Novels

I have a hard time finding fiction that moves me these days, especially long form. Non fiction seems more compelling than any fiction being published. It brings to mind a quote by Philip Roth:

"The American writer in the middle of the 20th century has his hands full in trying to understand, describe and then make credible much of American reality," wrote Philip Roth in an essay in Commentary magazine. "It stupefies, it sickens, it infuriates, and finally it is even a kind of embarrassment to one's own meager imagination. The actuality is continually outdoing our talents, and the culture tosses up figures almost daily that are the envy of any novelist."

He wrote that in 1961.

Thankfully, the modern reader can choose from novels written prior to 1961, and among those are some some pretty damn good ones.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The most remarkable novel I've ever read. It's stream of consciousness, so the first time through is disorienting, but once you realize what Faulkner is trying to do--to put you actually inside another person's head--you realize it's one of the most ambitious works of art in history.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

The classic guy relationship manual.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

If you can just stick with it through the first 100 pages or so, you won't regret it.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Joyce was the mad scientist of the English language.

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland

Will always remind me of my college days in the Bay Area, and of the whole Internet craze, even though it was written before that era. Clever, infused with pop culture.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

His language captures that mysterious allure of frontier life in America. The first and best entry of his Border Trilogy.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The great American romance.

The Fall by Albert Camus
The Plague by Albert Camus
The Stranger by Albert Camus

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Better than the movie, which was quite good. Muscular prose. Written while the author worked underneath a car.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Barracks Thief
Old School
both by Tobias Wolff

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Atonement
Amsterdam
both by Ian McEwan

Of the novelists working today, McEwan is perhaps my favorite.

Classics

Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Odyssey by Homer
The Iliad by Homer
The Aeneid by Virgil (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)

Nobody writes epics like those ancient Greeks and Romans.

The Oresteia by Aeschylus

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I read it one summer while in Taiwan, and I'll always remember curling up on bamboo mats, in the humid weather, absorbed in this epic story. What I found most interesting was Tolstoy's concept of historical determinism, the idea that individuals have very little influence over the outcomes of history.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Maybe the novel I've read more times than any other, and probably the most readable of Hemingway's novels.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

What a curious, memorable story. Ghosts, poisons poured in the ear, suicides--who writes crazy stories like that today?

D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths

Metamorphoses by Ovid

Non Fiction/Biography

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

A masterpiece on grief.

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt  

Moneyball and Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

The latter is the book that told me I didn't want to be an investment banker.

One L by Scott Turow

The book that told me I didn't want to be a lawyer.

Into thin Air by Jon Krakauer

The book that told me I didn't want to climb Mount Everest.

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

The book that told me I couldn't be a deep sea diver, even if I wanted to.

A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr

One of the more fascinating protagonists in literature.

This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff

West With the Night by Beryl Markham

Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

Remote by David Shields

It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life and Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong, Sally Jenkins

If I ever become a filmmaker, the first non-fiction film I'd want to make is this story of Lance Armstrong's comeback from cancer. The first volume is more compelling than the second, but that's more a result of the life period covered than anything else.

Lance Armstrong's War by Daniel Coyle

Coyle lived my dream, following Armstrong around for a year to write this book. Offers a compelling outsider's perspective to complement Armstrong's two ghost-written bios.

McMahon by Jim McMahon, Bob Verdi

The first sports biography I ever read, and will always stoke fond memories of the punky QB and the 85 Bears, shuffling to the Super Bowl. Funny.

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

Supplied thoughtful topics of conversation for my reunions with all my Asian friends from college who became (or are still becoming) doctors.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand

Horse racing can be enthralling, even without the mint juleps and gambling! Who knew?

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

Cooks are people, too. They do drugs, screw each other, cuss up a storm, and worship their craft.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments and Consider the Lobster : And Other Essays by David Foster Wallace

I enjoy reading DFW the journalist more than DFW the fiction writer. He has a remarkably faculty for both observation and description, his mind dissecting the world around him so rapidly that his thoughts spill out into copious footnotes.

Super System by Doyle Brunson

This original was a classic in poker strategy. A sequel, Super System II, is on its way.

Movies

5001 Nights at the Movies by Pauline Kael

A collection of Kael's short, one paragraph movie reviews from The New Yorker. The supreme movie critic of all time.

For Keeps by Pauline Kael

A collection of Kael's best reviews from all of her individual collections, reprinted in all their glory. The only critic whose reviews of films are remembered and cited as often as many films themselves. Which movie lover doesn't know her opinion of Last Tango in Paris or The Sound of Music?

How to Read a Film by James Monaco

Film school in a book. Read this, and now you're a film studies major.

Understanding Movies (9th edition) by Louis Giannetti

See previous comment.

Ebert's Little Movie Glossary by Roger Ebert

A compact, out-of-print gem. Glossary of movie cliches and shorthand.

Short Story Collections

In the Garden of North American Martyrs
Back in the World
The Night in Question
In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War
all by Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff is my favorite short story writer. Some people are just born storytellers. I had the chance to hear him read two stories from In Pharaoh's Army once, and it turns out he has a booming, arresting voice as well. He possesses a natural command of diction. I recommend any of these collections without reservation.

Cold Snap by Thom Jones
The Puglist at Rest by Thom Jones

The Pugilist at Rest, which won every short story there was to win the year it was published, is truly a great short story. Jones writes stories that slug you in the stomach, that crackle with a manic, macho swagger. I had the opportunity to hear him read one of his stories in person at Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle, and he is just as I imagined him after reading his stories--manic, opinionated, slightly dazed.

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by Geoffrey Saunders

To call this satire would be to undersell the humor of these stories. Just reading these stories infects me with his voice.

The Dubliners by James Joyce

They say if you transcribe the story "The Dead" that Joyce's writing soul will inhabit you. I've tried it but remain a mediocre writer. I think it gave me carpal tunnel syndrome, too.

Stories by Anton Chekhov

The Bear by William Faulkner

Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson

The idea that writers on drugs can product good work is largely a myth, but if it were true, the fiction would read like this.

The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition by Ernest Hemingway

The Short Happy Life of Francis McComber is one of my top 10 favorite short stories of all time.

The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction by Tim O'Brien

Where I'm Calling from: New and Selected Stories by Raymond Carver

Reading Carver's fiction for the first time is both thrilling and humbling.

Among the Missing by Dan Chaon

Any collection of short stories by Alice Munro

The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates

A master of what some refer to as depressive realistm, but I find good prose uplifting.

The Interpreter of Maladies by Jumpa Lahiri

Books mentioned on this page

Sci-Fi

Dune by Frank Herbert

My favorite science fiction book of all time. If all you've seen is the movie, which was a travesty, please don't hold it against the book.

Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon
all by Neal Stephenson

I so wanted to add Quicksilver to this list, but thus far it's been painful to read. If you're a Stephenson newbie, start with Snow Crash, then proceed to Diamond Age (my favorite) and end with Cryptonomicon.

Economics, Business, and Investing

The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

One of my favorite New Yorker staff writers. An archive of his engrossing articles for that journal are archived at his website.

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner  

The runaway economics book hit of 2005 finally sated my curiosity about all those Levitt studies I'd only heard about. Among the many offshoots of the book are a blog and a column in the NYTimes Magazine.

The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford

Armchair Economist by Steven Landsburg

The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: Index Mutual Funds and Beyond - The Way Smart Money Invests Today by Larry Swedroe

Okay, read this book and you're done with money management for the rest of your life.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street Seventh Edition by Burton Malkiel

Tells you the same thing as Swedroe's book, though it goes more in depth on why it is exactly that you don't need to waste your time trying to pick individual stocks.

Built to Last
Good to Great
both by Jim Collins

I normally don't enjoy reading business books; they're always written in such stilted prose and end up being bloated as a result, but Jim Collins laboratory approach to studying great companies produced some unusual insights. I read them with coworkers at Amazon, and they were quite influential in our company's early years.

Other

The Complete Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware

Watchmen by Alan Moore

Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf by Ben Hogan

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (poem) by T.S. Eliot

Wallace Stevens : Collected Poetry and Prose (Library of America) by Wallace Stevens

I realized in college that I was not destined to be a poet, but that didn't curb my appreciation of the form.

Dispatches from the Tenth Circle: The Best of the Onion and
Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source by The Onion

Every household in America needs these books in the bathroom so every man, woman, and child can laugh their heads off while sitting on the toilet.

Reference

1. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
2. Envisioning Information
3. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

Edward Tufte's beautifully produced, classic trilogy of information design.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Concise book with a concise message: concise writing is good.

A Dictionary of Modern American Usage by Bryon Garner

For most people, this book would be so much more valuable than a dictionary or a thesaurus, both of which could be looked up online. Good grammar and writing are a sign of learning and class, just like good clothing, well-coordinated furniture, and tasteful art.

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary by Edmund Weiner and John Simpson

I'd recommend the 20 volume set, but I can't afford it myself ($995!!), so the next best thing is the compact version, which has everything the 20 volume set has, but shrunken down to fit in one book. It comes with a magnifying glass. The only dictionary for true lovers of words, it's more a history of the Englih language than a dictionary for looking up the definition of a word. I still can't afford this one, either, but it sure was fun using the library copy in school. Someday, someday...

Photography

New York 1954.55 and Paris + Klein by William Klein

The former is the book that inspired me to take up photography as a hobby, and it's probably my favorite photography collection for that reason. For some reason, it's out of print, and now runs $350 or so used. Thankfully, the latter is still in print, so snag a copy while it's still affordable.

The Americans by Robert Frank

A legendary collection, currently out of print. I bought a copy in July, 2001, for about $25. Now it runs for $140 used on Amazon.com. Bring these books back into print!

The Decisive Moment by Henri-Cartier Bresson

The most famous photography collection ever. Unfortunately, it's, you guessed it, out of print, and obtaining a copy will cost you, literally, an arm, if not a leg.