T.C. Boyle's four favorite books to turn to for comfort

T. C. Boyle's many novels include World's End (winner of the PEN/FaulknerAward), Drop City (a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award), and the newly released When the Killing's Done.

One of his four favorite books to turn to for comfort, as told to The Daily Beast:

Disgrace
by J.M. Coetzee

To my mind, perhaps the greatest novel of our era, and one, like his Age of Iron, that rends your soul. David Lurie, Coetzee's protagonist, is disgraced for a fling with a student, but then, in the countryside of post-apartheid South Africa, discovers what true disgrace and humiliation are—and what the human soul requires above all. Read it with a martini in hand and maybe a cigarette and an oozing steak. I sob every time I reach that grueling and beautiful final scene

Read about the other books Boyle tagged.

Disgrace also appears on Ian Holding's top ten list of books that teach us about southern Africa and among Yann Martel's five favorite books; it is one of Vendela Vida's favorite books of the last ten years.

--Marshal Zeringue