Best books … chosen by Toby Young

Toby Young is the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, a memoir about his misadventures as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine. A film version is now in theaters.

Toby Young is the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, a memoir about his misadventures as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine. A film version opens this weekend.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Penguin Classics, $8). When the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle was asked if he read novels, he replied, “Oh yes. All six, every year.” He meant the six novels of Jane Austen—and I feel the same way. Pride and Prejudice’s combination of humor, romance, social observation, and moral seriousness has never been surpassed.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (Penguin, $8). I read this more than 10 years ago, but so many scenes have stayed with me: the thrashing David receives at the hands of his cruel stepfather, his 80-mile hike from London to Dover, Betsy Trotwood seeing off his stepfather when he tries to reclaim him. It’s all so vivid.

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The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (Oxford, $13). Trollope’s novel about financial and political chicanery is often praised for its contemporary relevance—plus ça change—but that’s hardly its only merit. It’s a wonderfully deft satire of a corrupt society, combining moral opprobrium with just the right lightness of touch.

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (Back Bay, $15). As a journalist, I occasionally get the urge to write a comic novel set in Fleet Street, but then I remember why so few have attempted it: because no one can hope to improve on Scoop. It’s probably the funniest novel in the English language.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (Penguin, $14). Martin Amis said of his father, Kingsley, that his mind was like a machine that had been designed to make people laugh. That is certainly evident in Kingsley’s debut novel. The reason I like it so much is because I identify with the central character—a feeling that is entirely due to his skill as a novelist. Jim Dixon experiences one comic misadventure after another, and you end up rooting for him.

Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe (Bantam, $14). The most impressive thing about this very impressive piece of journalism is Wolfe’s utter fearlessness. He took on the most fashionable strata of New York society—and won.

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