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American Psycho is another of the books I read when I was a teenager who chose books on the basis of their shock-value. I bought my copy when I was 16 or 17. I’m sure my first read-through was rather shallow and uninformative, but I have very fond memories of reading it again after university. Mostly I read it sitting in Swansea’s Castle Square, which is a lovely place to enjoy your lunch in the summer.

Over the course of American Psycho, Patrick Bateman describes his life as an investment banker and serial killer. Bateman’s murderous impulses are simply an extension of his other impulses: He murders because he can, much as he buys expensive things and eats at expensive restaurants. Written in 1991, as the boom of the late 80′s turned into the recession of the early 90′s, Ellis’s depiction of Bateman and the people around him is a needle sharp satire of yuppie culture and capitilistic excess. It’s peculiarly relevent these days, for obvious reasons.

It was a controversial novel at the time, mostly because of its extremely graphic scenes of murder, sex and the combination of both. While Bateman murders a variety of people, the scenes that describe his rape and slaughter of young women are by far the most lurid and detailed. It seems obvious to me that this is intentional and consistent with the larger goals of the novel, but it does open the novel and author up to charges of misogyny. I’ve never found fictional descriptions or depictions of violence to be all that disturbing – after all, they’re not real – but I can understand that some readers might prefer not to expose themselves to this kind of thing.

The least interesting question about the novel is whether Bateman is really a “fucking evil psychopath” or if he’s just a twisted fantasist. It’s possible to make the argument either way, but Ellis has left the question intentionally ambiguous, which is the real point. As the novel’s epigraphic quotation from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground, says: “such persons as the composer of these Notes not only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the circumstances under which our society has generally been formed.”

American Psycho is a surprisingly rich novel and Bateman a surprisingly complex character. It’s hard not to pity him, in spite of his reprehensible behaviour. It’s revealed in one key passage that Bateman doesn’t need to work – his father owns the company he works for and he doesn’t need to work. He only works because he desperately wants to fit in. There are some surprisingly touching scenes where it becomes clear that Bateman is utterly miserable.

If you want to read something shocking then it’ll do, but there’s much more to the novel that that. It’s a genuinely inventive and original work.

It’s disappointing when you get to the end of a book and find you have little to say about it. I’ve had significantly less time for reading recently, mostly because I’m now working full-time again. I tend to spend my lunch-breaks reading, though, and over the last few weeks I’ve worked my way through Stella Gibbon’s 1932 novel, Cold Comfort Farm. Set on the bleak titular farm, the novel follows Flora, a city girl, who arrives to fix all her relatives problems.

It’s weird reading it today because the pastoral novels that it parodies are much less famous than the novel itself and so most modern readers, myself included, miss most of the references. Still, it’s readable enough and seems to be well liked, finishing 88th in the Big Read, the BBC’s 2003 survey of Britain’s favourite books. I have to concur – its story is enjoyable and it’s easy to appreciate the satire, if not the parody.

Sluggy Freelance. One of the longest-running webcomics still going, I’ve been reading this for ten years or so. Pete Abrams has continued to improve as an artist and storyteller and, while the level of drama has steadily increased, it’s mixed with some of the funniest absurd humour and downright awful punnage available. Heading for it’s 12th birthday, the archives are huge; daily updates mean there’s somewhere above 4000 comics there. If you read them at an average speed of one per minute, it’d take nearly three whole days. So if you’re new, it’s quite an investment of time and energy to get acquainted. Definitely worth it, anyway. I mean, what else were you going to do with your weekend?

The Order of the Stick. The geekiest webcomic that I read. It’s a comedic fantasy based around Dungeons and Dragons. The art style is distinctive, with characters represented as stick figures. Suprisingly, it works well and looks better than lots of comics that use more traditional artwork. Like lots of webcomics, the early humour has given way to more dramatic storytelling. Fortunately it remains funny, even if you do have to have a passable knowledge of the RPG in question to get some of the jokes.

Gunnerkrigg Court. One of the best looking webcomics I’ve ever seen. The style has evolved as the comic has developed. It started dramatic and continues that way with occasional touches of humour. It’s set in a very unusual school and blends everyday emotional themes with some of the most original fantasy I’ve seen in any medium. I look forward to every update.

Basic Instructions. Simple premise: Each comic tells you how to do stuff in four panels. But it’s really funny. The art is comprised of tracings of photos, but it serves the purpose.

Wondermark. With it’s distinctive use of period illustrations, snark and dark humour, Wondermark’s strips are consistently funny. No ongoing storylines or characters, just enjoyable jocularity twice weekly.