Tag: booklist

Welcome to the New Year and my sixth annual Draw-bag Booklist I’ve curated from the very best sources. Perhaps you’ll find pleasure among several of those books listed. I personally use my list to prevent my straying from the reading trail, taking time out only for the best reads, ample in their pleasure, abundant in their wisdom and solace:

FICTION:

Boyd, William. The New Confessions. (Boyd specializes in whole life narrative, delivered in conversational prose, and unfailingly riveting. Famous for Any Human Heart, this cerebral novel also has its many fans.)

Cain, James. The Postman Always Rings Twice. (Modern Library lists Cain’s novel among the best 100. A mystery classic, it’s been turned into a movie seven times.)

Chekhov, Anton. Peasants and Other Stories. (Famed critic Edmund Wilson collected and wrote the introduction to these late short stories of Chekhov that scrutinize Russian society, each a genre masterpiece.)

Colette. The Pure and the Impure. (Colette thought this novel the best she’d written and nearly autobiographical. Published in 1934, it explores love’s
labyrinths, especially among women. Get the recent New York Review of Books edition. Insightful critic Judith Thurman wrote the introduction.)

Duffy, Bruce. The World As I Found It. (Joyce Carol Oates deemed it “one of the five best books,” a blend of fact and fiction, centering on philosophers Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein; on display, their disputes, contradictions, and follies.)

Gilbert, Elizabeth. The Signature of All Things. (The author of Eat, Love, Pray pens a page turner, reviving the milieu of the late 18th and 19th centuries and the courage and achievements of its remarkable female protagonist. Meticulous in its underlying research and compelling in its superlative prose, you’ll grow fond of this book.)

Laestadius, Ann-Helén. Stolen. (An indigenous Sámi author’s novel reveals a repressed culture struggling for survival in Scandinavia. A best seller in Sweden.)

Santayana, George. The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a NoveI. (Words fail to adequately express my devotion to Santayana, an eclectic essayist, scintillating in observation, endowed with sagacity, verbally in command, cultural connoisseur, ever eloquent, and unflinchingly honest. The Last Puritan, his only novel among his many publications, tells the story of Puritan descendant Oliver Alden, embedded in its strictures, seeking escape, yet unable to break their hold. Published in 1936, it finished second to Gone with the Wind in popularity.)

Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. (A favorite American classic, it tells the story of a young girl at the turn of the 20th Century and her family’s struggle with poverty. Replete with wisdom, poignant and beautifully told, it deserves its wide esteem.)

Spark, Muriel. A Far Cry From Kensington. (A widow in a postwar London publishing firm reminisces. Somewhat autobiographical.)

Strout, Elizabeth. Olive Kitteridge. (This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Comprised of thirteen stories, centering around its eponymous protagonist, it narrates the fear of change, yet the hope it may bring.)~~

E. B. White. Charlotte’s Web. (Among the most beloved stories for children, White, celebrated for his prose mastery, wrote it late in his career, narrating the friendship between livestock pig Wilbur and barnyard spider Charlotte. Publishers Weekly thought it the best children’s story ever written. Adults admire it too.)

Non-Fiction

Bradatan, Costica. In Praise of Failure: Lessons in Humility. (Failure can help us find our better selves. Portraitures of Weil, Gandhi, Cioran, Mishima, and Seneca by a renowned contemporary philosopher guaranteed to inspire.)

Dawidziak, Mark. A Mystery of Mysteries.(Edgar Allen Poe’s last days and untimely death have been shrouded in mystery. Dawidziak’s research into primary resources offers convincing explanatory evidence unveiling Poe’s final days.)

Hume, David. Treatise on Understanding. (Must reading by a landmark empiricist that continues to reverberate in its bold analysis of the human mind.)

Malik, Kenan. Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity. (A stunning refutation of identity politics on the subject of contemporary racism by a noted Observer columnist.)

Marsh, Henry. And Finally: Matters of Life and Death. (A neuroscientist confronts his mortality with lessons for all of us. Of Marsh, The Economist writes, “neuroscience has found its Boswell.”)

Mill, John Stuart Mill. Three Essays on Religion: Nature, the Utility of Religion, and Theism. (In these essays, published posthumously, “the saint of rationalism” advocates a humanism grounded in reason, and serving human needs. Mill is among those who have influenced me profoundly.)

Nussbaum, Martha. Justice for Animals. Our Collective Responsibility. (One of the most salient pleas for the rights of animals you’ll ever read.)

Raban, Jonathan. Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meaning. (Acclaimed literary travel writer, Raban pens a biographical travel venture of middle-age. Many consider this book his finest.)

Saunders, George. A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. (Seven masterful Russian short stories, with subsequent analysis. You’ll never read a short story the same way again. Saunders is one of America’s most gifted writers and winner of the prestigious Booker Prize.)

Snyder, Timothy. The Road to Unfreedom. (A sobering review of the rise of contemporary authoritarianism by an eminent Yale historian.)

Thunberg, Greta. The Climate Book. (A compendium of the latest on the past, present and future of climate change compiled from more than 100 experts.)

Thurman, Judith. A Left-Handed Woman: Essays. (Second volume of New Yorker essays by one of our preeminent biographers and essayists, winner of the National Book Award for her biography of Isaac Dinesen. Vivid, unforgettable portraitures of bold, independent women.)

—rj