Fans pick 100 books like All That Man Is

I like to recommend difficult books—everyone needs a challenge once in a while and the nihilist Huysmans kind of throws down a literary gauntlet here in that he’s sort of daring you to go with him to the abysses of the modern soul. 

This book is indeed way more psychedelic than any 60’s Beat guy or girl ever penned or dreamed.

When I first read this book, I was somewhat mystified by what the fuss was all about. All I could see was a story of a group of dissolute and disillusioned expats living a pointless life of pettiness and drinking. However, as I separately learned more about Hemingway and his writing style, I was drawn back to the book, and on subsequent readings, I was able to discern more in the characters and the plot than was apparent in my first reading.

The protagonist Jake Barnes, impotent because his penis appears to have been shot off as a result of a wound in World War I, is further emotionally damaged, possibly with PTSD from his war experiences and with a cynicism and sadness that engage the reader’s attention. 

The actor John Cusack brought me to this movie, and I read the book after the movie and loved it. One of the key differences between the movie and the book is that the movie is set in Chicago, and the book in North London. As someone who grew up in the ’80s, I started with Cusack as the nerdy sidekick in Sixteen Candles and became obsessed with his Lloyd Dobler character in Say Anything; you know, the guy who dressed in a trench coat and held a boom box over his head outside a girl’s window.

The narrator of this novel is a record shop owner in London named Rob, and he starts off with his desert island, all-time, top five most memorable breakups, in chronological order. When we’re in the record shop that Rob owns, the guys are always making lists: top 5 guitar solos, top 5… show more.

Lowry is the best stylist in the history of the English Language bar two other classic writers—Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson. 

The amount of alcohol consumed in this brutally beautiful novel is staggering to say the least. Its zesty darkness and, er, volcanic poetry is a stone-cold trip. If you don’t remember (or never tasted) mescal or that time you had too many margaritas, Lowry’s masterpiece will do you well. 

The First World War stripped Britain of hundreds of thousands of its young men. In an age where women’s lives were funnelled towards the certainty of marriage, this left a big shortfall on the balance sheet of matrimony, creating what became known as the Surplus Women. Now they had to find their own sources of income and become responsible for their own future happiness.

Nicholson curates many memoirs and diaries of such women from all tiers of society. Adding material from interviews she conducted herself, she tells the stories of lost potential and loneliness, together with inspirational tales of liberation, fresh-forged independence, and the unprecedented freedom that self-reliance brought for those who rose to the challenge.

I contributed an essay to this collection and there’s quite a few writers I admire in this book, as well.

It’s refreshing to see other people’s perspective on what can feel like an albatross around your neck. Some of the essays are humorous, others are more poignant, but they all work together to show that a single life can look and feel a bazillion different ways—yours will be what you make it.

I’d never read any PG Wodehouse before I found this in a second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road. My edition is a huge and ancient green volume that looks like a book of magic – and it is.

It contains all the Jeeves and Wooster stories from the very beginning till the end of their golden age. And they’re in order, so you see the characters and style develop, and watch Bertie follow PG himself to America and back.

It came to me just when I needed it most: I had an absolutely horrible job at the time, the sort where you start dreading Monday morning around about lunchtime on Saturday. Being able to slip away into these stories was like owning a portal to a better world. They contain so many pleasures.

For one thing, PG can construct a sentence that somehow transcends its constituent words to become almost… show more.

When I first started writing books about single life, I thought my joyful and utterly unapologetic take on it was something fresh and new. Then I discovered Marjorie Hillis’s book–first published in 1936! Full of wit and attitude, it was an instant bestseller and republished in 2008.

Hillis has no patience for people who think a single life is sad, seeing them as hopelessly behind the times. One of the single women described in the book has traveled the world and feels sorry for her married friends tethered to husbands. Hillis feels sorry for the people who have never discovered the joy of being alone, including in bed. Every chapter includes single-at-heart sentiments sure to be treasured.

Character transformations do it for me every time and boy, does this book deliver. Rachel escapes a religious community knowing what she wants and unafraid to go for it. She recruits Ben to take her virginity without telling him, and when he finds out, fireworks ensue. He’s initially an unworthy hero with a cynical heart, but we gradually see him become a better man with her.

Anything by Anne Calhoun delivers great steamy scenes, but in this particular book, Rachel’s discovery of sex, with Ben to teach her, is off the charts. Anne draws you in from the first word. Their undeniable chemistry is engrossing. Couple that with complex characters and a beautiful story between two very different people, and you have a barnstormer!

I’ve selected this title as it’s one of the first Jeeves and Wooster books but, to be honest, you could choose any one; they’re all brilliant.

That goes for pretty much all of Wodehouse’s stories. I realise everyone knows these two characters from the various TV series produced over the years. But they may not have read the books. They should. It’s a great credit to the author that whichever actors portray this pair, and others such as Lord Emsworth of Blandings, the characters are instantly recognisable.

I think PG Wodehouse’s characterisation is superb. I admire his eye for details, not only in appearance but in mannerisms and speech. Wooster – the young gentleman – is wealthy, foppish, dapper, scatterbrained and idle. Jeeves – the gentleman’s gentleman – is someone who “from the collar upwards, stands alone.” That phrase alone tells the reader everything they need to know about the… show more.