Eighteen Books You Should Read After You Die

Hell is other people's libraries

We are all familiar with the lists of ten, fifty, one hundred, one thousand and one “Books You Should Read Before You Die”.  We at The Varnished Culture had not realised that it has been definitively proven that there is reading in the afterlife but, as it obviously has, we have compiled a list of books which absolutely must be read after death – i.e. not in this lifetime.:-

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
2. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
3. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
4. Anything by Milan Kundera
5. Wired by Bob Woodward
6. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
8. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
9. The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
10. The World According to Garp by John Irving
11. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (even if you accept the free-market mantra, the book is mind-numbing)
12. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
13. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
14. The God of Small Things by Arandhati Roy
15. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
16. The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
17. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
18. JonBenet Knows Evil Love by Richard Rubacher

In the grand tradition of reading (or, in this case, not-reading) lists, this should be a nice round 20.  Please send us your nominations for the last two places.  And, if you feel punchy, ask us to justify a choice!  We want to hear from YOU.