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"Cult" Books

Just what is a cult novel? Well, it is a book that may not be a critics's favourite but has squadrons of fans. Thses novels often belong to counterculture or experiment with form. They sometimes become classics and/or get adapted into TV series or films.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)

Douglas Adams was a brilliant visionary who, in the late 1970s, was able to foresee a time when digital watches would look pretty silly. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy – a radio show before it was a novel, and a film, and a game, and a TV show – was incredibly clever and wildly funny. Thanks to the Guide, an entire generation of Britons was nursed to adulthood with the phrases "Don’t Panic" and "Mostly Harmless", and the number 42. (Plot summary)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969) 

Sideways fantasy from the Diogenes of American letters, a comic sage who survived the firebombing of Dresden and various familial tragedies to work out his own unique brand of science-fictional satire.

Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)

Sandworms, ornithopters, Atreides, Harkonnen and spice: chop and blend for sci-fi fantasy, strangely like an intergalactic cousin of James Clavell. The first in an increasingly soap-operatic sequence. Equally cultishly adapted for the screen by David Lynch.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) 

A bitter military farce, responsible for inventing the dilemma to which it gave its name: you're only excused from war if you're mad, but wanting an exemption argues that you must be sane.

On The Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)

It is the result of seven years of road-trips across America during the 1940s. Initially it celebrates the alternative lifestyle, although by the end it is coloured by disappointment.

Watchmen, by Alan Moore

Moore’s masterpiece graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

One of the most influential dystopian novels of all time, A Clockwork Orange used its own secret language to punctuate its narrative, a bastardisation of English and Russian. Its protagonist Alex is a terrifying societal construction; an intelligent and sophisticated sociopath who revels in chaos and violence. His brutality is later mirrored by his treatment at the hands of the state.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

The film Blade Runner is very loosely based on Dick’s cult novel

Don't Look Now (Daphne Du Maurier)

Daphne du Maurier said that this – and Alfred Hitchcock’s reworking of Rebecca – were the only adaptations of hers that she had any time for. An ominous story of a husband and wife attempting to recover from the death of their daughter by staying in Venice, it reeks of menacing and barely disguised violence. A startling, terrifying film that lingers long in the memory.

Silver Linings Playbook (Matthew Quick)