Ed. Note: This is the 4th in our series of books we’d take on a deserted island if we could only pick 10. Today’s list comes from Collection Development Analyst, Todd Warhola. Thanks again to Time Magazine for the idea!

 

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

Smart and funny essays by a great writer.  He is somehow able to make a review of the dictionary engrossing.  Even if you have reservations about his fiction, give these essays a shot, you will not be disappointed.

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

If you thought the movie was violent…read the book.

White Noise by Don DeLillo

DeLillo captured what it’s like to live today in a world dominated by media and technology but he did it 30 years ago.

Self Help by Lorrie Moore

Her stories are brilliant, wry, and beautifully crafted.  The story “How to Become a Writer” says all I need to say, “First, try to be something, anything, else.”

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel

I read “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” at least once a year.  You have never read a story so uplifting about a best friend dying.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

The title story in which Sedaris takes a French class in Paris will make you laugh for a very long time. “Sometimes me cry alone at night.”

Firebird by Mark Doty

This may be the most beautiful book I have ever read.  Doty’s prose is otherworldly.

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

A story about the last remaining member of a suicide cult who becomes a steroid filled messiah and spends the entire book narrating his story after hijacking a plane.  What more do you want?

Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson

A wonderfully sad book.  Robinson, as everyone knows, is just fabulous.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman

Funny, absurd, and random.  Klosterman has a voice unlike any other and the passion to focus on subjects that many of us don’t even consider.

 

Todd Warhola is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive