Herzog by Saul Bellow (Penguin, $15). The dark grapplings one associates with Russian authors transported to America, where they become hilarious viewed through the lens of college politics and batty girlfriends instead of peasant uprisings. And there’s the remarkable Bellow sentence.
The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki (Vintage, $16). Tanizaki’s slow patience and his ability to do melodrama without being melodramatic (whereas I can only do melodrama by being melodramatic) makes me very jealous. The Makioka Sisters also has one of the most memorable last lines in literature: “Yukiko’s diarrhea persisted through the 26th, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Voss by Patrick White (out of print). A quest to explore the Australian desert as a religious, a redemptive journey. White is called the Dostoyevsky of Australia, and it’s true his obsession with the subject of man nailed upon the cross is parallel. The intersection of this obsession with the colonial enterprise makes Voss a frightening book, still pertinent today.
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo (Grove, $11). Ghosts of the past never seem to be exorcised from Mexico—a country that seems to offer its citizens a constant horizon from which to depart to the surreal. The narrator begins to consider himself dead in his journey back to a feudal, ruthless Mexico, a deserted town populated by insistent phantoms.
A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul (Vintage, $14). Naipaul was the first fiction writer, I think, to draw the lines between Africa, Asia, Latin America—to capture the relationship of the entire post-colonial world with the West. This particular book, with its bleak portrayal of how big wars pervert even the remotest places, changed the way I wanted to write about India. Perhaps no story should be seen in isolation.
Shame by Salman Rushdie (Picador, $14). Another book that continues to be pertinent. There’s a scene in which the American ambassador in Pakistan is telling someone that, well, the States must support a military dictatorship in Pakistan because of the problem across the border in Afghanistan. Rushdie has his finger on the pulse of something vitally true to the past of this region, to the present, and if things continue along, the future.
-
The return to the stone age in house buildingUnder the Radar With brick building becoming ‘increasingly unsustainable’, could a reversion to stone be the future?
-
Rob Jetten: the centrist millennial set to be the Netherlands’ next prime ministerIn the Spotlight Jetten will also be the country’s first gay leader
-
Codeword: November 4, 2025The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
Beth Macy’s 6 favorite books about living in a divided nationFeature The journalist recommends works by Nicholas Buccola, Matthew Desmond, and more
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Nathan Harris’ 6 favorite books that turn adventures into revelationsFeature The author recommends works by Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McGuire, and more
-
Marisa Silver’s 6 favorite books that capture a lifetimeFeature The author recommends works by John Williams, Ian McEwan, and more
-
Lou Berney’s 6 favorite books with powerful storytellingFeature The award-winning author recommends works by Dorothy B. Hughes, James McBride, and more
-
Elizabeth Gilbert’s favorite books about women overcoming difficultiesFeature The author recommends works by Tove Jansson, Lauren Groff, and more
-
Fannie Flagg’s 6 favorite books that sparked her imaginationFeature The author recommends works by Johanna Spyri, John Steinbeck, and more
-
Jessica Francis Kane's 6 favorite books that prove less is moreFeature The author recommends works by Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie-Helene Bertino, and more
