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Lady Chatterley’s Lover
D.H Lawrence
Bad language and pervy pics in the Handbook always generates a stream of “disgusted from Surrey” letters to the editor. But we’re just taking our lead from one of the most famous and well respected British authors! As if you didn’t know already, this wonderful book is about an adulterous affair between the lady of manor and the rough diamond gamekeeper. In the 1930s this book caused a scandal. In fact, it caused a court case because of the bad language and the “perversion” it was allegedly likely to cause. But if it’s titillation alone you’re after, you’re probably better off with a copy of Loaded. This is a genuine classic which has stood the test of time for the quality of the writing, not for the shock factor approach of today’s reality TV “celebs”.
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The Hobbit
J R R Tolkein
In the same way that Harry Potter is a children’s book that appeals to adults, Tolkein’s The Hobbit is quite simply a timeless classic that appeals to everyone. Especially those of us with fertile enough imaginations to believe in wizards, dwarves and dragons. Mind you, we always thought that little Bilbo Baggins was a cutie until the film came out and we saw his hairy toes. Yuk! Stick with the book, it’s much better!
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Brick Lane
Monica Ali
Another air fairy bit of light reading. Not. This book tells a story about Nazneen, a Bangladeshi teenager forced into an arranged marriage with an older man in England. She swaps life in poverty in a Bangladeshi village for a life of misery in a high rise in Tower Hamlets. She speaks no English and is entirely dependent on her pathetic and loathsome husband. But the worm turns. Humour and tragedy at every turn. This is Monica Ali’s debut novel, and we bet that her next book won’t be as good. Because this is absolutely fantastic.
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Boo Hoo: A Dot Com Story
Ernst Malmsten, Erik Portanger, Charles Drazin
Q. How do you spunk $135 million dollars in 18 months and end up with nothing to show for it? A. Ask the incompetent egotists that ran Boo.com of course! Although it is hard to work out who was more guilty of explicit incompetence – the people investing the money or the people spending it. It is hard to find a book which better sums up the craziness of the dot com boom. Which is not surprising, because it is hard to find a company that better summed up the craziness of the dot com boom.
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Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden
This book tells an intimate and seductive story of the life of a geisha girl in 1930s Japan and how a peasant girl is educated in the ways of geisha – eroticism, exploitation and wonder. It is an extraordinary story which demonstrates the two sides of the geisha tradition, the beauty and tranquility of the front of house, and the harsh ugliness of life behind the scenes. This is one of those books which no one really says anything bad about.
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The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous
Jilly Cooper
You’re either a Jilly fan or you’re not. If you are, this book doesn’t need any explanation – they reckon it’s even better than Riders!! If you’re not, borrow something else, because they all work to pretty much the same formula. But we’ve got a wager going in JWHQ that this the book that will always be out on loan….
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We need to talk about Kevin
Lionel Shriver
Universally considered to be gripping, compelling, thought provoking, emotional, educational, upsetting, worrying, scary, violent, tear jerking….The list goes on. It recently won the Orange Prize for Fiction. Perfect for the beach, as long as you don’t mind sobbing uncontrollably in front of your fellow beachgoers.
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Losing My Virginity
Richard Branson
Recently updated, this is a great story of Britain’s most profligate self publicity machine. Love him or hate him, everyone has an opinion of him. It’s a brilliant rollercoaster tale of his life from childhood (famous story of his mother dumping him on the side of the road as a four year old to find his way home) through to his latest bonkers ballooning adventures. Really quite an inspirational and entertaining read.
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Anyone Can Do It: Building Coffee Republic From Our Kitchen Table: 57 Real-life laws on entrepreneurship
Sahar Hashemi, Bobby Hashemi
Handy that a mate of their dad’s invested £6m in their business, but utterly inspirational and an easy read nevertheless. Even if you don’t like coffee.
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Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate
Felicity Lawrence
You will never eat another ready meal ever again. Truly fascinating and truly disgusting - next time you’re in a supermarket, have a look at the ingredients of a chicken ready meal: the chicken is injected with pork fat!! When you’ve read this, expect your food bills to double.
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The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
A must read for every teenager. Hilarious, touching and poignant, this all time classic tells the story of Holden Caulfield as he narrates the period in his life immediately after his expulsion from school. Classic adolescent stuff which we can all relate to.
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American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
Patrick Bateman is a classic American Wall Street Trustafarian Yuppie. He’s obsessed with money and all the trappings it brings. But he has another obsession too. He’s a psychopathic serial killer, with a penchant for torturing and sexually abusing young women before killing them in truly the most explicit and gruesome ways. Nice chap. A brilliant satire about the “greed is good” nature of 1980’s Wall Street, this is a must read controversial classic.
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Jeeves and Wooster
PG Wodehouse
We’re big Wodehouse fans, and we’ve got loads of them so we can’t guarantee which one you’ll get if you ask to borrow one. It’ll be a sort of “Wodehouse” lucky dip. However, they’re all brilliant, and none of them are about the ‘story’ as such. It’s all about Wodehouse’s superb prose. Quite simply, a capital wheeze old boy.
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The Fight
Norman Mailer
If you don’t know about the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, you should. Is this a book about one of the all time greatest boxing matches? Yes. But much more significantly, it is a book about racism, Africa, the corruption of the CIA, Vietnam and that guff. A crucial read for boxing enthusiasts and boxing opponents alike. Read this Ali vs Foreman classic, then get watch the DVD “When we were Kings”. (Although that’s not in our library!)
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The Beach
Alex Garland
It doesn’t really matter whether you’ve seen Hollywood’s raping of this truly classic book or not, this is about as thought provoking a book as they get. It’s a bit of cliché to say “ooh the film is rubbish, it’s no where near as good as the book”. But the harsh fact is it’s the truth.
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The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
On one level this is a book about a family in 1930’s Depression ravaged America, trying to eek out a living as they travel around in search of work. On another level, it’s a brilliant timeless social commentary about class, money and how nasty us human beings can be, especially when we’re ignorant of outsiders.
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Hunter S. Thompson
A brilliant classic about “Duke” the main character’s hedonistic exploration of American culture, while fuelled on bucket loads of mind bending drugs. There’s humour and terror in equal measure, if that’s possible, and there’s no doubt about it, you’ll want to ditch your day job and go on a year long bender in the good ‘ole USofA when you’ve finished reading it.
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On the Road
Jack Kerouac
This is a book that everyone must read at some stage in their life. Truly the ideal book for the bohemian idealist.
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