War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Penguin, $14). The one book I’d take with me to that desert island. Often called the Iliad and Odyssey of Russian literature, this sweeping tale with its abundance of characters and locations quickly becomes a page-turner. Plus, the rise and fall of a short man always makes good fiction.
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A History of the Plantagenets by Thomas B. Costain (out of print). This scholarly and super-accurate four-volume history of England’s Plantagenet dynasty seems to have been written by an educated Jacqueline Susann. It has bloodshed, feuding, rebellion, adultery, and homosexuality, all within the castle walls. Who wants to read about a family that gets along?
Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre (Washington Square, $17). Every time I pick up this remarkably cogent existentialist manifesto, I ask myself why am I reading it? And I answer because if life has no meaning this is a big, fat waste of thousands of pages and two trees. I do have fond memories of the summer I spent with Sartre when I was an exchange student at the Sorbonne. Jean-Paul, genius that he was, took me under his wing, teaching me to discard all bourgeois pretensions as well as to tell a knockoff designer beret from the real thing. What a thinker! What a man! What a book!
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (Signet, $5). Anything by Edie W. is okay by me, and poor Lily Bart’s heartbreaking descent to the bottom of the social ladder is told with such polish, economy, and grace that it could have been my story…or Anna Wintour’s.
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (Warner, $8). One of the most deliciously, readable epic novels ever. I reread it every five years and find new layers. Frankly, I still give a damn.