News Reader.info

HomeCulture & LifeFeaturesAndrew O'Hagan's 6 favorite books The novelist and journalist who almost partnered with Julian Assange recommends works by Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and more

Newsletter sign upNewsletter(Image credit: Christina Jansen)ByThe Week Staff published1 October 2017

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"250px_wide","fid":"205848","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"381","style":"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right:

auto;","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"250"}}]]

Few writers have a genuine sense of social sweep — of how to manage a large vision of society sentence by sentence — but DeLillo's masterpiece makes you believe that a novelist can wield

magical powers. All of his books depict the individual struggling with gigantic forces, and I return to him often. His talent is of the kind that drives other writers forward.

to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVESign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (Harper Perennial, $14).

Not all novels can withstand the weight of their author's own story, but this book possesses both universality and the unmistakable stamp of Spark's school days in 1930s Edinburgh. Her

slightly evil way of tightening the net around Jean Brodie's "girls" feels like a brilliant displacement of her own girlish anxieties, yet you read the novel for the delightfully nostalgic

feeling of wondering what people might make of themselves.

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions

and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka (Penguin, $16).

Waking up as someone else is one thing, but as a giant bug? The title story, like Peter Pan or "Jekyll and Hyde," just seems too mythic and perhaps too psychologically astute to have been

written by one person.

Our Fathers, a Booker Prize finalist. His new work,