Forget coming-of-age fiction or impenetrable 'classics' – these are the books all grown men should be ticking off. Why? Because they're as entertaining as they are wise
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
On form, no living English writer is as funny or insightful as Zadie Smith. Her third novel, about two warring families of academics, is an absolute joy.
The Circle – Dave Eggers
A critique of the social media age so prescient and harrowing it should be on school syllabuses, never mind your book shelf.
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
You read Grapes Of Wrath years ago. Now try Steinbeck's more difficult 'other novel' that spans generations of American history and includes some of his greatest characters.
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
One of the great stylists of modern literature creates a vision of the future – and a father / son relationship – you'll find it difficult to forget.
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
Atwood spans the twentieth century in America in a smartly plotted book full of dark humour.
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
The greatest of Great American Novels is one of those books that is about everything – including communal masturbation and advanced whaling techniques.
Forest Gump – Winston Groom
Everything the Tom Hanks film wasn't: unsentimental, hilarious and ironic. The storyline of the novel was also even more ambitious – in it, simple genius Forrest goes into space and plays chess with cannibals.
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Garcia Marquez
Few modern novels can match the scale and ambition of the Colombian master's greatest work. A lot to take in, but worth sticking with.
After The Fire, A Still Small Voice – Evie Wyld
A remarkable debut novel about loss and being lost, set vividly on the Eastern coast of Australia.
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The wittiest Irishman ever to live only wrote one novel. Thankfully, it's a corker.
The Sportswriter – Richard Ford
Lost sports journalist Frank Bascombe is up there with John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom as one of the great everymen of American fiction.
Disgrace – JM Coetzee
The nature of guilt, the legacy of racism and what happens to our sex drive when we become old men is just some of the issues confronted in Coetzee's greatest novel.
Underworld – Don DeLillo
An epic spanning 20th century American life that seems to grow in stature with every passing year. DeLillo takes aim at some big targets, and hits them all.
Stoner – John Williams
This remarkable novel about an unremarkable man and his unremarkable life has enjoyed a richly-deserved reappraisal by critics in recent years.
The Lighthouse – Alison Moore
This story about a middle-aged man embarking on a walking tour of Germany – and reflecting on his decidedly average life on the way – is a minor modern classic.
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
The subject matter – a sexual relationship between a 38-year-old professor and his 12-year-old stepdaughter – means this 1955 novel is still one of the most controversial novels of all time. It's also one of the best written.
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Fantastically well observed – and extremely funny – tale of family dynamics and our longing for success.
Heart Of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
If you skipped this at school, you missed out. A journey into the Congo that inspired – but was not bettered by – Francis Ford Coppola and Apocalypse Now.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
A surreal sort of magic leaps off every page of this novel, from Japan's most famous – and admired – living writer.
Atonement – Ian McEwan
McEwan, writing at the peak of his powers, explores notions of truth, memory and culpability. The opening section in particular has to be some of the most well observed fiction writing in modern literature.
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