I enjoy most of the books I read (I've gotten pretty discerning), but rarely do I find one that gets fervently re-read. Here are a few I've really liked, with brief slipshod reviews that I'll add to over time if I feel like it.

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Cruddy by Lynda Barry: Cruddy is a slap-in-the-face reminder that life can be and often is gross, humiliating, and unfair. Not everyone needs this reminder. If you do, however, if life is just a little too cozy and sweet, read this and understand. I have believed in Lynda Barry's genius since I was a kid and it is on full show in Cruddy – words and phrases come through in knotty colloquialisms, evil is on full display, and the hopelessness of teenagehood is, as it always has been, still kind of funny.

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces by Georges Perec: A professor at Central Saint Martins recommended this to me and clearly she knew me better than I'd assumed as I'm on my third copy of this book and counting. Perec, a Letterist and Situationist, forces us to look at and question our most banal everyday activities – looking for a fork, walking into a room – in order to not just understand the world around us but how we interact with it and it with us. His writing has a playfulness to it that I've always treasured and tried to reflect in my non-fiction writing, hopefully to some avail.

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry: Though I only read it a few months ago, Under the Volcano has already cemented its place as one of my favorite novels. Alcoholism at its most hilarious and sordid, desperation for dead-in-the-water love, the constant specters of death and regret, and some of the lushest descriptions of landscapes I've ever encountered. Dialogue so crisp it's directly influenced my writing and an ending as brutal as a guillotine.

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin: A common thread I've noticed in the novels I enjoy seems to be unsparing chaos and this book oozes it. Come join WW1 veteran, petty criminal, and general asshole Franz Bieberkopf as he carouses his way through Weimar Berlin causing problems for himself and others and generally ending up in the shits. A stunning feat of translation by Michael Hoffmann lets us rollick from bar to bar to boozy bar close-up with Franz right to the nasty, ruthless end.

River by Esther Kinsky: Countering chaos with a little bit of eerie calm – though maybe too eerie – is the novel River, which is based in and around my favorite place on the planet, the River Lea (particularly where it flows through London). Kinsky's unnamed narrator spends the book exploring the Lea, which is deader and grimier than its Thames or Regent's Canal counterparts, and letting their thoughts spiral out where they will. I can't go back to the Lea right now but I can read the book.