Thread: Esquires 75 Books Every Man Should Read

Decent list; Read 22 and 2 unfinished (Moby Dick and Midnights Children). Some of my favorite books (Blood Meridian, The Good War, Naked and the Dead), some things I've never heard of, some things I'm never going to read (I'm done with Tolstoy and Dostevsky and have no desire to read "Tropic"), and one book I hated (Confederacy of Dunces--sacrilege, I know).

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feat...-books#slide-1

For those of us who can't stand to click through all 75 pages of advertisements, fucking Coca Cola:


The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Affliction, by Russell Banks
All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral, by Philip Roth
American Tabloid, by James Ellroy
Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text, by William Faulkner
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Blood Meridian, Or, the Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy
The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Call of the Wild, White Fang, & To Build a Fire, by Jack London
Civilwarland in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella, by George Saunders
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
The Continental Op, by Dashiell Hammett
The Crack-Up, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Deliverance, by James Dickey
Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac
Dispatches, by Michael Herr
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
Dubliners, by James Joyce
A Fan’s Notes: A Fictional Memoir, by Frederick Exley
For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
Going Native, by Stephen Wright
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, by Flannery O'Connor
The Good War: An Oral History of World War II, by Studs Terkel
The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002), by John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, by Hunter S. Thompson
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara
The Known World, by Edward P. Jones
Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings, by Jorge Luis Borges
Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families, by James Agee
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian
Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
Native Son, by Richard Wright
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene
The Professional, by W. C. Heinz
Rabbit Run, by John Updike
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe
A Sense of Where You Are: A Profile of William Warren Bradley, by John McPhee
The Shining, by Stephen King
Slaughterhouse-five, by Kurt Vonnegut
So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell
Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
A Sport And a Pastime, James Salter
The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John Le Carré
The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever
The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction, Tim O'Brien
This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff
Time’s Arrow: Or the Nature of the Offense, by Martin Amis
Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
Underworld, by Don DeLillo
War And Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
What It Takes: The Way to the White House, by Richard Ben Cramer
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories, by Raymond Carver
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson
Winter’s Bone: A Novel, Daniel Woodrell
Winter’s Tale, by Mark Helprin
Women, by Charles Bukowski






Was glancing at a bookshelf and noticed a bunch of these up there and one that I would recommend in a similar vein to The Brothers Karamazov. Kinda brain candy and not what I would call literary gold but if you are a boy, love your Dad, and you shared baseball together, The Brothers K by David James Duncan is a good read. Bonus for PNW history.

I've read about half of those with others like Underworld sitting on my shelf. Some I definitely disagree with. Dharma Bums by Keruoac? Get the fuck out of here - it has like 150 pages of rambling shit while he's on peyote.

Deliverance by James Dickey is good, but To the White Sea is even better.

American Tabloid by James Ellroy is a must read. Happy to see that one on there.

Originally Posted by TahoeJ

Dharma Bums by Keruoac? Get the fuck out of here - it has like 150 pages of rambling shit while he's on peyote.

Dear lord but you are a dim one.

Only 75? A lifetime of reading is not nearly enough.

I wonder if the person who made that list is aware of a world outside of 20th century America.

^^^^^ This.

While many good books are on this list, it's a very narrow window on the literary world.

..... but then lists never are sufficient.

Where the he'll are the illustrated novellas ?????

I've only cracked 6 of the 75...and damn Esquire, the related links link for "75 Movies Every Man Must See" goes to their Drinks Database.

Originally Posted by dookey67

...and damn Esquire, the related links link for "75 Movies Every Man Must See" goes to their Drinks Database.

http://www.esquire.com/features/movi...ain_sr#slide-1
(kind of a weird list - lots of pretty random movies in it. Like 3 Kings. Not a bad movie, but top 75?)

Pretty decent list, I've read maybe half. Yes, a limited window on literature but so what? You need to start somewhere. Not an issue in my mind. McPhee has much better books than "A sense of where you are" in my mind, though. A lot better. Try "Coming into the Country" first.

Originally Posted by butterscotch

I wonder if the person who made that list is aware of a world outside of 20th century America.

Very few Americans are...

Originally Posted by iscariot

Very few Americans are...

Snarky. Not helpful. Fugoff.

Good list, but, no Pynchon? Jesus.

Originally Posted by Jer

Dear lord but you are a dim one.

It's just not my cup of tea - and I'm a fan of the beats in general.

Originally Posted by Benny Profane

Good list, but, no Pynchon? Jesus.

No DFW either. And if they're going to put a collection of Cheever short stories in there, what about poetry? Yeats? T.S. Eliot?

The patron saint of Westchester alcoholics. The short story was a good length before passing out.

Originally Posted by Benny Profane

The patron saint of Westchester alcoholics. The short story was a good length before passing out.

Haha yeah I think Cheever is synonymous with Metro North bar car. I suppose his short stories are better than most of his novels, but Wapshot Chronicle would be a good one for that list.

"Lonesome Dove???" Really?

Originally Posted by iceman

Pretty decent list, I've read maybe half. Yes, a limited window on literature but so what? You need to start somewhere.

Yeah, same here and I agree. It definitely gave me some good ideas for books I should read.

By the way "Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis is fucking hysterical. I'd almost forgotten that book. I recommend it for sure. Probably funnier than "A Confederacy of Dunces."

Originally Posted by Chainsaw_Willie

"Lonesome Dove???" Really?

Seems like a good pick to me. I thought it kicked ass.

To keep perspective, people need to remember that this is a list of the books someone thinks every man should read, and it's not necessarily a list of best books. You know, masculine shit.

And there are a few here that I'm surprised and happy to see listed - I've read less than half of the total but of the ones I have, these are some of my manly favs that I especially approve of:

Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
Blood Meridian, Or, the Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy
Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac
Dispatches, by Michael Herr
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
The Good War: An Oral History of World War II, by Studs Terkel
Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, by Hunter S. Thompson
Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction, Tim O'Brien
This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love , by Raymond Carver
Women, by Charles Bukowski.

I've read around 5 of those but my tastes are more biographies and non fiction adventure and science books. If you guys have 5 must reads out of the list I might give them a whirl outside of Grapes of Wrath, W & Peace, Right Stuff, Master& commander already read.

Originally Posted by The AD

By the way "Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis is fucking hysterical. I'd almost forgotten that book. I recommend it for sure. Probably funnier than "A Confederacy of Dunces."

"The Gingerman" is another one along that vain that's worth a read

Needs more Hiaason.

I'm shocked that The Bible isn't listed there! some of the best fantasy writing, ever.

Originally Posted by TahoeJ

I've read about half of those with others like Underworld sitting on my shelf. Some I definitely disagree with. Dharma Bums by Keruoac? Get the fuck out of here - it has like 150 pages of rambling shit while he's on peyote.

.

i kinda think dharma bums is one of his less rambling, more coherent books. visions of cody, desolation angels, big sur, dr sax, are all imo more experimental than dharma bums