Reading List
Jo Nesbø
Norwegian Crime Novelist and Musician
Jo Nesbø is a Norwegian novelist and musician, born in 1960. He came to prominence with the country-pop band Di Derre. His debut novel The Bat, published in 1997, won the Riverton Prize and the Glass Key prize, and he went on to write the Harry Hole crime series about an Oslo detective. Wikipedia reports that his books had sold over 50 million copies worldwide by 2021. His picks here are six books: Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, Charles Bukowski’s Ham on Rye, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle.
Watchmen
by Alan Moore · 2014 · Fiction
“Not your average graphic novel, this work about a group of flawed, over-the-hill crime fighters who are roused from retirement by the murder of a former associate is instead an ambitious literary project that takes the superhero genre seriously.” — via Article, November 2013
The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky · 2003 · Classics
“Dostoyevsky was Hamsun's Russian cousin. In this tale about a young nobleman whose goodness puts him at odds with an avaricious world, Dostoyevsky gives us tragedy, desperate love, human folly, epic courage, death, gallantry, and senseless sacrifice.” — via Article, November 2013
My Struggle
Book 1
by Karl Ove Knausgaard · 2013 · Fiction
“But Knausgaard's literary experiment is both brutally honest and far from dull. Trust me, it'll be worth waiting for volumes three through six to appear in English translation.” — via Article, November 2013
Ham on Rye
by Charles Bukowski · 2007 · Fiction
“Which meant that Bukowski's semi-autobiographical, Depression-era coming-of-age tale must be quality literature.” — via Article, November 2013
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway · 1926 · Fiction
“I probably could have picked any Hemingway novel, but I read this one at a formative time. Blood, booze, sun, and vengeful lovers are always a good combination, but it's the prose that makes this book exceptional.” — via Article, November 2013
Hunger
by Knut Hamsun · 1998 · Classics
“Hamsun filled the pages that follow with powerful writing, anxiety, and insatiable love.” — via Article, November 2013
