Fans pick 100 books like Frankenstein's Prescription

Oh, Was, how I love your relentlessly bleak, depressing sadness.

This is a strangely inventive novel that twines reality and fantasy into a brutal, desolate, yet gorgeous story of pain and survival. Told from the points of view of numerous characters, each story is tethered in some way to The Wizard of Oz, that venerable fable about good versus evil in the search for home.

Ryman introduces us to a main trio of characters whose lives are all equally harrowing–Dorothy Gael (the imagined inspiration for The Wizard of Oz heroine and the victim of familial sexual abuse), Frances Gumm (who becomes the tragic Judy Garland), and Jonathan (an actor experiencing AIDS-related dementia)–whose stories he intricately weaves together like a master craftsman. And while the novel is not a “happy” read by any stretch of the imagination, what has stayed with me throughout the past thirty years is its… show more.

I was introduced to the beguiling novels of Jonathan Carroll by the owner of a bookstore where I worked when I was young. Thirty years on and I still greatly anticipate a new novel by this unclassifiable author. 

It follows the efforts of a teacher and his girlfriend to write the biography of a deceased children’s author whom they idolize. I love that Carroll’s books begin with familiar scenarios but soon take off into a very unique kind of magical realism.

Carroll always writes with a sure, sweet touch; his dialogue is whip-smart, his characters larger than life, and his stories always zip along with an easy conversational tone. You can start anywhere with his books, but there’s a special place in my heart for this one.

Tom Reamy’s first novel was also to be his last. Its carnival sideshow setting is reminiscent of Geek Love, Nightmare Alley, and much of Ray Bradbury, but with a poignancy and sense of place that set it apart. I can guarantee that you’ll never forget Angel, the mute, blind flying boy. Reamy was an active genre critic, editor, and convention organiser for at least two decades before he began submitting the fiction he’d been working on in private. Its impact was immediate but he saw little of its success, struck by a heart attack while working on a story at the age of 42. For me his legacy—this novel, and the collection San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories—equal that of many a more prolific author.

Sarah Hall is a phenomenal writer and this is the novel that got me hooked. The Electric Michaelangelo of the title is tattoo artist Cy Parks, a man whose heart, art, and the love of his life are all inextricably entangled. The narrative charts his journey from a Morecambe childhood to a tattoo booth on Coney Island and back again, and it’s another take on the kind of Sideshow Gothic that I love. Hall writes accessible award-worthy novels in prose that’s stripped of any pretentiousness. After reading this and then her debut novel Haweswater I just order whatever she publishes, sight unseen.

This book made me fall in love with Puglia, the hot, dusty “heel of the boot” with its lemons, olives, and cactus, its boxy farmhouses. Not that the story, bouncing from Paris to New York to a long-gone Rome, doesn’t deliver—the narrator, Alina, talks about a family secret passed from woman to woman, disintegrating memories, a past she must understand before the movers arrive and the house with its mural of a naked woman painted on a patio wall is no longer theirs. Present and past, the known and the unknown combine, and all of it is tied to alluring, sensual Puglia. As a storyteller, Marciano demands your attention, painting the life story of a family whose Italy is unlike the one you think you know.

People often ask me what is the best book to take with them to Paris if they can only take one, and this is the book I always recommend. This collection of essays, which can easily fit into a purse or a backpack, is brimming over with fascinating stories about “the people, places, and phenomena” of Paris. Downie’s encyclopedic knowledge of history, and the idiosyncratic curiosity that draws him (and his readers along with him) into a variety of offbeat situations make for fun as well as highly informative reading. It’s a great book to take with you to read in Paris, or sitting at home dreaming of or remembering Paris—and the selection of topics is varied enough that I believe there’s something in it to interest almost anyone. 

I was once told; the best authors are the ones who read more than they write. To that end I don’t always stick with my favorite genres. This book was recommended to me by a friend as a sci-fi that I typically would not read because it’s also a romance book. Hey Alexa, is slightly in the future, when Amazon develops an evolved version of Alexa that exists in a beautiful female android. I don’t want to give any more away. What makes this book wonderful is the journey the two main characters take in discovering that love is as unique as each individual person and it can be found when we are open to it.  

The settings of this book are Rome, Paris, and London, three of my favorite European cities. The missing Masterpieces are by Caravaggio and Malevich, two of my favorite painters. The author is the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) and holds a degree in art history, so he knows what he is writing about, and the book contains fascinating details art historical details, but also deep insights into the field or art forgery and international art theft. Enough to keep you glued to your seat for hours. 

Scobie presents a concise exposition of the Nazis’ inferiority complex vis-à-vis imperial Rome.

Hitler, ever a fan of grotesque gigantomania, found a soulmate in Albert Speer. Their designs for rebuilding major cities on Roman principles became reality only to a small degree.

The apex was to have been Berlin, renamed Germania, as world capital. Its most stupendous building, modeled on but dwarfing the Pantheon in Rome, was the Great Hall (also People’s Hall, Hall of Glory). It was to accommodate 180,000 standing people. Above it a copper-plated dome sixteen times the size of St. Peter’s in Rome was to have risen.

Inside, the balcony from which Hitler was to deliver his addresses would have made him appear tiny. The contrast exemplifies the essence of Kitsch: unrestrained grandiosity turns ridiculous.

This is the first of the fantastic Macro and Cato series, this sees the bookish Cato drafted into the army under the gruff and tough Macro. Against all odds, this unlikely pair become both friends and an unstoppable team. There’s plenty of humour mixed in with the battles and you identify easily with Cato’s attempts to fit in and become a soldier.