Anthony Swofford

Anthony Swofford, a Gulf War veteran, is the author of Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles (Scribner, $24).

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (Vintage, $17). Mann’s Hans Castorp is an early-20th-century guide into the emotional and philosophical horrors of warfare and nationalism. The prose is pure song, and around page 500, after Hans enters the woods during a snowstorm, the reader, like Hans, never returns to his former, simpler, and healthier self.

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (Pantheon, $16). Like all of the books on this list, this novel is my teacher. Smart, sexy, bold, and dangerous, it’s a slow adventure through Paris’ Latin Quarter and on to Argentina. A modern search for love and meaning through language, thought, and music.

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On Being Blue by William H. Gass (David Godine, $12). A book-length philosophical essay on all things blue—sex, depression, Kandinsky. Gass convinced me that the sexiest thing in the world is not the narrated sex act, but the sexy sentence. You must make sentences that scream love and “yes I said yes I will yes” before you smoke that cigarette.

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (Random House, $13). Faulkner’s great mystery. Love, honor, failure, the impossibility of escaping one’s ancestors and their crimes. Shame, hate, slavery, sexual crimes, the burdens of history.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Random House, $13). Ellison’s Invisible Man takes us further into the American race journey than Faulkner was able to. Because the writer/character who emerges at the end of the novel is no longer invisible, he insists that we see him, and he asks whether or not he speaks for us. Invisible Man indeed speaks for America, her staggering failures and her hopes.

The White Album