Best books… Stig Abell

Stig Abell, the editor of The Times Literary Supplement and presenter on Front Row on Radio 4, chooses his favourites. His first book, How Britain Really Works, is published by John Murray at £20

American Tabloid by James Ellroy, 1995 (Windmill £9.99). The moment Ellroy went from genre writer to supreme stylist: a viciously, viscerally violent portrayal of the Kennedy assassination. It’s a conspiracy theory that makes all too much sense.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, 1932 (Penguin £7.99). I had somehow lived 38 years without reading this. On one level, it is a sophisticated parody of British provincial novels, on another, a fabulously written wishfulfilment tale of what happens when impoverished society girl Flora Poste sets out to “fix” the lives of her rural cousins.

Modesty Blaise by Peter O’donnell, 1965 (Souvenir £8.99). I am amazed this is not a successful film franchise (previous film versions have been on the footling side). A wisecracking, proto-feminist former gangster defeats evil in outlandish style.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, 1926 (Arrow £7.99). The first proper novel by Hemingway, and his greatest. Jake Barnes is a wounded journalist, in love with the promiscuous Lady Brett Ashley. It is set in Paris and Pamplona in the 1920s: everybody drinking themselves to death amid the morbidity of the postwar world. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, 1589-1614 (OUP £12.99). I once read all of the plays on my commute: a startling and pleasurable experience. Start with the history plays, or the Roman plays, for continuity. And nobody will shout at you if you quietly avoid Love’s Labour’s Lost. Psmith, Journalist by P.G. Wodehouse, 1915 (Everyman £10.99). The greatest novel ever written about journalism. The winningly elegant Psmith (the “p” is silent) travels to New York, where he takes over a magazine called Cosy Moments to devastating effect.