6/ Five books you would take to a desert island?
On another day four of these would probably be different, but I would have to have Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
It's just the most relentless, violent novel I've ever read.
It follows a posse of deranged cowboys as they hunt the Apache and Comanche for bounty down in Mexico. It's really fucking harsh. It's also one of the most beautifully written books I've ever come across.

The Kraken Wakes - John Wyndham.
Although, as in most of his stuff, the characters are a bit wet and featureless, the darkness of this book lifts it way above its contemporaries. You never see the aliens, you never know anything about them other than their desire to eat mankind.

The High Window - Raymond Chandler. In my opinion the best of the Marlowe books. Tremendous dialogue and probably the least convoluted of his plots. Me and Chandler go back a long way.

Dispatches - Michael Herr. I know, very obvious, but very stunning.

City Of The Beast - Michael Moorcock. Mostly this is here because it was the first book I read that hadn't been imposed on me at school. I readit in one go and it absolutely blew my mind, and I still love Moorcock now. Most of his stuff hasn't dated at all.

Stephen Hunter's The Day Before Midnight and Skull-Face by Robert E Howard almost made it.