I’m not drawn to any genre in particular, but rather to certain writers and their style. That’s why my bookshelves are so eclectic that it looks like someone put the books there at random, with no logic or order.
For now, here’s a selection of five of my favourite books today. Yesterday my choices would have been different, and tomorrow they will be different again.
The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu
Imagine a boy with a clock for a heart; a delicate clock which can’t deal with emotions without risking malfunction or complete breakdown. What would happen if this boy fell in love – truly, madly, deeply? How many more minutes could that clock keep ticking? This is a fantastic tale, and yet it tells nothing but the truth. Malzieu’s writing is poetic, funny and sensitive.
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The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Or: the power of a writing style. In other words, the construction of a cathedral over multiple generations isn’t very interesting to me in itself, but the quality and the power of Ken Follett’s writing keeps you captivated in his story and you want to read to the end, trembling along with the builders, waiting to see the final stone set in place, the final word written.
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The Ice People by René Barjavel
A book with a story so incredible and so wide-ranging that no film director has yet had the courage to take it on. Imagine that the traces of a civilisation pre-dating ours were discovered on Earth. The chance to see how a civilisation is born, lives and dies, how it could give us the intellectual tools we need to avoid the same mistakes. And we see how, despite all the warnings, we keep repeating the same errors. On top of that, it has the best plot twist of all time!
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Reads Like a Novel by Daniel Pennac
This is not a novel, but a book to make you love novels – to remind you what a big part reading should play in our lives, because it makes them richer and more beautiful. And Daniel Pennac also reminds us of the inalienable rights of the reader which topple literature off its pedestal and, in doing so, give it back to humanity: “The right not to read. The right to skip. The right not to finish a book. The right to read it again. The right to read anything. The right to mistake a book for real life (in French, ‘le bovarysme’, named after the titular character of Madame Bovary). The right to read anywhere. The right to read out loud.”
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The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Chandler’s private detective Philip Marlowe is one of my favourite heroes. He’s a hero who knows, however, that this investigation (whichever one it is) will only bring him trouble at best. Fistfights are likely, and gunshots are inevitable. Marlowe knows all this, and he also knows that he lost all faith in humanity a long time ago. But he always says yes to the lost souls who walk into his office anyway. In the heart of darkness, there are people who could redeem the entire human race. You can smell the cigarettes, the cold coffee, the whiskey, the crumpled clothes from sleepless nights and arguments … Perfection!
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Olivier Norek is the author of The Winter Warriors, translated from the French by Nick Caistor, and published by Open Borders Press, an imprint of Orenda Books.
