Presenter Rick Edwards' favourite books

Television presenter and writer Rick Edwards may be best known for mocking bad boyfriends in Tool Academy, presenting the Paralympics on Channel 4 and writing for the Observer, but he is an avid reader to boot. We asked Rick to list his five favourite books. And what impeccable taste the man has...

Blindness by Jose Saramago - if you can get past the somewhat tricksy writing (absent punctuation, no character names, curious asides) I would argue that this is the best book you will ever read. Literal blindness becomes the perfect metaphor for moral blindness. But more importantly, it is an utterly compelling, thrilling page-turner.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov - this probably remains one of the most controversial books ever written, narrated by one of the great characters in fiction Humbert Humbert. It's a meditation on love through the warped prism of a paedophile, and it is written so beautifully, so laced with wit, that at times you will find yourself sympathising with Humbert's forbidden desires. Which you really shouldn't.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - of all the dystopian depictions of the future, this masterpiece from 1932 is the most frighteningly prescient. I was recommended it after reading 1984 for the first time, and found it to be a far more disturbing and far subtler work than Orwell's. The number of parallels between the world that Huxley conjures, and our world today, is genuinely spooky.

What is the What by Dave Eggers - Dave Eggers is a hero of mine, but I was unsure what to expect of this biographical tale of a Sudanese refugee. I knew little of the conflict in Sudan or the 'Lost Boys' who were scattered across the globe. This book had a profound effect on me. The story is heartbreaking and gripping and funny and (largely) true - and the clarity of Egger's prose makes it unputdownable. Which I concede may not be a word.

Disgrace by J M Coetzee - I am such a fan of Coetzee that it is very hard to pick just one of his books. In the end, I've plumped for the first of his that I read. The prose is deceptively simple and sparse - on the face of it is about the changing landscape of post-apartheid South Africa and the problems it must overcome, but it tackles so much more than that.