Gregg Easterbrook's Blog

nonfiction recommendations

Here are nonfiction books of unusual merit, that have informed my understanding of the human condition:

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam

The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt

The Promised Land by Nicholas Lemann

There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz

Dreadnaught by Robert Massie. (Worst book title ever; sounds like the book is about battleships, subject is how Europe blundered into World War I)

The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

My Lai 4 by Seymour Hersh

Boss by Mike Royko

History of Standard Oil by Ida Tarbell (hard to read today, but the book that began modern journalism; try the abridged version)

recommended books

Here are some novels (and plays) I view as must-reads -- both great works, and have informed my understanding of the human condition:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Great Circle by Conrad Aiken
The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Song of the Lark and My Antonia by Willa Cather
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The House of Breath by William Goyen
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Soldier in the Great War by Mark Helprin
The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen
Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw
The Once and Future King by T.H. White