapter "Petit Gervais" or the one in which Valjean gives himself up rather than see an innocent man suffer to understand this. Les Miserables is his undoubted masterpiece and if you read it, it will stay with you forever. It's hard to put a choice of favourite books in order because, like friends, you value books equally for different qualities, but this is probably the one I'd like to be buried with!

By Victor Hugo, Jillian Tamaki (illustrator), Christine Donougher (translator)

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked Les Miserables as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a brilliant new translation by Christine Donougher of Victor Hugo's thrilling masterpiece, with an introduction by Robert Tombs. The Wretched ( Les Miserables) is the basis for both the longest running musical on the West End and the highly-acclaimed recent film starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, and by the relentless investigations of…


Book cover of Germinal

Anton Gill Why did I love this book?

Zola is another novelist whose work is firmly rooted in the real world and in the concept, increasingly relevant today, of the gross unfairness of social inequality. I can't think of a single one of his novels that I haven't been gripped by, but again, I think this is his masterpiece: the depictions of the miners and their lives juxtaposed with those of the mine–owners are excoriating. Like another favourite of mine, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Zola explores the torture of the lives of the oppressed and exploited in a way that has never yet been equalled. In this sense alone, Germinal has tremendous relevance today, as the polarisation of wealth, and our scorn for the protection of the environment leads us closer and closer to world revolution.

By Emile Zola, Peter Collier (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in 1902 it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted 'Germinal! Germinal!'.
The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider who enters the community and eventually leads his fellow-miners in a strike protesting against pay-cuts - a strike which becomes a losing battle against starvation, repression, and sabotage. Yet despite all the violence and disillusion which rock the mining community to its foundations,…


Book cover of The Radetzky March

Anton Gill Why did I love this book?

Joseph Roth, an alcoholic, itinerant journalist who never had a proper home, was a friend of Stefan Zweig but enjoyed nothing like his success; yet I think this is one of the greatest neglected novels ever written. The last, collapsing days of the Austro–Hungarian empire are depicted through a family saga whose characters burn themselves onto one's mind. Claustrophobic, unremitting, reminiscent in some ways of Kafka at his best, for my money this knocks Zweig's Beware of Pity into a cocked hat! A depiction of a degenerate society at its last gasp surely also has strong parallels with the modern world.

By Joseph Roth, Joachim Neugroschel (translator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Radetzky March as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE RADETSKY MARCH is subtle and touching study of family life at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Writing in the traditional form of the family saga, Roth nevertheless manages to bring to his story a completely individual manner which gives at the same time the detailed and intimate portrait of a life and the wider panorama of a failing dynasty. Not yet well known in English-speaking countries, Joseph Roth is one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, worthy to be bracketed with Musil and Kraus.


Book cover of Sentimental Education

Anton Gill Why did I love this book?

I think this is a better book than MME Bovary. It's quite in the tradition of Marivaudage but Flaubert has such a light though ruthless touch that at times you just don't know where your sympathies lie. If Flaubert has been a surgeon he's have been an expert with the smallest, finest scalpels! His technique stands in great contrast to the work of Hugo and Zola, and he certainly outmanoeuvres Balzac! I often wish he'd written more, but what he's left us is pure gold. You might like to compare this book with Fontane's Effi Briest – another stunning novel–of–manners. I was hard put to it to make a choice between these two novels for my 4th choice.

By Gustave Flaubert,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sentimental Education as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation—or, more accurately, the history of their feelings," declared Gustave Flaubert, who envisioned "a book about love, about passion; but passion such as can exist nowadays—that is to say, inactive." First published in 1869, this novel fulfills Flaubert's conception with a realistic, ironic portrait of bourgeois lives played out against France's tumultuous revolution of 1848 and the founding of its Second Empire.
Frédéric Moreau, a law student in Paris, dreams of achieving success in art, business, journalism, and politics. His aspirations take a romantic turn upon a chance…


Book cover of Don Quixote

Anton Gill Why did I love this book?

There had to be a choice between this and my other favourite grand classic, Moby Dick, but for me, Cervantes just pips Melville to the post for his sheer, unutterably heartwarming and forgiving consideration of human nature. It's extraordinary how this 400+ year–old novel, one of the very first 'modern' novels has stood the test of time so resiliently, and the answer to that lies, I think in its absolute universality. We can all recognise parts of ourselves in the knight of the sorrowful countenance and his equally heroic squire, Sancho Panza because they are aspects of the same psyche.

For me, the translation by J. M. Cohen is still the best, though if your Spanish is good it's not that daunting in the original. I am always moved when I read this book, and I suppose if there were room, I'd have this in my coffin too!

By Miguel De Cervantes, Edith Grossman (translator),

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Don Quixote as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HAROLD BLOOM. Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, and one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. Unless you read Spanish, you've never read Don Quixote.


Explore my book 😀

The Journey Back from Hell

By Anton Gill,

Book cover of The Journey Back from Hell

What is my book about?

The Journey Back from Hell is the result of interviews with Jewish and gentile survivors, from all walks of life, of the Nazi concentration camps. It's the result of talking to people throughout Europe, Israel, the USA, and Canada, a journey I made between 1985 and 1988. The book is now a standard work in the area of Holocaust history. 

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An Heir of Realms

By Heather Ashle,

Book cover of An Heir of Realms

Heather Ashle Author Of An Heir of Realms

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

My favorite fantasy novels tend to be rather complex. Winding plotlines, mysteriously interconnected characters, whimsical settings, and intricate, thoughtful worldbuilding combine to create immersive stories that stick in the mind like overworn folklore. Time travel or interworld travel lend additional layers of intrigue and mystery, forcing the inescapable contemplation of a more thrilling, alternate reality. And if it’s all packaged in artful, breathtaking prose that breeds full-color images, audible noises, indelible flavors, nose-crumpling odors, and tangible textures, I will happily lose myself in the pages, truly forgetting about the strictures of everyday life… at least until I get hungry and remember I need to consume more than books to survive.

Heather's book list on adult fantasy that won’t make you grow up too much

What is my book about?

An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction. 

Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to Ride, but her destiny will pit her against her uncle and king, who have scorned her since before her birth. 

In the Exchange, the waystation between realms, Emmelyn fights the G’Ambit, a gambling ring with members more intent on lining their pockets than protecting the realms—or their own lives.

Both…

An Heir of Realms

By Heather Ashle,

What is this book about?

Realm-devouring parasites threaten all existence. The Exchange is desperate to destroy them. But could their radical plans endanger the realms, too?

Soul-sucking parasites are overwhelming the realms.

Rhoswen of Stanburh is of age to train as a Realm Rider—a defender of the realms. Riders and their dragons work together to burn away infiltrating Narxon as they swarm in through tears in a realm’s fabric. But it’s not an easy battle: the mere touch of the smoky, dragon-like adversaries can reduce the lively winged beasts—and their Riders—to ash.

Becoming a Realm Rider is Rhoswen’s dream, but she carries far more responsibility…


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