Zak Jane Keir's Top Ten Books
If you ask me the same thing next week, the list would probably be different, but, for now, here are my Top Ten Books, in no particular order.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps – Paul Breeze
I first read this in my teens, and loved it because it was about a rock guitarist. I appreciate it even more now I’m older: it’s incredibly raw and intense and full on. The author wrote this, then a sequel to it (which is not as good, sadly) then pretty much disappeared.
Time Enough For Love – Robert Heinlein
Heinlein’s unfortunately very popular with fedora-wearing douchebros, but this is still one of my favourite books, for all its faults. I love the polymorphously perverse family groupings and all the little aphorisms.
The Mists Of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
It did the rounds of my gang of friends the year it came out: we were nearly all into the pagan/hippy/goddess/mystical stuff at the time. It comes across as hugely well-researched and it’s very hard not to think of it as the ‘true’ version of the Arthurian myths.
The Stand – Stephen King
I’m a big King fan and this is probably my favourite, even though I tend to wonder, these days, what the rest of the world was supposed to be doing after the plague while Randy Flagg and Mother Abagail were slugging it out in the States.
Rivals – Jilly Cooper
Another author I grew up loving, Jilly Cooper can be a bit erratic (Pandora is pretty much unreadable and Wicked is just odd) but Rivals is the best of the Rutshire Chronicles in terms of characters and the sheer scope of it.
Little Heroes – Norman Spinrad
So much of this book seems scarily prescient nowadays, from the commodification of music to the economic clusterfuck. The fact that the world gets saved by a couple of teenage losers and an ancient groupie channelling the real power of rock and roll gives me a bit of hope…
The Domino Tattoo – Cyrian Amberlake
I probably ought to read this again at some point, as I have forgotten most of the finer points. It impressed me when it came out, as it was the first contemporary erotic novel I read that wasn’t crap – not that I had read very many at that point.
Bold As Love – Gwyneth Jones
I’m always banging on about this quintet of books, as hardly anyone but me seems to have read them and they are wonderful. Again, rock and roll saves the world in a future dystopia, but there is so much more to the story than that…
Asking For Trouble – Kristina Lloyd
This is probably the least generic or predictable ‘erotic romance’ ever. For a Black Lace title it’s genuinely shocking; brilliantly written, absolutely filthy, with this kind of compulsive, feverish, almost hallucinogenic intensity.
Bird Box – Josh Malerman
It was a bit of a toss up between this, Raven and Skull and The Last Days of Jack Sparks. All three are horror novels that genuinely frightened me and gave me bad dreams, and I admire the skill of a writer who can do that.
