Matt Richtel's list

This week at The Week magazine, author/journalist/cartoonist Matt Richtel named "The List."

One of his picks:

The Magus by John Fowles

When I read this (at the age of 22), I wondered how Fowles could possibly understand all of my own personal insecurities and fears and capture them in protagonist Nicholas Urfe. I learned later that many readers wrote to Fowles saying he had captured their fears. The book is a great story and also a kind of Rorschach test that tells each of us something about ourselves.

Read about another title on Richtel's list which nearly caused him to injure himself laughing.

Matt Richtel is author of the new Silicon Valley thriller Hooked, his first novel.

He is currently writing a second, tentatively titled Idle's Mind. He makes most of his living as a New York Times reporter, covering technology and telecommunications from the San Francisco bureau.

--Marshal Zeringue