Jamie Brisick’s 5 Favourite Novels

“As Kilgore says in Apocalypse Now, ‘Some day, this war is going to end.’”

Listen to Jamie’s podcast episodes here and here.

1. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

“Dazzling prose. Sentences bursting at the seams. Vuong’s language gets at the viscera — or, to use his word, “proximity — of human experience. It’s a beautiful letter to Mom”.

Click here to read it.

2. The Stars At Noon by Denis Johnson

“An on-the-lam tale set in Nicaragua in 1984 during Sandanista rule. The female narrator’s descriptions of love and sex are glorious and educational for this knuckle-dragging white boy”.

Click here to read it.

3. On A Wave by Thad Ziolkowski

“Coming-of-age memoir about growing up a surfer in Florida, navigating all the usual adolescent temptations (and many more), and finding salvation in intellectual curiosity — and writing — which Ziolkowski does so well”.

Click here to read it.

4. Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff

“A harrowing addiction memoir oozing in love and humanity. By the end of the book (actually, much sooner) Sheff and his son, Nic, feel like family”.

Click here to read it.

5. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

“A love to letter to partner Harry, but also to love itself. It’s close-to-the-bone, unflinching, luminous and delivered in bite-size, impressionistic passages, with lots of white space”.

Click here to read it.