The writer and film critic chooses his favourites. He will discuss his latest short story collection, "The Body in the Mobile Library" (Lightning Books, £9.99), at the Edinburgh Book Festival on 14 August (edbookfest.co.uk)
The Autograph Man
Smith's second novel is the least liked of her work, and some are unconvinced by the ventriloquised Jewishness of her autograph collector, Alex-Li Tandem. But I love the unstoppable garrulity and comedy that pours out of this book and its very prescient, pre-social-media world of celebrity obsession.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
De Profundis
Oscar Wilde, 1905
When you're used to the dapper lightness and poised wit that comes so naturally to Wilde, it’s an extraordinary experience to arrive at the explicit seriousness of this, his extended rebuke from Reading Gaol to his duplicitous lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. It is moving and majestic, while sacrificing nothing of elegance or delicacy in the prose.
The Mars Room
Rachel Kushner, 2018
A great prison novel: brilliant, vehement and scary. It is the story of Romy, a former table dancer in a club called The Mars Room, who is now doing time in a women's correctional facility in California for murdering her stalker, and it is made clear to her that she will likely never see her young son again.
Collected Stories
Roald Dahl, 2006
It's still amazing to me how many people don't know of Dahl's genius as the author of adult short stories, although some of these had 1970s TV fame with their adaptation as the "Tales of the Unexpected". One of the nastiest, tastiest and funniest is Royal Jelly.
Father Sergius (1911) from The Complete Short Stories, Volume 2
Leo Tolstoy, 2001
A black-tragicomic masterpiece: a tempestuous, conceited young prince, idolising the tsar and the supposed virginity of his fiancée, is astonished to learn that they have had an affair. He retreats to become a monk, renamed Father Sergius, and his increasing renown as a holy man leads to chaos.
-
Groypers: the alt-right group pulled into the foregroundThe Explainer The network is led by alt-right activist Nick Fuentes
-
10 concert tours to see this upcoming fallThe Week Recommends Concert tour season isn't over. Check out these headliners.
-
How to put student loan payments on pauseThe Explainer If you are starting to worry about missing payments, deferment and forbearance can help
-
10 concert tours to see this fall
The Week Recommends Concert tour season isn't over. Check out these headliners.
-
A tour of Sri Lanka’s beautiful northThe Week Recommends ‘Less frenetic’ than the south, this region is full of beautiful wildlife, historical sites and resorts
-
Giorgio Armani obituary: designer revolutionised the business of fashionIn the Spotlight ‘King Giorgio’ came from humble beginnings to become a titan of the fashion industry and redefine 20th century clothing
-
Video games to curl up with this fall, including Ghost of Yotei and LEGO PartyThe Week Recommends Several highly anticipated video games are coming this fall
-
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale – a ‘comfort’ watch for fansThe Week Recommends The final film of the franchise gives viewers a chance to say goodbye
-
The Paper: new show, same 'warmth and goofiness'The Week Recommends This spin-off of the American version of The Office is ‘comfortingly and wearyingly familiar’
-
Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons – ‘riotously colourful’ works from an ‘exhilarating’ painterThe Week Recommends The 34-year-old is the first artist to take over Dulwich Picture Gallery’s main space
-
Born With Teeth: ‘mischievously provocative’ play starring Ncuti GatwaThe Week Recommends ‘Sprightly’ production from Liz Duffy Adams imagines the relationship between Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe
