Read all about it...from gonzo to le Carré via Waugh: 25 books to inspire journalism students

A list of 25 books to inspire journalism students has been drawn up by the Online College website with gonzo journalism topping the list in the shape of Hunter S. Thompson's classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The 25 books are described as "terrific novels" but "for the sake of diversity"cover both fiction and narrative journalism, like All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

Also on the list are Psmith, Journalist by P.G. Wodehouse; In Cold Blood by Truman Capote; The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx; Scoop by Evelyn Waugh; New Grub Street by George Gissing; The Quiet American by Graham Greene; Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn; Everyone's Gone to the Moon by Philip Norman; The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe; and The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré:

The Online College urges: "Please don't get all huffy over inclusions and exclusions. By no means is literature a terribly objective art, so everyone's own personal list will — of course — look different."

• This is what you call an intro. How Fear and Loathing starts...

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

• George Dearsley emails me from Turkey to add his choices to the booklist: James Cameron's Point of Departure; Hugh Cudlipp's legendary Publish and Be Damned!; Chance Witness by Matthew Parris; and Harold Evans' Newsman's English.