100 books like White Noise

This was one of the hardest books to "get into," but a friend of mine told me to stick with it because the rewards of getting through the first quarter would be so great. I'm glad I did. It is an astounding piece of work, quite different from anything I've ever read before or since, and remains one of my top five books.

The tangents the book takes, and the blasé attributes of the leading character are superbly crafted. It was suggested it was "unfilmable," and there's one scene in particular I thought they'd never get away with, but if you look at the movie version carefully, it's in there. 

I grew up in rural Ireland, so not exactly the gritty urban Scotland of Welsh’s novel, but the first thing that struck me about the book was its savage, semi-feral, intensely real Scottish dialect. I’d never seen anything quite like it in print.

The prose feels almost illegal, a ne’er-do-well that has simply decided to break into the publishing house and force its way onto the page without anyone’s permission. I didn’t consciously plan to steal this technique for my own novel, but how could I not endorse it?

Welsh has written more explicitly psychedelic works, but this book remains for me his masterwork, underscoring how, in many ways, his protagonist Renton’s life is at its weirdest when he tries to get sober.  

One of the most comedic books I’ve ever read. Actually, I listened to the audiobook, which is expertly read by the author, the late great Douglas Adams.

Between his British accent and speedy and offhanded reading style, Adams whistles listeners through this book. I hit “pause” or “rewind” many times to laugh or to re-listen to his cavalcade of hysterical situations and dialogue. Dirk Gently is truly an original character. Otherworldly and somewhat metaphysical, this is one of my all-time favorite novels. The audacity of Douglas Adams. I love it.

Grisham is the undisputed king of the legal thriller. Of all his novels, my favorite is his first. The story is set in a small southern town and centers on a white lawyer defending a black man (a la To Kill a Mockingbird). However, the lawyer, Jake, is not as noble as Atticus, as he is more motivated by personal ambition. And unlike Atticus’ client, his client is clearly guilty of murder, though the circumstances (the accused killed the men who brutally raped his young daughter) make him sympathetic.

There is an abundance of stereotypes here, including the Jewish lawyer sent by the NAACP, the angry Ku Klux Klan members, and the Ivy League law student who comes to help, but Grisham somehow makes it work. In the end, the reader, just like the jury, must choose between the law and their sense of justice.

I love energetic and creative writing, and Bonfire of the Vanities is a high-voltage novel in both of those regards.

It’s a classic big-city novel set in New York and deals with both ends of the economic spectrum, from the rich world of high finance in Manhattan to the powerless lives of black young men living in the Bronx. One of the best scenes I’ve ever read was when the main character, Sherman McCoy, gets lost in the Bronx driving his BMW and ends up being accosted. It is the match that lights the ensuing story.

Glasnost. Honestly, I was expecting to pick Gorky Park for this list. The first installment of the Arkady Renko series made a significant impression on me as a teenager, as I was completely immersed in the gritty life in the Soviet Union. But then I found Polar Star in my library and remembered what I loved about this story. It is as tightly woven as the weirs of the net spun by the fishing boat where the murder investigator Renko now has to work. It's set on a fishing boat that mimics Russian society. And even during the liberalization of the late eighties, it becomes clear: the Soviet Union is the Soviet Union is the Soviet Union.

I’m a fan of authors who are brave enough to write with reckless abandon, and Tom Robbins, the author of this book, is one of the few. I laughed my way through this novel as it careened from the stock-market crash that starts the novel right through its conclusion.

A 300-pound psychic? A born-again monkey? African rituals? Tarot-card bombshells? A man who has learned how to say “vagina” in more than forty languages? This is a rocket ride and more about great and imaginative writing than a hard plot. Just my kind of stuff.

The sheer command of the English language displayed by John Updike is something I marvel at, but he is at the height of his powers in this novel. What’s more, it’s a sexy book in the old-fashioned sense of men desiring women and women wanting to be desired by men.

I consider this Updike’s best novel because the story moves ahead at a great pace and is filled with tension between its characters. If someone told me it is largely about the computer revolution, I would have been suspicious. No need to be. Owen, the main character, starts as a young boy, goes into the computer business, finds success, has seemingly endless dalliances with women, and eventually meets his end. I found it to be a great ride.

A professor of Medical Law and prolific writer, McCall has entertained and delighted many readers in the UK. He is at his most amusing when he dissects the learned community. His depiction of the anatomy of academic pomposity is essential reading for anyone who has ever stood behind a podium. Yet his satire is never bitter or mean-spirited. 

The book listed above is guaranteed to make you laugh, whether you are a student who is required to take certain humanities courses from an indescribably boring professor or a colleague of one. Sadly, you will quickly recognize that your obsession with irregular verbs in another language places you in the same surgical ward. 

Tom Drury has been called “the greatest writer you’ve never heard of” and when you discover his work, you’ll feel a thrill similar to the joy of knowing the gems hiding in plain sight throughout the Midwest (Get it? Plain sight?). The End of Vandalism, Drury’s first novel (you could read any of them- they’re all great, but start with this one as the same characters reappear in future books), takes place in a fictional Iowa town and follows the lives of three of its residents, who are involved in a love triangle. Drury writes real, beautiful, complicated, and thoroughly Midwestern characters. Although Grouse County is fictional, it could just as easily be a real place. And if you find you need more Iowa, read Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella (this is my sneaky way of recommending more than 5 books).