Friday, April 3, 2009

20 Books Every Man Must Read

From Playboy.com (I don't think they are in any particular order):
  • James Ellroy: American Tabloid
  • Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian
  • Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories
  • Michael Herr: Dispatched
  • George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London
  • Junot Díaz: Drown
  • Frederick Exley: A Fan's Notes
  • Nicholson Baker: The Fermata
  • Norman Mailer: The Fight
  • David Mamet: Glengarry Glen Ross
  • William Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Hunter S. Thompson: Hell's Angels
  • Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
  • Denis Johnson: Jesus' Son
  • Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye
  • Miles Davis: Miles: The Autobiography
  • George Saunders: Pastoralia
  • Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth
  • Philip Roth: Sabbath's Theater
  • Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
"there is solid underlying rationale at work here: In each of these writings
something wonderful was created from a subject that could have come off as
downright bleak. There are plenty of guy reads about war, sex and sports, but
only a handful that transcend those topics. These are books that help a man
discover and define his own masculinity. "

I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I haven't even heard of many of these... even more so that I've read exactly zero. The closest I've come was Blood Meridian... unfortunately, I just wasn't in the mood to concentrate so I never got into it. I'll give it another go this summer.

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