Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread

by Michiko Kakutani

The library would eventually give him an honorary high school diploma, and

The library would eventually give him an honorary high school diploma, and

In his 1996 book, A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel described a tenth-century Persian potentate who reportedly traveled with his 117,000-book collection loaded on the backs of “four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.” Manguel also wrote about the public readers hired by Cuban cigar factories in the late nineteenth century to read aloud to workers. And about the father of one of his boyhood teachers, a scholar who knew many of the classics by heart and who volunteered to serve as a library for his fellow inmates at the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen. He was able to recite entire passages aloud—much like the book lovers in Fahrenheit 451, who keep knowledge alive through their memorization of books. Why do we love books so much?

In his 1996 book, A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel described a tenth-century Persian potentate who reportedly traveled with his 117,000-book collection loaded on the backs of “four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.” Manguel also wrote about the public readers hired by Cuban cigar factories in the late nineteenth century to read aloud to workers. And about the father of one of his boyhood teachers, a scholar who knew many of the classics by heart and who volunteered to serve as a library for his fellow inmates at the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen. He was able to recite entire passages aloud—much like the book lovers in Fahrenheit 451, who keep knowledge alive through their memorization of books. Why do we love books so much?

When I was a child, books were both an escape and a sanctuary.

When I was a child, books were both an escape and a sanctuary.

In high school and college, I binge-read books about existentialism (The Stranger, No Exit, Notes from Underground, Irrational Man, Either/Or, The Birth of Tragedy), black history (The Autobiography of Malcolm X; The Fire Next Time; Manchild in the Promised Land; Black Like Me; Black Skin, White Masks);

In high school and college, I binge-read books about existentialism (The Stranger, No Exit, Notes from Underground, Irrational Man, Either/Or, The Birth of Tragedy), black history (The Autobiography of Malcolm X; The Fire Next Time; Manchild in the Promised Land; Black Like Me; Black Skin, White Masks);

dystopian fiction (1984, Animal Farm, Dune, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451, Childhood’s End, A Clockwork Orange, Cat’s Cradle). My reading was in no way systematic.

dystopian fiction (1984, Animal Farm, Dune, The Illustrated Man, and Fahrenheit 451, Childhood’s End, A Clockwork Orange, Cat’s Cradle). My reading was in no way systematic.

these pages include some longtime favorites (A Wrinkle in Time, Moby-Dick, The Palm at the End of the Mind),

these pages include some longtime favorites (A Wrinkle in Time, Moby-Dick, The Palm at the End of the Mind),

some older books that illuminate our troubled politics today (The Paranoid Style in American Politics, The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Federalist Papers), some well-known works of fiction that have continued to exert a formative influence on successive generations of writers (Winesburg, Ohio; As I Lay Dying; The Odyssey), works of journalism and scholarship that address some of the most pressing issues of our day (The Forever War, The Sixth Extinction, Dawn of the New Everything), works that shine a light on hidden corners of our world or the human mind (Arctic Dreams, Lab Girl, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), and books that I’ve frequently given or recommended to friends.

some older books that illuminate our troubled politics today (The Paranoid Style in American Politics, The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Federalist Papers), some well-known works of fiction that have continued to exert a formative influence on successive generations of writers (Winesburg, Ohio; As I Lay Dying; The Odyssey), works of journalism and scholarship that address some of the most pressing issues of our day (The Forever War, The Sixth Extinction, Dawn of the New Everything), works that shine a light on hidden corners of our world or the human mind (Arctic Dreams, Lab Girl, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), and books that I’ve frequently given or recommended to friends.

Books can open a startling window on history; they can give us an all-access pass to knowledge both old and new. As the former defense secretary James Mattis, who assembled a seven-thousand-volume library, said of his years in the military, “Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.”

Books can open a startling window on history; they can give us an all-access pass to knowledge both old and new. As the former defense secretary James Mattis, who assembled a seven-thousand-volume library, said of his years in the military, “Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.”

Most of all, books can catalyze empathy—something more and more precious in our increasingly polarized and tribal world. Reading, Jean Rhys once wrote, “makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.”

Most of all, books can catalyze empathy—something more and more precious in our increasingly polarized and tribal world. Reading, Jean Rhys once wrote, “makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.”

At its best, literature can surprise and move us, challenge our certainties, and goad us into reexamining our default settings. Books can jolt us out of old habits of mind and replace reflexive us-versus-them thinking with an appreciation of nuances and context.

At its best, literature can surprise and move us, challenge our certainties, and goad us into reexamining our default settings. Books can jolt us out of old habits of mind and replace reflexive us-versus-them thinking with an appreciation of nuances and context.

literature can surprise and move us, challenge our certainties, and goad us into reexamining our default settings.

literature can surprise and move us, challenge our certainties, and goad us into reexamining our default settings.

thinking (which, of course, is why authoritarian regimes ban and burn books), and it does what education and travel do: it exposes us to a multiplicity of viewpoints and voices.

thinking (which, of course, is why authoritarian regimes ban and burn books), and it does what education and travel do: it exposes us to a multiplicity of viewpoints and voices.

Literature, as David Foster Wallace has pointed out, gives the reader, “marooned in her own skull,” imaginative “access to other selves.”

Literature, as David Foster Wallace has pointed out, gives the reader, “marooned in her own skull,” imaginative “access to other selves.”

she wanted to breathe the same air as Obinze”—

she wanted to breathe the same air as Obinze”—

she settles into a perfect-on-paper relationship with a black professor who teaches at Yale.

she settles into a perfect-on-paper relationship with a black professor who teaches at Yale.

But Ifemelu cannot stop thinking about Obinze, “her first love, her first lover, the only person with whom she had never felt the need to explain herself.”

But Ifemelu cannot stop thinking about Obinze, “her first love, her first lover, the only person with whom she had never felt the need to explain herself.”

He was “the astronaut of boxing” who “handcuffed lightning,” threw “thunder in jail”; the dazzling warrior “with iron fists and a beautiful tan”; “the greatest fighter that ever will be” who could “run through a hurricane” and not get wet.

He was “the astronaut of boxing” who “handcuffed lightning,” threw “thunder in jail”; the dazzling warrior “with iron fists and a beautiful tan”; “the greatest fighter that ever will be” who could “run through a hurricane” and not get wet.

Ali was a larger-than-life figure: not just an incandescent athlete dancing under the lights, but a man of conscience who spoke truth to power, as well as a captivating showman, poet, philosopher, performance artist, statesman, and hip-hop pioneer, a man compared to Whitman, Robeson, Malcolm X, Ellington, and Chaplin.

Ali was a larger-than-life figure: not just an incandescent athlete dancing under the lights, but a man of conscience who spoke truth to power, as well as a captivating showman, poet, philosopher, performance artist, statesman, and hip-hop pioneer, a man compared to Whitman, Robeson, Malcolm X, Ellington, and Chaplin.

(Jim Dixon in Amis père’s Lucky Jim, and John Self and Richard Tull in Amis fils’s Money and The Information).

(Jim Dixon in Amis père’s Lucky Jim, and John Self and Richard Tull in Amis fils’s Money and The Information).

Saunders, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, Russell Banks, and Tom Perrotta among the many contemporary writers who have written stories or novels that owe a direct or indirect debt to Anderson’s classic.

Saunders, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, Russell Banks, and Tom Perrotta among the many contemporary writers who have written stories or novels that owe a direct or indirect debt to Anderson’s classic.

What’s alarming to the contemporary reader is that Arendt’s words increasingly sound less like a dispatch from another century than a disturbing mirror of the political and cultural landscape we inhabit today—a world in which the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, does a high-volume business in lies (three years into his White House tenure, The Washington Post calculated, Trump had made 16,241 false or misleading claims), and fake news and propaganda are cranked out in industrial quantities by Russian and alt-right trolls and instantaneously dispersed across the world through social media.

What’s alarming to the contemporary reader is that Arendt’s words increasingly sound less like a dispatch from another century than a disturbing mirror of the political and cultural landscape we inhabit today—a world in which the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, does a high-volume business in lies (three years into his White House tenure, The Washington Post calculated, Trump had made 16,241 false or misleading claims), and fake news and propaganda are cranked out in industrial quantities by Russian and alt-right trolls and instantaneously dispersed across the world through social media.

place where women are treated as “two-legged wombs”;

place where women are treated as “two-legged wombs”;

“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.

“In a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.”

“In a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.”

“show an affirming flame” in a world beleaguered by “negation and despair.”

anthropologist—observing the worries and fears of people as the world headed off a cliff.