Yann Martel's five favorite books

Yann Martel is the author of the novel Life of Pi, winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Beatrice and Virgil, his new novel, is now out by Spiegel & Grau.

He named his five favorite books for The Daily Beast. One title on the list:

Disgrace
by J. M. Coetzee

Likely my favourite living writer. It's astonishing how much he does with so little. Disgrace is a spare and searing work about the changing South Africa, told through the story of a professor whose life goes all wrong.

Read about the other books on the list.

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

Also see Yann Martel's recent (and somewhat different) 6 favorite books list.

--Marshal Zeringue