John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces: ‘Probably my favourite book of all time’ Billy Connolly (Penguin Essentials, 15)

'This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians . . . don't make the mistake of bothering me.' Ignatius J. Reilly: fat, flatulent, eloquent and almost unemployable. By the standards of ordinary folk he is pretty much unhinged, too. But is he bothered by this? No. For this misanthropic crusader against an America fallen into vice and ignorance has a mission: to rescue a naked female philosopher in distress. And he has a pirate costume and hot-dog cart to do it with . . . 'I succumbed, stunned and seduced, page after page, vocal with delight. A masterwork of comedy' The New York Times