Books for confused minds

I am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe (2004)

The white-suited wizard of 1960s ‘new journalism’ may have long passed his heyday, but Tom Wolfe’s tales of money, sex and moral oblivion ring true in our time. I Am Charlotte Simmons is the story of a virginal and brilliant backwoods beauty accepted to a top US university only to find that much time is spent being manipulated by horndog college basketball players is essential reading for anyone wanting to temper their expectations of higher education. The depth of cultural and psychological detail that Wolfe packs into the text more than makes up for the somewhat hammy delivery, which helped win him the Bad Sex award for 2004.

Wetlands - Charlotte Roche (2008)

Trust Germany to deliver a novel that doesn’t so much break down the barriers of sexual taste, as refuse to acknowledge that they ever existed. Charlotte Roche’s minutely detailed narrative of an 18-year-old's sexual activities opens with a hospital visit for a shaving injury to what we’ll call a ‘private area’, and gets only more vivid as the hero experiments with anal sex and pleasuring herself with an avocado stone. Don’t expect a film adaptation featuring Shia LaBoeuf any time soon.

The View from Castle Rock - Alice Munro (2006)

There used to be an old Royal Canadian Navy sea shanty that went, ‘the blood is strong, even when it’s staining your uniform’. Apparently some Canuck sailors were greeted in Scotland by a Glasgow kiss before they’d even got off the pier. If you fancy a more welcoming introduction to the Scottish diaspora, this offering from Canadian novelist Munro is informative without being tedious, and touching without being sentimental. A fictional account of her family’s journey from Borders hovel to Ontario farmhouse, it’s well worth a read to those wanting to call Scotland home away from home.

The Selected Poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid (1923-78)

Forget Scott, Stevenson and Burns: if your want to experience the ragged edge of literary Scotland, look no further than the poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid, more Scottish than a bottle over the head from a man holding a deep-fried haggis. So rabidly working-class nationalist he couldn’t decide whether to run for parliament for the SNP or the Communists, MacDiarmid’s A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle aspires to, and claims, a place on the modernist mantelpiece for Scots culture.

Freakonomics - Steven Levitt & Stephen J Dubner (2005)

No doubt someone, somewhere will untangle the almighty economic mess we’re in and write a history textbook no one will read, but until then we have Freakonomics. A readable yet savvy account of what makes society tick, this is essential reading for those wanting to rule pub debates on politics, economy and the world we live in.

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

There’s something infuriating about Malcolm Gladwell, entirely besides his choice of hairdresser. Is it the casual way his unshakeable logic rambles over topics as mundane as why there’s more than one kind of spaghetti sauce, to whether NYPD officers are to blame for shooting dead a black man eating a pear. Nonetheless, his book Outliers and its assertion that 10,000 hours is all it takes to master anything is one of the more significant bits of 21st century thinking you’ll read.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (1957)

Slated by the critics when it was published in 1957, Ayn Rand’s magnum opus has shot back up the best-seller lists as readers across the recession-racked world look around and utter a collective “WTF”. Telling the story of a general strike by all of America’s creative types, Atlas Shrugged is for you if even the tiniest bit of information about the state of the world makes you angry.

The Secret History - Donna Tartt (1992)

While few universities in Scotland may resemble the fictional Hampden College in The Secret History, the characters that Donna Tartt populates it with will resemble at least a few of your neighbours in halls. Spinning a web of lies about your past? Check. Stalking a group of friends from the fringes? Check. Engaging in rural orgies and killing your mate? …