Here are 100 books that Candide fans have personally recommended if you like
Candide.
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When I was about 8 years old, I read a book called Tom and the Two Handles by Russell Hoban. It’s a children’s book designed to teach that every story has two sides. This book stuck with me for some reason. So, when I started writing novels, I always made sure my villains had pure motives. Remember, no well-written bad guy THINKS he’s a bad guy. He thinks he’s doing the right thing. This is true of all the classic Bond villains right up to Thanos in the MCU. Plus, and I’m sure most writers would agree, the bad guys are always more fun to write.
As shocking as I felt Kubrick’s film was, I think the book is possibly more startling. Some scenes Kubrick played for laughs are described as violent and sadistic in the novel. If, like me, you are a fan of the film, it’ll fill in some blanks for you. Ever wonder why Alex and his friends drink milk?
The book is written in futuristic teen-speak that did take me a while to get my head around, but this ultimately adds to the strangeness of the insular world these ‘droogs’ inhabit. Though it was first published in 1962, I think this is still a very relevant and unflinching look at the place of violence in society.
In Anthony Burgess's influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends' intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess's introduction, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I‘ve been thinking about the forces that drive humanity together and pull us apart at the same time since my late teens; back then, I started reading the classical dystopian tales. The (perceived) end of time always speaks to me, because I think it‘s in those moments of existential dread that we learn who we really are. That‘s why I like reading (and reviewing) books, and also why those topics are an undertone in my own writings. I do hope you enjoy these 5 books as much as I have.
This was probably one of the most intense experiences with non-linear storytelling I ever had, and that did something to me I could not have predicted.
In fact, while reading this book, I started to turn the story into something of a philosophical discourse in my head.
I really like how this book is at the same time utterly insane in parts—and I do say that with the greatest respect, it‘s the good kind of insane—while at the same time, it explores themes of dealing with earth-shattering events on a very individual level.
For me, the icing on the cake is that Kurt Vonnegut manages to even mix in a little history lesson there, because that bombing of the prisoners in Dresden? That did happen. And I didn‘t even learn about it in school—I learned it from this novel!
A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had…
As a UK registered lawyer, I have spent most of the past 35 years writing about my work. But what has always excited me, from my childhood, is the science fiction worlds which state a truth which is yet to happen, The worlds of H.G Wells; Huxley; Aldous; Orwell; Bradbury; and Atwell. An individual's struggle against overwhelming odds. Not always somewhere where you would want to go. But from which you will always take something away.
I'd heard about this famous book many years before I actually got around to reading it. What I loved about this book was its originality.
I am always reminded about Orwell's book whenever I hear phrases like ‘ thought police’ or ‘big brother’, which have become part of our everyday language. Probably one of the most influential books ever written. For me, the message of Orwell’s book is that the State will always win.
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
I am a retired psychotherapist and teacher, but if someone asked me what the purpose of life is, I’d say, “to become aware.” Awareness is the capacity to see without prejudice, bias, or conditioning. I don’t like being in the dark, and so I have been on a lifelong journey to become aware. I have stepped into seeing several times in my life, so now my task is to teach others. It’s who I am—my essence is to continue teaching, to set people free from societal conditioning and their upbringings. Growing up means losing certain comforting illusions, but greater understanding fills their place.
This is one of the most powerful religious books I’ve ever read. It’s difficult work, and it took me a couple of days to understand the concept. Buber articulates that you can deal with people either as things or as souls. Many of us unconsciously place people in relation to ourselves as an “it.” But if you see past what a person appears to be, your relation to them becomes “I-Thou” rather than “I-it.”
I read it in my early 20s and am still impacted by how it teaches us to treat people as their inner selves.
Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways: [1] that of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience; [2] that of the 'I' towards 'Thou', in which we move into existence in a relationship without bounds. One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships. All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.
Considered a landmark of twentieth-century intellectual history, this is Martin Buber's classic treatment…
I believe that laughter is the best way into a person’s heart and also into their head. Life is beautiful, but it is also incredibly fragile. Satire and humor are effective ways to raise the level of awareness of destructive behaviors and/or controversial topics that are otherwise difficult or unpleasant to address. I think satire and humor make it easier to hold up a mirror and look critically at our own beliefs and our actions.
I’m a huge fan of satire, as I believe it can inform and make you think critically, as well as being wildly entertaining.
I think Catch-22 is one of the most perfect satires about the absurdity and tragedy of war. I’m not the fastest reader, but Heller’s dialogue, humor, and sharp observations of the human condition under the perversion of war had me turning the pages quickly.
Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.
Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. His real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the…
I am a Pulitzer-nominated writer who began as a poet, then shifted to prose during a period of aesthetic and personal crisis in my life. I am interested in how the novelist can gather and curate fascinating facts for the reader and incorporate them into the text. I see writing as a great adventure and investigation into issues of empathy, power, and powerlessness, and the individual in an increasingly technological world.
When I wrote my first novel, I began investigating modern-day technology—robotics, bioengineering, AI, and information technology—and have read and worked in this area for over 15 years. It is a pleasure to share some of the books that have informed my own journey.
Truly a book for the ages, how could I not recommend this? It is THE iconic book about a constructed being and his consequent travails.
Made by Victor Frankenstein from all sorts of collected detritus, when the monster opens his “yellow, watery eyes,” the scientist flees from him and never looks back. The monster is left to negotiate the world on his own, but much like a newborn baby, he is ignorant and unequipped to do so.
I love how, unlike the popular concept of the monster, he is, in fact, a vegetarian, and at the start, very vulnerable and peaceful. He learns to read by sitting outside a cottage where he can hear the cottagers teaching a foreigner to read.
I wrote a whole novel about him, A Monster’s Notes, which transports him into the 21st century.
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'
'That rare story to pass from literature into myth' The New York Times
Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Based on the third…
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I am a retired psychotherapist and teacher, but if someone asked me what the purpose of life is, I’d say, “to become aware.” Awareness is the capacity to see without prejudice, bias, or conditioning. I don’t like being in the dark, and so I have been on a lifelong journey to become aware. I have stepped into seeing several times in my life, so now my task is to teach others. It’s who I am—my essence is to continue teaching, to set people free from societal conditioning and their upbringings. Growing up means losing certain comforting illusions, but greater understanding fills their place.
I liked the concept of man being small and adrift in the darkness of the wide world. This book taught me to see through politics, grandstanding, and the grandiose nonsense of man. Swift is my kind of guy, brutally satirical and profound. This book is really not for children. We see Gulliver travel on many adventures and experience Swift's disappointment as he engages different cultures, small and large, rational and irrational.
His adventures demolish Gulliver’s sense of humanity to the point that when he is about to be rescued, at first, he rejects the offer like a misanthrope before finally climbing aboard. Swift is very dark here. Why would anyone want to return to the same old life after having their eyes opened?
'Thus, gentle Reader, I have given thee a faithful History of my Travels for Sixteen Years, and above Seven Months; wherein I have not been so studious of Ornament as of Truth.'
In these words Gulliver represents himself as a reliable reporter of the fantastic adventures he has just set down; but how far can we rely on a narrator whose identity is elusive and whoses inventiveness is self-evident? Gulliver's Travels purports to be a travel book, and describes Gulliver's encounters with the inhabitants of four extraordinary places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms. A consummately skilful…
As a former graduate student who holds an MA and Ph.D in English with a Creative Writing emphasis, but also as the child of immigrants and the first in my family to go to college, I love when writers deflate the pretensions of academia. I didn’t grow up around formally educated people so I can relate to the imposter syndrome some of the characters in these books experience. I don’t know who recommended Lucky Jim to me, but that book began my infatuation with the genre of academic satires or campus novels, of which there are many others.
What’s amazing about this book is that it’s told through recommendation letters written for students and colleagues by the main character, Professor Jason Fitger.
Each letter reveals more and more about his life, his failing romances, his dismal work environment, and his floundering creative efforts. In other words, topics that are completely inappropriate for these types of letters, which makes them all the more hysterical.
Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary."
Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he…
Life is stories, man. Telling stories. Listening to stories. One day, somebody had the brilliant idea to start writing these stories down. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. Trading yarns. Figuring things out. Reading and writing. I wrote my first story in middle school. My first novel in college. My first published novel (This Way Madness Lies) in my late twenties. Now it’s thirty years, twenty-five novels, fifty short stories, and three books of poetry later, and I’m still as obsessed with and passionate about storytelling as I was as a young buck backpacking around Europe with a notebook and a beat-up copy of Down and Out in London and Paris stuffed into my leather satchel.
I was on an extended trip to Eastern Europe, back when Eastern Europe was not such a dandy place to visit, and I found myself with nothing to read. In a used bookstore in Prague, I found a tattered paperback, translated into English, of this next pick. It was falling apart, the pages stained by coffee and God knows what else. I bought it anyway.
And over the next few weeks, I was, for the third time, blown away by words on a page, by an author’s imagination. It’s been said that Don Quixote, written around 1600, was the first novel ever written. It may also be the greatest novel ever written. Adventure. Humor. Pathos. Crazy amounts of imagination. The Whole Damn Human Condition.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HAROLD BLOOM. Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, and one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. Unless you read Spanish, you've never read Don Quixote.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
As a great-great-great-great-grandchild of Irish immigrants, I come from a long, proud line of alcoholics, especially on my mother’s side. My childhood was a masterclass in chaos: family scream-fests, flung insults, and someone cracking a joke while dodging a punch. It was painful, yes, but also absurd and often hilarious. That’s where my dark wit comes from. Razor-sharp humor was how we made it out alive. It becomes a lens you’re trained to observe the world through since you were a wee lad. I’ve always been drawn to stories where grief and laughter sit at the same table, clinking pints. Satire and absurdity aren’t interests for me. They’re muscle memory.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or stage an intervention. This book introduced me to Ignatius J. Reilly, a character so insufferable and absurdly grandiose that I kept turning pages just to see how much worse he could get. I was horrified and hypnotized. I couldn’t look away.
What I love about this book is that it doesn’t ask you to like anyone. It asks you to witness the glorious wreckage of human delusion. It is chaotic, bloated, brilliant, and somehow still moving. Toole gave me a character I wanted to strangle, and a novel I wanted to reread. That kind of friction is rare, and I live for it.
'This is probably my favourite book of all time' Billy Connolly
A pithy, laugh-out-loud story following John Kennedy Toole's larger-than-life Ignatius J. Reilly, floundering his way through 1960s New Orleans, beautifully resigned with cover art by Gary Taxali _____________
'This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians . . . don't make the mistake of bothering me.'
Ignatius J. Reilly: fat, flatulent, eloquent and almost unemployable. By the standards of ordinary folk he is pretty much…
