Four top novels that may drive you to drink

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Melissa Albert tagged four books that "will drive all but the staunchest teetotaler to the nearest cocktail shaker," including:

Some Hope, by Edward St. Aubyn.

The third in St. Aubyn’s mordantly brilliant Patrick Melrose series, Some Hope depicts its newly sober antihero, Patrick, attending a glittering party of snobs and decaying relics of the British upper crust that spawned him. He reveals a painful secret to a friend, drifts through the party, experiences the stirring of hope promised by the novel’s title, and doesn’t drink a drop, having managed, at last, to give up the vices that almost killed him. But oh, does this book make you long for a drink. Something clear, quick, and cold, just to make St. Aubyn’s casual cruelties and painful revelations cut a little less deeply.

Read about another novel on the list.

Mickey Sumner is a big fan of the Patrick Melrose series.

--Marshal Zeringue