Reading List
James Lasdun
Novelist and Poet
James Lasdun is a British writer of novels, short stories and poetry who has lived in the United States for decades and teaches writing there. He is probably best known for Give Me Everything You Have, a memoir of being stalked online by a former student, which turned a private ordeal into a book about obsession and the limits of the law. His fiction and his reading both run toward crime, moral disquiet, and people who cannot stop.
01
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
by George V. Higgins · 1970
“If this is the hardest of hard-boiled crime stories, it's also one of the most unexpectedly moving. Higgins had a Dickensian eye and ear for the world he made his own, Boston's seedy criminal underworld, and its denizens become tragic figures in his hands, none more so than the aging gun dealer Eddie Coyle.” — Source, June 2026
02
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
The Journalist and the Murderer
by Janet Malcolm · 1990
“In a sense, all of Janet Malcolm's books are crime stories, needle-sharp forensic examinations of human folly, whether she's writing about poets or psychologists or actual criminals. This one, a study of the treacherous relationship between a killer and the journalist he took into his confidence, is my favorite.” — Source, June 2026
03
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
Nada
by Jean-Patrick Manchette · 1972
“Manchette drew on pulp and noir to create vehicles for grappling with serious societal issues. The result was a set of riveting political thrillers. Nada, about a group of 1970s radical leftists who plot to kidnap a U.S. ambassador, is his cynical but mind-blowing masterpiece.” — Source, June 2026
04
Amazon ↗
Bookshop ↗
This House of Grief
by Helen Garner
“Garner's life-affirming novels are rightly loved, but I have a special regard for her nonfiction account of the case of Robert Farquharson, who murdered his three young sons. Probing, self-searching, drily astute, it's an extraordinary reckoning with the dark forces that erupt into ordinary lives.” — Source, June 2026