Monday, December 05, 2016

Roz Chast's six favorite books

Roz Chast is a New Yorker cartoonist and author of the award-winning graphic memoir Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? One of her six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Highsmith's first in a series of novels about a charming, fascinating sociopath is by far my favorite. It's one of the most darkly funny books I've read. Tom Ripley is not really a bad guy! He has no conscience and sometimes does some pretty terrible things, but there are always reasons. He just wants to live a nice life surrounded by beauty — doesn't everybody? — though God forbid you should get in his way.
Read about another entry on the list.

The Talented Mr Ripley is on Nicholas Searle's top five list of favorite deceivers in fiction, Chris Ewan's list of the ten top chases in literature, Meave Gallagher's top twenty list of gripping page-turners every twentysomething woman should read, Sophia Bennett's top ten list of books set in the Mediterranean, Emma Straub's top ten list of holidays in fiction, E. Lockhart's list of favorite suspense novels, Sally O'Reilly's top ten list of novels inspired by Shakespeare, Walter Kirn's top six list of books on deception, Stephen May's top ten list of impostors in fiction, Simon Mason's top ten list of chilling fictional crimes, Melissa Albert's list of eight books to change a villain, Koren Zailckas's list of eleven of literature's more evil characters, Alex Berenson's five best list of books about Americans abroad John Mullan's list of ten of the best examples of rowing in literature, Tana French's top ten maverick mysteries list, the Guardian's list of the 50 best summer reads ever, the Telegraph's ultimate reading list, and Francesca Simon's top ten list of antiheroes.

--Marshal Zeringue