Best books… Benjamin Markovits

The British-American novelist – a former winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize – chooses his five favourite books. His latest novel, is published by Faber priced £19

Sidekick,

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov, 1957 (Penguin £9.99). Maybe my favourite novel, much better than Lolita. A Russian academic tries to find a permanent home in America. Nothing dramatic happens, but the world he left behind is full of the horrors of 20th century European history. Part of its charm is that, at the height of the Cold War, Pnin loves America, and most of the Americans he meets “get” Pnin.

Black Boy by Richard Wright, 1945 (Vintage £9.99). Wright’s novelised memoir of his often brutal childhood in the American South. Somehow he manages to write as clearly, and critically, about himself and his own family as he does about the deeply racist and oppressive society in which he grew up. An incredible book.

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1853 (Penguin £6.99). The bit I always like in a movie is the first five minutes, which establishes the setting and the characters and the daily routine, before the plot steps in. Cranford is like a novel about those first five minutes, set in a genteel English village. Things happen to the women in it, but what matters more is the way ordinary life settles around them again afterwards.

Independence Day by

Richard Ford, 1995 (Bloomsbury £10.99). The second of Ford’s Bascombe

The series of novels. Frank has started working as an estate agent. Meanwhile, he has to drive his awkward teenage son on a divorced dad’s 4th of July trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ford takes us through the hours of this long weekend in a way that makes the days pass as intimately as if we were stuck in them ourselves.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850 (Penguin £6.99). One of those books that gets ruined for people by being taught at school. Not easy going, but it builds. Its core message is about preserving a part of yourself that is inaccessible to others. That doesn’t seem to be getting any easier.