I have a few.

Rupert Thomson - he hasn't published anything for a while but his novels are really interesting, weirdly dreamlike and always thought provoking. Brilliant. The Insult or Book of Revelations are a good place to start but I like them all.

Aravind Adiga - you've probably read him as you like your Indian shiz, but he's good.

Although it's totally different, a book I am almost as fond of as A Fine Balance is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I love it.

Oh yeah, also T C Boyle - brilliant. Drop City, Budding Prospects, Water Music, World's End (fantastic), any of them really. Huge.

While I'm on the American thing, Jonathan Franzen.

Jonathan Coe. If you went to university in the 80s and were interested in politics in the 90s The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle you will enjoy.

Any Richard Price for crime, especially Clockers. Also Lush Life. The Scandinavian crime writers like Nesb? are cool at the moment and good but there were some good British ones as well like Michael Dibdin and Robert Wilson who used foreign detective stories. Good holiday reading IMO.

Paul Theroux is also someone I love reading, whether it's his travel books or novels. There's lots of them and they're usually good. Dark Star Safari, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History etc.

Chuck Palahniuk? Russell Hoban? Ben Richards? Magnus Mills? All worth a read.

Roger's Profanisaurus for reference.

And as it's me, Hans Fallada - Jeder stirbt f?r sich allein (Alone in Berlin) has been a big hit over the last year, not just in Germany. It was written in 1947 but reads very fresh.

Posted By: APB, Dec 30, 08:51:08