Jung Chang's 6 favorite books

The best-selling author recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, and more

Book recommendations

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (Scribner, $12). Written in the simplest language and with not a wasted word, this sublime book moved me to an almost unbearable degree when I first read it. The old man, his friend the boy, his fish (with whom he has such a complex relationship), and the great sea — I care about them all, and they are indelibly etched into my brain.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Dover, $5). People have given different interpretations as to what this timeless classic is about. To me it is not about love thwarted by social conventions, as some seem to think; it's about all feverish and unreserved loves, which come with a destructive and futile seed buried in them. We all lose our head once, but Anna lost hers completely.

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