Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché's Book Choices

Helen Macdonald 

These are books that feel - to me - deeply adjacent to Prophet. 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré

My all-time comfort book. I’ve read it so many times it’s probably printed in my bones. The story of how retired spy George Smiley works to uncover a mole at the heart of the British Secret Service, it’s both genre fiction and great literature. Le Carré’s ability to conjure a living person in only a sentence or two is astonishing, and his plots are labyrinthine only in the way human hearts are. 

There Is No Antimemetics Division by Sam Hughes (writing as ‘qntm’)

An exhilarating read from the online SCP universe, where a version of it first appeared. This is a book about an unknown organisation battling anomalous entities able to erase memories of themselves and their actions - it’s properly disturbing and deeply compelling. Along with Jeff VanderMeer’s wonderful Authority, it’s one of my favourite  ‘government workers vs eldritch forces’ novels. 

Voices of Time by J G Ballard

This 1960 short story haunted me when I was a child - back then I didn’t understand it fully, but still it spoke to the parts of me that wrestled with fears of nuclear war, mortality, madness, sickness, and the infinite distances of space. When I re-read it years later I recognised it as a masterpiece. A neurosurgeon in a dusty research facility, genetics, radio-transmissions, experimental animals. The architecture is mid-century modern California, the vibe is the end of the world. Utterly unforgettable. 

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Sin Blaché’s chosen books 

Wild Faith by Tal Lavin

If you ever wondered, most likely after watching the news lately, why America is like that, Tal Lavin does an exceptional job of explaining how the evangelical right in America has planned to influence every part of the political machine there, and why they would want to do that. The book should, by rights, be a hard read except that Lavin manages to apply his dry humor to every page. He’s with you on the journey of finding all this out while he explains it. I recommend the audiobook as well. 

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

It is so rare that you get to read a book that is beautiful from the first word. The Saint of Bright Doors is not just beautiful, but it is raw and wild in all the right places. The fantastical elements run hand-in-hand with the way Chandrasekera writes about love and loss, about magic and revolution. It’s best to read this knowing as little as possible, but be prepared: you’ll only get to read this book for the first time once in your life.

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

This is my recommendation for anyone who loves or wants to get into reading weird fiction. Annihilation is written clinically, but it’s enticing. VanderMeer somehow writes military sci-fi poetically, matching ecological horror with lyrical rhythms and detached language. The whole Southern Reach collection is wonderful, but I find myself returning to Annihilation over and over again.