Fifty Favorite Books
Several rules: (1) I have listed these books in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, rather than in order of preference—though I’ve marked each of my ten very favorites with an asterisk. (2) I have chosen no more than one book per author, except in those cases where a pair of books or a trilogy seemed to call for a single shared listing. (3) I have tried to be honest, which is why there are so few classics on this list and so many semi-obscure fantasists and slim, sad coming of age stories. —Kevin Brockmeier, October 4, 2023
1. A Death in the Family by James Agee
2. Ghosts by César Aira
3. The Other City by Michal Ajvaz
4. The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasm
5. The Complete Short Stories by J. G. Ballard (*)
6. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
7. Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
8. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (*)
9. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
10. The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati
11. The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino (*)
12. Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
13. Palafox by Éric Chevillard
14. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
15. Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
16. The Latin American Trilogy by Louis de Bernières
17. Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany
18. Yesterday by Juan Emar
19. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
20. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys by Chris Fuhrman
21. Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant
22. The Torturer’s Wife by Thomas Glave
23. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
24. The Cockroaches of Stay More by Donald Harington
25. The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
26. Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban (*)
27. I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal (*)
28. Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
29. White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
30. The Passion According to G. H. by Clarice Lispector
31. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
32. Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels by Giorgio Manganelli (*)
33. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (*)
34. All the Days and Nights: The Collected Stories by William Maxwell (*)
35. My Happy Life by Lydia Millet
36. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
37. The Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan
38. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
39. Esther Stories by Peter Orner
40. Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater
41. The His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
42. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (*)
43. Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables & Problems by Adam Ehrlich Sachs
44. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago
45. The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard
46. Argyll: A Memoir by Theodore Sturgeon
47. The Neighborhood by Gonçalo M. Tavares
48. The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis (*)
49. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
50. Stoner by John Williams