William Gibson's Reading List

“Alternate history, in my opinion, is a more demanding game,” says the author of “Agency” and other science fiction novels, “if only because conventional historical fiction, like history, is itself highly speculative.”

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By the Book: William Gibson (2020)

NYT By the Book column (2020-01-09).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy · 1985 · Buy on Amazon

"My most memorable adult experience of this remains my initial reading of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I remember nothing of the journey, between my door in Vancouver and the hotel room in which I finished the book."

Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall

Anna Funder · Buy on Amazon

"Anna Funder's superb Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall. Still as acutely creepy a look into what life was actually like there as I've been able to find."

Random Acts of Senseless Violence

Jack Womack · Buy on Amazon

"Random Acts of Senseless Violence, by Jack Womack. Published in 1994, it's come to mirror our present dystopia in some extraordinary way."

The Alteration

Kingsley Amis · Buy on Amazon

"The Alteration, by Kingsley Amis. Alternate history, in my opinion, is a more demanding game than imagining the future. Amis rolls the dice hard here. A masterpiece of its kind."

Personal Effects

Hiroshi Fujiwara · Buy on Amazon

"A catalog of 100 personal possessions of Fujiwara's, each accompanied by his brief explanation of why he likes it. I love this."

Love Me Back

Merritt Tierce · Buy on Amazon

"Love Me Back, by Merritt Tierce. Inspires me to work harder on female characters."

Naked Lunch

William S. Burroughs · Buy on Amazon

"I first read Naked Lunch at 13, discovering William Burroughs and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the same year."

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