Recs if you like The Day of the Locust...

for this list, i am specifically looking into creating an extensive list of novels whose narratives center in some way film as an art or an industry. these are fictional explorations of what it means to make, love, fear, consume, be consumed by cinema.

For when you need to wallow in melancholy and misery: a collection of pessimistic, cynical, downbeat, depressing, doom and gloom fiction for my disillusioned friends.

More to come!

Got the holiday blues? Check out my list Christmas with the Cranks!

I know there are already several lists with a California theme, but I am hoping this acts as a syllabus of sorts for books that deal with the core myth, history, violence, dream, and contradiction of California. Suggestions are welcome!

"Turn me over, I'm done on this side!" —St. Lawrence, whilst roasting on a spit

Gallows humor, black comedy, l'humour noir — whatever you call it, this is the place for it. This list includes André Breton's seminal anthology of dark humor, a number of the works excerpted in this anthology, and beyond. You can find a link to the complete contents of Breton's anthology in the comments.

Want more weird humor? Check out my list Nitpicky Neuroticism (Comedy Edition)!

Time Magazine’s All-Time Best 100 English Language Novels from 1923 to 2005 as published in 2005.

Time Magazine’s compilation of the 100 best novels published since 1923.

(101 because “The Berlin Stories” is an omnibus of “Mr Norris Changes Trains” and “Goodbye To Berlin.”)

This is the list from The Atlantic. "In 1868, a little-known writer by the name of John William DeForest proposed a new type of literature, a collective artistic project for a nation just emerging from an existential conflict: a work of fiction that accomplished “the task of painting the American soul.” It would be called the Great American Novel, and no one had written it yet, DeForest admitted. Maybe soon."

An anthology of fiction and poetry written by authors who despised their home state.