I have always been a bit of a list obsessive. I love reading people's best-of lists. As a young reader, I would seek out my favorite writers' lists and recommendations of authors and books that they loved. It would both give me inspiration on what next to read and give a little insight into what inspired them. So here, in the hopes of inspiring some new lists and also giving readers some recommendations, is my top ten list of favorite books. Of course, when it comes to lists like this, they change all the time. A year from now, my list may look very different. But the selection of what books to choose, and why, is a wonderful thought exercise to really think about what I like and why I like them. I narrowed the list down to novels and single-author collections. No best of works, no books that are more a visual medium like graphic novels, and no non-fiction. The list is in a completely random order.
Teatro Grottesco - Thomas Ligotti is a master of the horror short story. And this collection may be his best. Such beautiful and poisonous nightmares are contained in this volume. Body horror, anxiety about one's identity, nightmares of disease, and tales of self-destruction. Everything is questioned, and existence is shown to be made of darkness and corruption.
The Height of the Scream - Ramsey Campbell's work is both nebulous and insidious. The stories in this feel like a bad acid trip. You are not sure what happened, but you have the scars to show that... something... happened. In a way, these could be considered ghost stories that are whispering with subconscious anxiety and paranoia.
The Consumer - Self-loathing and sickly dreams fill the pages of this book. A book that is beyond obscene. Transgression against everything you hold dear is the goal this book seeks. Finding beauty in the muck and the rot of life. One of the only books that can truly be said to be an assault on the reader.
The Torture Garden - Taking influence from de Sade and Sacher-Masoch, this reads like the secret dreams you never admit to anyone. In a way, the culmination of the libertine and pornographic traditions. One of the jewels of the French Decadent movement.
Tender is the Flesh. Black comedy, a dive into the worst impulses of the human race. Everyone and everything is corrupt. A work that exposes the fact that we all are carnivores, consuming what we most desire, no matter what price is paid.
1984 - A nightmare parable of society. A celebration of the corrupting forces that push back against control. Crushingly honest and urgent. Hopeless and bleak.
Red Pyramid - A mocking collection of stories. Attacks against his home country, against the family, against values, against what we most hold dear. Using the weapons of surrealism and perversion. Genuinely shocking.
Confessions of a Five Chambered Heart - Melancholy and wickedness alternate in this collection of short stories. Contained within this collection are some of the most beautiful writing ever put to page. Tales of demonic temptation, the longing to be plunged into the monstrous, the most cherished dreams of perversion and vice. If Sacher-Masoch and Lovecraft collaborated, it might look something like this.
Earwig - A recent masterwork of dark fantasy and delruim. A true chimera, this book defies categorization. A short novel that changes direction every couple of pages, leaving the reader lost and drowning. It is such a pleasure to drown in these pages.
Crash - Science Fiction as Pornography or Pornography as Science Fiction. This novel is so mind-blowing, it's a wonder how it was ever conceived. Going way beyond the limits of where anyone thought Science Fiction could go. Cold, clinical, driving head first into taboos of the body and what fiction should say. Both a warning and a provocation. Sexual dreams in the technology age. Masterbating to our own ruin.
So here is my top ten list. Reading back over my list, there is certainly a bias toward more recent works. But let it be understood that a lot of these works stand on the shoulders of what authors like Poe, de Sade, Sacher-Masoch, Machen, Kafka, and Lovecraft created. What this says about me, what my interests are in reading such works, and why I love them is something that doing this makes me ponder. I think I tend to gravitate towards works that are darkly beautiful. I also enjoy works that challenge me and my preconceptions. I like books that read like the author is confessing something. And I enjoy books that allow the reader to explore the most secret sides of themselves. Here is to fiction that is dark, beautiful, and challenging!
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