Since his critically acclaimed debut, A White Merc with Fins, James Hawes has gone on to write four more novels. His second, Rancid Aluminium, was made into a film, the experience of which provided the inspiration for his fourth, White Powder, Green Light, in 2002. Speak For England, his latest novel, is a satirical take on modern-day Britain, charting the adventures of a divorced language teacher who decides to take part in jungle-survival reality TV show and stumbles across the descendants of a 1958 plane crash.
1. The Trial by Franz Kafka
Kafka has been ill-served by the widespread notion that he writes mysterious, heavy tales about blameless Individuals ensnared by strange Powers - and by translations that pitch him accordingly. In fact, he is far closer to 19th-century Russian satire than to 20th-century French existentialism, and in his day he was admired for his sharp, clean prose. His greatest work sets a thoroughly modern, deeply unlikeable Hapsburg Empire salaryman up against the chthonic reality of the "free country" he believes he lives in.
2. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Kafka's favourite book, a tour de force that mixes grand scale and minutely-observed, perfectly-heard reality. Incomparable set-pieces (that opening! spontaneous combustion!) and dialogue.
3. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Posh England in the jabbering 20s, filled with the unspoken trauma and secret dread of war, partying desperately to forget, viewed through a radio-telescope by an alien observer on a distant, icy planet. No-one escapes.
4. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
His warmest tones, broadest laughs and most unforgettable caricatures. Still uncannily relevant.
5. Der Untertan by Heinrich Mann
Badly translated as "Man of Straw", this book, so much earthier than his more famous brother's work, is the last major work of German literature before the first world war - and, remarkably, satirises the Nazi mind-set before it even existed.
6. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
Astonishingly original, terrifying, moving, free of the occasionally irritating feyness of his later work. Should be on every 21-year-old's bookshelf.
7. White Noise by Don DeLillo
Another master of the big set piece, here concentrating his satiric fire to best-ever effect on an unusually limited target. Americans have no sense of irony? Puh-lease.
8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A decade ago we smug inhabitants of the information technology age thought Huxley's socio-biological satire had called history wrong. Then along came stem-cells.
9. The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
Still the most memorable unmasking of Brit-academic hypocrisy, careerism and sexual exploitation. Everyone on a gap-year should read it and be warned.
10. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Sorry, the blessed Evelyn yet again. The only English writer I read and re-read for sheer pleasure.