ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
Some Recommended Texts for the Personal Study
If you are having trouble choosing a book for your PS, this list might help.
It does not contain every suitable book by any means, and if you have
another one in mind, please let your teacher know about it. You should also
keep in mind that other books by authors on the list might be suitablewe’ve not mentioned them all. You might also notice that many common
RPR texts- Animal Farm, 1984, The Color Purple, Lord of the Flies,
Trainspotting- are missing from the list. This is because these books have
been done to death and we strongly recommend that you avoid them
henceforth.
Apart from the title and author of each book, you are given a very brief
account of content. If the letters f or tv appear after an entry, this means a
film or television version has been made which might be obtainable.
Finally, you are given an indication of difficulty, ranging from one star
(easy) to five stars (difficult). Do not let the stars decide your choice for
you: a difficult book might be hard to read, but it could then be easier to
write about.
N.B. Indications of strong language, sex, violence are intended to be
warnings, not adverts.
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
A study of the chaos which results from the imposition of European ways upon
African ways.**
Brian Aldiss: Hothouse
Earth thousands of years in the future, when climate change means the planet is
covered by a gigantic banyan tree and humans have been transformed. I read it
when I was 15 and thought it was great.**
Martin Amis: Money
The story of the making of a film, but much more than that. Very funny and
brilliantly written. Strong language.***
Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes at the Museum Beautifully written and well
structured novel about Ruby Lennox and her unravelling of family mysteries.
f***
Margaret Atwood: Cat’s Eye
A Canadian painter looks back on her life, loves and friendships. Long but wellwritten and readable. **
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale
Powerful evocation of 21st Century America under post-feminist totalitarian
regime which takes the book of Genesis at its word, with bizarre consequences.
f***
Jane Austen: any from Emma, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Pride and
Prejudice.
Witty, beautifully written depictions of society and manners in the early 19th
Century. Surprisingly modern tone.f/tv***
Paul Bailey: Old Soldiers
Witty sad account of two old men reaching the end of their lives.**
J.G Ballard: Empire of the Sun
A young boy’s experience of being a prisoner of the Japanese in the far east
during WW2. Former Higher set text.f***
Ian Banks: Crow Road
Entertaining mystery concerning a Scottish family. tv**
Ian Banks: Complicity
Metaphysical murder mystery. ***
Ian Banks: Espedair Street
The fall and rise of a Scottish rock star.**
Ian Banks: The Wasp Factory
Banks’ first novel. Exceedingly weird and very nasty, if you like that sort of
thing. Strong language, sex and cruelty to animals. A bit of a cult book. ***
Pat Barker: Regeneration
Novel about the meeting of the War Poets Wilfred Owen and Sigfreid Sassoon
in Craiglockhart hospital- and much more. f***
Julian Barnes: Talking it Over
Love triangle told by each of three characters in turn. Stylish, witty, clever.**
Alan Bennet: Writing Home
Collected essays, forewords and diaries of the playwright. Diaries are highly
amusing. Useful for students of Philip Larkin- contains a good essay on
him.***
William Boyd: The New Confessions
The story of a Scottish film maker born in 1900 and so to an extent the story of
the century. Long but very readable.***
Malcolm Bradbury: The History Man.
Comedy about a lecturer on the make, in every sense, in a new university.
Strong language and sex. tv **
Ray Bradbury: short stories-e.g. The Pedestrian; A Sound of Thunder; The
Emissary
Very stylishly written science-fiction and fantasy.**
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
Futuristic novel of a time when books are banned. f**
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
The classic story of Jane, Mr Rochester and the mad wife.***
Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights
One of the greatest novels of all time; weird, disturbing, heavily symbolic.***
Dee Brown: Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee
History of the American West from an Indian perspective.**
Bill Bryson: The Lost Continent
Very funny travel book about a journey through small-town America.*
Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange
Violent futuristic cult novel. The film of the book was withdrawn by the
director because he thought it encouraged imitation violence..f(not now
available)****
William Burroughs: Junkie
Autobiographical account of the reality of being a heroin addict. ***
Albert Camus: The Outsider
Novel set in French North Africa about what it means to be alive.***
Albert Camus: The Plague
The effect of the outbreak of bubonic plague in the town of Oran. Heavily
symbolic.****
Joyce Cary: Mister Johnson
Tragi-comic story of the exploits of a young black African. Funny, sad, quite
hard.f****
Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep
Classic hard boiled detective story, exciting, well written, incomprehensibly
plotted, but who cares.f(3 times)**
Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye.
Much the same idea as the one above, but again, who cares. f**
JM Coetzee: Disgrace.
The place of white people in post-apartheid South Africa is the theme of the
award winning novel. ***
Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
One of the first ever detective stories.tv***
Len Deighton: Bomber
Story of one bombing mission over Germany in WW2. Great story with a lot of
very interesting technical information too.*
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
One of the great novels of childhood and youth. You will like this book once
you get into it. Long.f***
EL Doctorow: The March
Huge cast of characters in a novel about General Sherman’s southern campaign
during the American Civil war. Realistic and moving. ***
JP Donleavy: The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B
Highly amusing adventures of the eponymous young man in Ireland. Strong
language and sex.***
Roddy Doyle: The Van
Comic novel of two friends trying to make a living from operating a chip van.
(Very) strong language.f*
Roddy Doyle: Paddy Clarke ha ha ha
Life seen through the eyes of a young boy. **
Daphne DuMaurier: Rebecca
The classic weepy of love and murder set in Cornwall. You’ll like this if this is
the sort of stuff you like.f**
George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss
Eliot (a woman!) was one of the greatest of all novelists. This is the story of a
brother and sister which ends tragically.tv***
Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong
Romance set against the background of World War 1. ***
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
A depiction of wealthy American society in the 1930s, beautifully written.f***
Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
A tragic masterpiece, over which Flaubert took astonishing pains. ****
Charles Frazier: Cold Mountain
Romantic novel set at the end of the American Civil War: useful for study of
twin narrative. Violent. f**
John Fowles: The Collector
A madman kidnaps a young girl. He tells part of the story, her diary tells the
rest.f**
John Fowles:The French Lieutenant’s Woman
A modern “Victorian” novel; post-modernist, if you’re interested, which at least
gives you plenty to write about on writer’s technique. Sex.f****
Janice Galloway: The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Modern Scottish novel about a woman on the verge of cracking up.***
Robert Graves: Goodbye to all that.
Autobiographical account of author’s experience at school and in the trenches
in WW1. Horrifying in places.**
Graham Greene: Brighton Rock
The sad blighted life of Pinkie, the young gangster.f**
William Golding: The Inheritors
The last Neanderthals meet homo-sapien, who will bring about their
destruction. Higher set text. ***
Neil M Gunn: The Silver Darlings
The story of a boy’s growth from childhood to maturity among the herring
fishers of the Scottish coast. Sounds old-fashioned and in a way it is, but a
deeply satisfying book all the same.**
Rosa Guy: Ruby
Ruby, a lonely, friendless black girl, opposed by her bullying, possessive father,
finds a new strength through her relationship with Daphne. ***
Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon
One of the first of the hard-boiled school of detective stories; Sam Spade, the
hero, is only just less corrupt than the lowlives with whom he mixes. f**
Thomas Hardy: Tess of the d’Urbervilles
The tragic story of fate and destiny; one of the great heroines of literature.
f****
Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure
Lower class young man aims for an academic career and success in marriage. A
scandal in its time. tv****
LP Hartley: The Go-Between
A young boy becomes the “go-between” for an illicit relationship, which he
only realises about later. f**
Joseph Heller: Catch 22
Famous anarchic comic novel about the madness of war. f**
Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Greatest novel of the Spanish civil war. Hemingway’s simple style is legendary
f*
Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr Ripley
First of a series of novels which make the development of a psychopathic
murderer seem understandable. **
Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker
Story set long after a nuclear war, told in a language that reflects the
disintegration of the old world. Very hard at first but worth perseverance. *****
James Hogg: The Confessions of a Justified Sinner
Early 19th Century Scottish novel about the supernatural and damnation. Very
influential. ****
John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meaney
A miraculous freak incident changes the life of the narrator. ***
Kashio Ishiguru: The Remains of the Day
A butler devotes his life to his master at the cost of his own chance of
happiness. f**
James Joyce: Dubliners
Collection of difficult, influential short stories about different inhabitants of
Dublin. Imbued with melancholy. one f (The Dead) ****
Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis
Shortish story or novella: a man wakes up one day to find he has turned into an
insect. But not a horror story- at least, not that type of horror story. ****
James Kelman: The Busconductor Hines
Tale of a Glasgow busconductor on the edge. Written in broad Glaswegian.
Strong language. ****
AL Kennedy: Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains
Short stories about “sex, death and public transport” from modern Scottish
writer. **
Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The stirring and tragic story of RP McMurphy’s struggle against the mighty
Combine, narrated by a six-foot-eight Indian who’s pretending to be deaf and
dumb. Strong language and some sex. f***
Jessie Kesson: Another Time, Another Place.
Italian prisoners of war in the North of Scotland change the heroine’s life. f***
Thomas Keneally: Schindler’s Ark
The novelisation of true events. The book from which Spielberg got Schindler’s
List. f**
Philip Larkin: Jill
First of the great poet’s only two novels. A partly autobiographical story of a
provincial boy’s attempt to fit in with university life in wartime Oxford.
Beautifully written, sad.**
D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers
The great novel of family and sexual relationships and power. ***
Mark Lawson: The Battle for Room Service
Travel writing with a difference- Lawson chooses to go only to safe, boring
places. Very perceptive and funny. **
John LeCarre: The Spy who Came in from the Cold
Brilliant spy novel from the Cold war period, seedy and unglamorous.
Tremendous plot twist. f**
John LeCarre:Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The search for a “mole” (traitor) in British intelligence. Slow moving but
fascinating. tv ****
Primo Levi: If this is a Man
Autobiographical account of Levi’s time in the Nazi death camps; harrowing
and moving. **
David Lodge: Nice Work
Amusing novel of a university lecturer going on an industrial awareness
placement. tv**
Ian MacEwan: First Love, Last Rites/ In Between the Sheets
Short story collections from a master of the form. Dark, disturbing, nasty and
hugely enjoyable. Sex, violence.****
Ian McEwan: Saturday
A prosperous family find their enviable lives disrupted by a seemingly
insignificant incident. ***
Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead
A group of American soldiers fight their way across a Japanese-held Pacific
island. Unarguably one of the greatest fictional accounts ever about WW2. ***
Cormac McCarthy: The Road
Horrifying and harrowing novel of a man and his son in the last days of the
world. **
William McIlvanney: Laidlaw
The Glasgow detective on whom Taggart was apparently based, just a lot
smarter. **
William McIlvanney: Walking Wounded
Entertaining stories of the town of Graithnock, based on McIlvanney’s home
town of Kilmarnock. Some strong language and sex. **
Bernard MacLaverty: Cal
A young Irishman takes part in an IRA killing then falls in love with the widow
of the man he helped kill. A study of character. f**
Bernard MacLaverty: Lamb
A disenchanted priest absconds with a boy from a home with tragic
consequences. f**
Bernard MacLaverty: The Great Profundo/Walking the Dog
Two collections of very accessible short stories.*
Bernard Malamud: The Fixer
A Russian Jew in Tsarist times is falsely accused of rape and fights for justice.
f**
Martin Middlebrook: The First Day on the Somme
The factual and harrowing story, derived from eyewitness accounts, of the
build-up to and events of July 1, 1916, when 60,000 British soldiers were killed
or wounded. *
Arthur Miller: The Crucible
The great play about the Salem witch hunts, tragic and moving. ***
Timothy Mo: Sour Sweet
A Chinese family struggle to make their way in Britain, while the husband falls
foul of the Tongs.f ***
Blake Morrison: And when Did You Last See Your Father?
Morrison’s unflinchingly honest memoir of his father. Beautifully written and
totally compelling. **
Shiva Naipaul: North of South
Non-fiction travel book about the experiences of a Trinidad Indian in central
Africa.*
Eric Newby: A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
Newby was working in a tailor’s shop when he chucked it all up and set off for
Afghanistan. Very funny in places.**
PJ O’Rourke: Holidays in Hell
As a break from the usual type of travel book, O’Rourke writes about his visits
to some of the worst places in the world- Beirut, Belfast, pre-Mandela South
Africa. Highly amusing. Strong language.**
Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan
Bizarre imaginative fantasy notable for its fabulous prose style. ***
Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar
Novel about an adolescent girl’s relationships, depression and attempted
suicide. f***
Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Varied collection of mystery and horror stories reflecting Poe’s own obsessions.
f(various, mostly very bad). ***
Terry Pratchett: Mort
A boy becomes apprentice to Death in Discworld. Very funny fantasy. **
Terry Pratchett: Men at Arms
Riotous adventures of the City Guard in the city of Ank-Morpork (or something
like that!). **
Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
World War One in the trenches, from the German perspective. f**
Oliver Sacks: The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat
Disturbing, fascinating book about psychiatric disorder, but also what it means
to be a human.*
Tom Sharp: Wilt
Comedy about a college lecturer who fails in almost everything he does. Strong
language and sex. f*
Helen Simpson: Dear George
A collection of stories dealing with love, relationships, marriage, babies etc.
Better than it sounds. Engaging style. **
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
Denisovitch is an inmate of a Russian prison camp in Siberia and this short
novel is just what its title suggests. f**
Alan Spence: Its Colours they are Fine
Short stories set in Glasgow. A modest masterpiece that deals with poverty,
violence, drunkenness, religion, bigotry, beauty, etc. Forget Irvine Welsh, read
this instead. Strong language. *
Alan Spence: The Magic Flute
Set in Glasgow, the story follows the lives of four boys over two decades.
Strong language. *
Muriel Spark: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Famous novel set in a girls’ school in Edinburgh, concerning loyalty and
betrayal. f**
John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
The Joad family move to California to seek their fortune, but find only poverty
and oppression. Long. f**
Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Dr Jekyll finds the formula that allows him to release the other side of his
character. Short. f**
Graham Swift: Waterland
Family saga set in the fens of England.f***
Donna Tartt: The Secret History
Five students kill one of their friends; remorse follows. *
Robert Tressell: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Famous socialist novel about the iniquities of capitalism. Powerful. *
Joanne Trollope: The Rector’s Wife
A woman’s transformation from dutiful wife of a priest to free spirit.*
Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall
Quiet student Paul Pennyfeather meets a series of humorous misadventures,
including working in the worst school in the world. f**
Evelyn Waugh: A Handful of Dust
Tragic novel of the breakup of a marriage. f**
Alan Warner: Morvern Caller
Young Scottish girl finds herself in the rave scene in Spain. Strong language
and sex.**
Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome
Love triangle. Main character has sickly wife so has liaison with another
woman, with terrible consequences. Short.***
Emlyn Williams: Beyond Belief
Semi-fictionalised account of Brady and Hindley, the moors murderers. Deeply
disturbing.***
Jeanette Winterson: Oranges are not the Only Fruit
A young girl’s eccentric Catholic upbringing, written in an unusual style. tv***
Tom Wolfe: Bonfire of the Vanities
Rich Yuppie in New York has a car accident which leads to his destruction.
Biting satire of modern life and political correctness. f(one of the worst ever
made)**
Emile Zola: Therese Racquin
Shocking for its time, this novel of adultery and murder also has one of the best
endings in fiction. Exemplar in base.tv**