Four top books that should be paired with a cold, hard drink

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Melissa Albert tagged four books that "will drive all but the staunchest teetotaler to the nearest cocktail shaker," including:

The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler.

I abide by the rules of The Long Goodbye, which states that “a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s lime juice and nothing else.” That recipe’s the only definite in this bleak and rangy thriller, full of soap opera twists and narrated by the pitbull gumshoe Philip Marlowe. Gin gimlets are the drink of choice of the friend he meets in the book’s first pages, and Marlowe drinks them in his honor throughout. While we’re on the subject, don’t make friends with a noir-novel detective. Things never go well for those guys.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Long Goodbye is among some Guardian readers' ten best writers in novels, David Nobbs's top five faked deaths in fiction, Malcolm Jones's ten favorite crime novels, David Nicholls' ten favorite film adaptations, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best fake deaths in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue