Best books

Why is James Joyce's Ulysses leading every other world's-best-book list? Is it because that book is so ambiguous and difficult that declaring it your favourite makes you look like a true expert of literature? I have to admit that I just didn't get it. I don't care much about so-called classics either; Dostoyevski, Dumas, Cervantes, etc. But, opinions are like your-know-what, everybody's got one. So here's my personal top 5:

5. Truman Capote: In cold blood

This is a journey to the dark side; so powerful it ruined even the author himself.

4. Yann Martel: Life of Pi

A young Indian boy survives a shipwreck, only ending up in a lifeboat together with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena, and a tiger called Richard Parker. A true original, and a well-earned Booker price winner. Fascinating fantasy... or is it?

3. Dalton Trumbo: Johnny got his gun

A young soldier wakes up in a bed and realizes he has lost his arms, legs, and face. Unfortunately his mind still works well. The most pacifist book ever written. I just wish some of the warlords in this world would pick up this book and read it.

2. Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho

Not everybody's cup of tea, but I totally loved the book, the twisted humour and everything. Great satire about the Wall Street yuppies of the 80's told from a serial killer's point of view. But what really happened? It's for the reader to decide.

1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Hundred years of solitude

A timeless masterpiece, and the best example of Marquez's "magical realism". A beautifully written story of a small Colombian town called Macondo, where weird and wonderful things happen during one hundred years.