Web Only: Joe Bennett's Best Reads

Writer Joe Bennett wrote about his home town of lyttleton in issue 21. here, he provides his five (most recent) favourite reads.

The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen. Franzen just writes so intelligently. so perceptively, this time about the the tribulations of growing up intelligent and perceptive.

The Gift of Stone by Jim Crace. The prose is iambic and high-flown, but the story of ancient flint-knappers and the nature of story-telling is strong enough to take it.

Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar. Densely written, perhaps because of a clumsy translator, but a wise and touching disquisition on power and love.

Kingdom Come by JG Ballard. A standard Ballard distopia, this time based, so aptly, on a shopping mall.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Ought to be the last word, but won't be, on the absurdity of superstition and the power it grants some people over others.