My top ten are split into five pairs, one blurb per pair:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt and The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton.
These stories had me on the edge of my seat because I am pretty sure I have known these characters in real life. I kept really really hoping they wouldn’t wreak too much havoc or *gasp* get kicked out of school and have to move back home.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle and a manga adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness by Gou Tanabe, which is two volumes.
I appreciate how one mean, maladapted author produced such a mind-melting oeuvre that, ever since, it has been continually reinterpreted by a hugely diverse fan base. HP Lovecraft was a bigot, yet the terrifying Abyss he told us so much about calls to us all just as we are.
100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell and King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes
I do not know how to call these books wise in a way that doesn’t sound like a standard publishing blurb. I want Brontez to be my big brother and I want Virginie to be my adoptive mom.
Eurotrash by Christian Kracht and The Cleveland Nazis: 1933-1945 by Michael Cikraji
The horrible past becomes so much more horribler whenever you’re reminded that it is not fully past.
Guilty by Georges Bataille and Les Fleurs du Mal / The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
When I first read Bataille I thought, “I like this but it makes no sense, maybe I’m too young”. Older now, it is still unclassifiable and I still love it. When I first read Baudelaire, I said, “I want to reread this in the original language”. Twenty years of study later, I did. Never stop learning. Your local public library can help.
Read it or Weep 