Individuals in the grip of obsession have provided a jumping off point for countless novels. Here are some of the best, chosen by Marieke Bigg, the author of This Won’t Hurt: How Medicine Fails Women.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
A dog-headed doctor determined to play God by creating a sentient creature is killed, in the end, by his own ambition.
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Less grandiose, but equally painful, with the tension coming from a painter tormented by the impossibility of capturing what she sees.
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
Another highly entertaining example, written in the voice of a failed artist who finds a new obsession when she begins to write love letters to a man she barely knows.
- Top 5 books about portal adventures for under-12s, chosen by Ben Miller
- Top 5 historically important memoirs, chosen by best-selling author Joshua Lisec
- Top 5 books about the power of music, chosen by Adriana Barton
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
I have to mention a luscious book about a woman possessed by a dream imploring her to stop eating meat, alongside her brother-in-law’s call to capture her body in a piece of video art; the unknown impulses driving their aestheticised choices add colour to their drab lives, and also destroy them.
Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang
A recent picture of what happens when art dictates life. Determined to make her name as an author, June Hayward toes a dubious ethical line that ends in violence. The most ambitious and intractable work for these obsessive individuals it seems is the art of living itself!
