Michael Rips
Michael Rips is the author of Pasquale’s Nose (Back Bay Books, $13), a memoir about his experiences living in a small Etruscan community in Italy.
Encyclopedia Britannica (supplemental volumes, 1926) (out of print). The optimism and brilliance of the 20th century is no more perfectly summarized than in these volumes, including essays by Freud (“Psycho-analysis”), Trotsky (“Lenin”); Bertrand Russell (“Theory of Knowledge”); Einstein (“Space-Time”); Niels Bohr (“The Atom”); Henry Ford (“Mass Production”); Bernard Baruch (“Raw Materials”); Harry Houdini (“Conjuring”); Roscoe Pound (“Legal Education”), Walter Lippmann. … The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, with its six supplemental volumes (three published in 1922 and three more in 1926), is the only book that I cannot imagine being without. Consequently, it has accompanied me across continents. After 1926, the Britannica was completely rewritten; the new text, vulgarized and sanitized, contains little of interest, save Husserl’s essay on phenomenology (originally planned as a collaboration with Martin Heidegger).
Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority by Emmanuel Levinas (Duquesne University Press, $24). Levinas is a French philosopher who is too little read in the English-speaking world. Levinas’ insights have helped me in thinking about my father (the subject of my next book) and myself.
Subscribe to 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.
The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch (Vintage Books, $16). In its cadence, mood, and unremitting beauty, this is one of the great works of fiction. Along with Celine, Broch evokes in fiction what I first encountered in Being and Time, the fierceness, poetry, and philosophical importance of death.
Collected Fictions
Selected Non-Fiction,
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Susan Page's 6 favorite books about historical figures who stood up to authority
Feature The USA Today's Washington bureau chief recommends works by Catherine Clinton, Alexei Navalny, and more
By The Week US
-
Ione Skye's 6 favorite books about love and loss
Feature The actress recommends works by James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more
By The Week US
-
Colum McCann's 6 favorite books that take place at sea
Feature The National Book Award-winning author recommends works by Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, and more
By The Week US
-
Max Allan Collins’ 6 favorite books that feature private detectives
Feature The mystery writer recommends works by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and more
By The Week US
-
John McWhorter’s 6 favorite books that are rooted in history
Feature The Columbia University professor recommends works by Lyla Sage, Sally Thorne, and more
By The Week US
-
Abdulrazak Gurnah's 6 favorite books about war and colonialism
Feature The Nobel Prize winner recommends works by Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and more
By The Week US
-
Elliot Ackerman’s 6 favorite books on war and duty
Feature The Marine veteran recommends works by Robert A. Heinlein, John le Carré, and more
By The Week US
-
Xochitl Gonzalez’s 6 favorite books that shaped her storytelling
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Stephen King, Julian Barnes, and more
By The Week US