One of the benefits of the big reset button that was Coronavirus lockdown was the gift of time. In the absence of normal work schedules, there was suddenly room to get around to watching all those movies and telly shows that you didn’t otherwise have time for. Time to start learning a new hobby or whatever. Time to read.

I’ve already written a thing about some of the better films I watched during lockdown and you can read that bad boy over here. Now it’s time to talk about books. Not specifically books I read during lockdown because that’s shrinking the catchment area too much – it takes two hours to watch a movie, it takes a lot longer to read a book. But books are special. The book is a medium that has a unique ability to reach down into your very soul and give it a cheeky fiddle, changing the way you think about the world. Books can affect you on that deepest level.

I don’t like using dramatic language about these things, or definitive language. So I’m not gonna call these the best books I’ve ever read or books that altered the course of my life or whatever. These are just ten books that I love, ten favourites in no particular order, ten books that have influenced me greatly in one way or another. Books that I hope you can get something out of as well.

(If you read our email dispatch on Monday then you got a sneak peek of some of this too, by the way. Sign up here, it’s worth it.)

The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

Read it for the first time at intermediate school, have gone through it I think three more times since then. I don’t tend to re-read books often but LOTR is one of them ones that seems to offer new things at various times. The last re-read was a couple years ago and the sublime rustic beauty of the first half of the first book was what struck me. Tom Bombadil for the win. And that first group of elves. And the hobbits before they leave the Garden of Eden, basically. Tolkien was all about creating a mythology with his work and it’s that early pastoral beauty which I think of first when I think of Tolkien.

The Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac

Everyone talks about On The Road but I prefer this one, which gets more into Kerouac’s eastern philosophies and which gives Gary Snyder a prominent role (in alter ego form, as always – Japhy Ryder). Kerouac’s avatar climbs a mountain with Snyder’s avatar and Snyder helps him embrace the wonders of nature and to turn to zen calmness in dealing with everything else. On The Road offers an escape but Dharma Bums offers transcendence.

The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

Written during Stalinist Russia but not released until the 60s, this right here is the peak of magical realism. The devil goes down to Moscow one day, with a crew of cronies that include a talking black cat called Behemoth, and then proceeds to satirise the intellectual elite of the city. There’s also witchcraft and nocturnal broom flights, as well as an embittered author with a manuscript that won’t burn, and then entwined is a story within the story about the crucifixion of Jesus. That’s probably a lot to take in, I know. Suffice to say that the imagery is unique and the novel is incredible.

Stone Arabia – Dana Spiotta

I guess the whole reason for this article, any article like this, is to share cool things. In which case this makes Dana Spiotta a meta inclusion because as much as I love her novels (and I’ve read them all), from her deep and rich characters to the vibrant plots... her books are also fantastic for learning about cool things. Stone Arabia in particular is stacked with outstanding music references while Innocents and Others does the same for films. Stone Arabia gets the nod though because it also gets into some fascinating themes about the consumption of art, about fame and isolation, about memory... it’s so good.

All The Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy

Nobody writes prettier prose than McCarthy and his border trilogy (of which this is the first) is almost too pure to read, it’s that good. That level of romanticism was a departure for McCarthy after the notoriously bleak and violent Blood Meridian, also a masterpiece, but safe to say there’s some darkness mixed in with the light here too as a couple young Texan buddies who, during the death rattle of the Old West, travel on horseback into Mexico and the rest of what happens doesn’t even matter, you’re there to spend time with McCarthy’s incredible control of language (and his disdain for punctuation).

Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon

All the Pynchon’s to be honest, especially Crying of Lot 49 and Inherent Vice which are the two best diving in points, but Gravity’s Rainbow is something else entirely compared to every other book you’ll ever read. It’s incredibly dense with hundreds of characters and the plot is absolutely wild but even at 800 pages it’s still really readable. It’s a slog but I’ve got through it twice... and anyway you have to read the 798 pages in between in order to fully appreciate the best opening line and the best final page ever written. Pynchon is unparalleled.

Jesus’ Son – Denis Johnson

This is technically a short story connection but all the tales seem to revolve around this one main character, at various (and non-chronological) periods in his life. He doesn’t have a name but they call him ‘Fuckhead’, a deadbeat addict trying to make his way in a world in which he doesn’t quite fit. It’s hilarious at times, it’s also brutal at times... and it ends beautifully. The one in particular called Emergency is as good as short stories get. There’s a Leonard Cohen lyric that goes: there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. That line reminds me of how Denis Johnson wrote.

Narcissus and Goldmund – Hermann Hesse

Hesse wrote novels about the quest for spiritual meaning in the world, about the necessity of creativity, and about finding that authentic life’s path for yourself. All his novels that I’ve read get into similar territory and all are great but Narcissus and Goldmund was the opening of the door me. It’s about two childhood friends, one who chooses the ascetic life of the mind and one who leaves to pursue a life of physical expression with all its highs and lows. Then at the end comes a ruthless declaration as to which path is more worthwhile. Deeply philosophical, very powerful, hugely influential.

Fup – Jim Dodge

This one’s a novella and easily readable in one session. It’s about a 99 year old man who believes himself to be immortal on account of his special brand moonshine whiskey, his giant grandson named Tiny, and their pet duck named Fup... as in Fup Duck. And also a wild pig named Lockjaw. It’s effectively a modern fable (in fact it says as much on the front cover of my copy), funny and poignant and life-affirming and more than weird enough to stick with you long after the final pages. It’s literally wonderful. It’s full of wonder.

Underworld – Don DeLillo

There were at least three passages in this book, including the last couple pages, which I had to read all over again immediately because they were written so perfectly that I couldn’t process them. Also including one of the two best examples of drunken prose I’ve ever read (the other being in Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke). Underworld is a long book, it’s like 800 pages (which is rare for DeLillo who is usually about short and sharp novels), but it’s a rare book of that length that makes up for it with profound revelation about society and things we value and those that we try to bury. It’s the culmination of DeLillo’s career, his magnum opus.

Support The Niche Cache straight up the guts on Patreon if you appreciate our independent voice in kiwi sports

Also sign up to our bloody excellent email thingy and whack an ad if you rated the read

Keep cool but care