Fay Weldon's 6 favorite books

The author behind the first episode of Upstairs, Downstairs likes black comedy, Nobel winners, and sci-fi

Fay Weldon
(Image credit: RexUSA)

Hunger by Knut Hamsun (Penguin, $15). An intense, bitter, and brilliant first novel written in 1890 by a Scandinavian Dostoyevsky who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. I give it to my creative-writing students—in this admirable translation from the Norwegian by Sverre Lyngstad—to put them off a literary career. It never works.

Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison (Gollancz, $18). This 1967 collection of science fiction stories includes the great masters of the genre at the time, and the times were rich indeed. If science fiction is still a closed book to you, try these prophetic, insightful, and ingenious views of a future, and reform. A bonus: Writers everywhere are much cheered by the blessed Ellison's "pay the writer" rant, which you can watch on YouTube.

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