75 books for men
TRANSCRIPT
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
1/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/75-books
The 75 Books Every Man Should Read
An unranked, incomplete, utterly biased list of the greatest works of literature everpublished. How many have you read?
What We Talk AboutWhen We Talk AboutLove, by Raymond Carver
"That morning she pours
Teacher's over my belly and
licks it off. That afternoon she
tries to jump out the window."
And that's not even the best
line.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
2/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Collected Stories of John
Cheever
He knew better than anyone
the darkness that hides behind
the costume of a carefully
manicured lawn.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
3/64
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
4/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Blood Meridian, byCormac McCarthy
Just try sleeping after the
scene in which the Apaches
thunder over the hills wearing
the dresses of the brides
they've killed.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
5/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
The Brothers Karamazov,by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Freud and Einstein both hailed
it as a masterpiece, and Kurt
Vonnegut claimed that
everything you need to know
in life is smashed down intothis book. It still is.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
6/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
The Known World, byEdward P. Jones
Free black people who ownslaves. Slaves who know the
world's brutality and, more
shockingly, its beauty.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
7/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
American Pastoral, byPhilip Roth
One of the few not about
Roth. It's about that guy you
idolized in high school. Andgloves. And you.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
8/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
A Good Man Is Hard to
Find and Other Stories, byFlannery O'Connor
"She would of been a good
woman... if it had been
somebody there to shoot her
every minute of her life."
Wouldn't we all.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
9/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
The Things They Carried,by Tim O'Brien.
No one else has written so
beautifully about humanremains hanging from tree
branches.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
10/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
emem er your co ege u y s
girlfriend, the one you were in
love with? Because of her.
The Call of the Wild, byJack London
A book about dogs is equally a
book about men
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
11/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Time's Arrow, by MartinAmis
You've never seen the
Holocaust from this angle and
with this much ferocity.
Backwards.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
12/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
A Sense of Where YouAre, by John McPhee
It's about how two men can be
made better just by sharing
each other's company.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
13/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Hell's Angels, by Hunter S.Thompson
Because it's his first book, and
because he got his ass kicked
for it, and because in the book
and the beating were the
seeds of all that came after,
including the bullet in the
head.
7/5/12 P i t Th 75 B k E M Sh ld R d E i St bl U
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
14/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon,
character is as clearly heard
as the man who is never really
seen by the world around him.
Dubliners, by James JoycePlain and simple: "The Dead"
7/5/12 Print The 75 Books Every Man Should Read Esquire StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
15/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Rabbit, Run, by JohnUpdike
Because it's one of the few
not about Updike. It's aboutthat guy you idolized in high
school. And kitchen gadgets.
And you.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
16/64
7/5/12 Print The 75 Books Every Man Should Read Esquire StumbleUpon
The Postman AlwaysRings Twice, by James M.Cain
Teaches men about women.
Also, there's not a single
postman in the book.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
17/64
/5/ t e 5 oo s e y a S ou d ead squ e Stu b eUpo
Dog Soldiers, by RobertStone
Begins in Saigon, ends in DeathValley. Somewhere in between
you realize that profit is
second only to survival.
Winter's Bone, by Daniel
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
18/64
y q p
Legends of the Fall, by JimHarrison
Because of revenge. Because
Harrison is as masculine and
raw and unrelenting as they
come.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
19/64
Under the Volcano, byMalcolm Lowry
A terrifying riderless horse,mescaline, and this line:
"Somebody threw a dead dog
after him down the ravine."
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
20/64
The Naked and the Dead,by Norman Mailer
His first book turned out to be
his best book. The skulls of
young men at war.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
21/64
,
and it's about patience, and
honing, and craft, and
sparseness, and beauty, and
crushing, awful defeat.
For Whom the Bell Tolls,by Ernest Hemingway
A lesson in manhood: Even
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
22/64
Dispatches, by MichaelHerr
"Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam,
we've all been there." You'll
never forget that line. You
won't forget what precedes it,
either.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
23/64
Tropic of Cancer, by HenryMiller.
Dirty, grotesque. Beautiful.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
24/64
Revolutionary Road, byRichard Yates
The thousands of little
compromises we make every
day that eventually add up to
the loss of ourselves.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
25/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
26/64
Slaughterhouse-Five, byKurt Vonnegut
A mad hatter of an antiwar
novel that understands how a
smile, shaped like a sickle, can
cut deeply. So it goes.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
27/64
All the King's Men, byRobert Penn Warren
Crooked judges, concealed
paternity, deception, betrayal,
and lots of whiskey.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
28/64
One Flew Over theCuckoo's Nest, by KenKesey
Because sometimes you haveto go crazy to stay sane.
Sophie's Choice, byWilliam Styron
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
29/64
A Fan's Notes, byFrederick Exley.
A crazy, irrational drunk who
seems all too rational and
familiar.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
30/64
Lucky Jim, by KingsleyAmis
One of the best comedies ofembarrassments ever written.
And because you shouldn't
underestimate the father.
Especially this one.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
31/64
The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle, by HarukiMurakami
Because of the woman trapped
in the well that isn't really a
well.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Seafaring, swashbuckling
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
32/64
g g
awesomeness.
Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
33/64
A Confederacy of Dunces,by John Kennedy Toole
The fart joke as literature.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
34/64
Affliction, by RussellBanks
Think Dostoevsky in bone-cold
New Hampshire. Think lots of
boozing and brawling. Do not
think of ripping out your own
tooth with a pair of pliers.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
35/64
This Boy's Life, by TobiasWolff
A Million Little Pieces -- the
version that's true.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
36/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
37/64
Women, by CharlesBukowski
It's about Bukowski. And
women. And sex. And you.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
38/64
Going Native, by StephenWright
If Don DeLillo and Denis
Johnson had a kid, his namewould be Stephen Wright, and
he would have written this
book so they could read it to
him before bed, and the whole
shebang would make perfect,
hallucinatory sense.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Man is a powder keg with a
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
39/64
p g
short burning fuse to horror,
horror.
The Spy Who Came infrom the Cold, by JohnLeCarr
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
40/64
The Crack-Up, by F. Scott
Fitzgerald.
Because Fitzgerald knew
Lindsay, Britney and the
Olsens better than we do.
(And because it was first
published in Esquire.)
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
41/64
CivilWarLand in Bad
Decline, by GeorgeSaunders
Theme parks. Ghosts. Memory
downloads. Corporate
gibberish. Saunders picks up
where Vonnegut left off.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
42/64
War and Peace, by LeoTolstoy
Because what else is there?
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
mag ne vo ces n e
woodwork.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
43/64
Winesburg, Ohio, by
Sherwood AndersonBecause Anderson captures
how each of us is mangled by
the things we do to cope.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
44/64
Moby Dick, by HermanMelville
The first American
masterpiece. And perhaps the
greatest.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
45/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
46/64
Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis
Borges
Packs more into three pages
than most writers pack into a
career.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
.
is a new breed of hero: earthly
Sinatras in outer space, hot-
bl d d k l i
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
47/64
blooded rocket wranglers in a
frigid mechanical future. And,
in Wolfe's hands, an immortal
barnburner.
The Sportswriter, byRichard Ford
Because Frank Bascombe is
the new Zuckerman.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
48/64
American Tabloid, byJames Ellroy
Scandal, surveillance, and dirty
journalism written in bulls-eye
Americanese that crackles and
ricochets like rifle fire.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
49/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
This is as close as you'll ever
get to running for president.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
50/64
The Continental Op, byDashiell Hammett
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
51/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
52/64
So Long, See YouTomorrow, by WilliamMaxwell
Remember your best friend
from childhood, the one who's
gone? Because of him.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
53/64
Native Son, by RichardWright
Because the novel's main
character asks this question:
"Why were there so many
[prison] cells?" Because thenovel itself is the cruel answer.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
The only truly accomplished
partnership in America letters.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
54/64
Angle of Repose, byWallace Stegner
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
55/64
The Great Bridge, byDavid McCullough
There is only one bridge.
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
56/64
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
Lonesome Dove by Larry
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
57/64
Lonesome Dove, by LarryMcMurtry
Two crabby old men, and oneherd of cattle, cross the gut of
a great, unformed nation.
Episodic, elemental.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
58/64
Underworld, by DonDeLillo
Because the first fifty pages
rank, bar none, among thebest pages everwritten.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
59/64
The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn, by MarkTwain
Because a boy can disappear,
a boy can survive on his own,
a boy can become part of a
nation's hopes for itself.
7/5/12 Print - The 75 Books Every Man Should Read - Esquire - StumbleUpon
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
60/64
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/75-books
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
61/64
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
62/64
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
63/64
-
7/31/2019 75 Books for Men
64/64