Gerard Jones is the author of Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence (Basic Books, $25) and the forthcoming Men of Tomorrow: The Story of How Super Heroes Were Invented and What They Mean.
The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell (Viking, 4 vols., $18 each). At 20 I thought it was the Truth revealed. Decades later it’s still an intoxicating plunge—the whole mess of human history pulled into one grand romance through myth-drunk fervor and an autodidact’s fearless leaps.
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton (Bantam, $6). She’d just dumped her parasitic husband and her slippery lover in favor of a big touring car—and now Edith opened the throttle on her freest, funniest novel, roaring through her familiar literary landscape with the wind in her hair and a spray of mud from her wheels.
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Exile’s Return by Malcolm Cowley (Penguin, $15). The only literary history that made me cry: personal memories of the lost generation, from high school snottiness to the long, cheap binge of Paris to the deaths and resignations of the Depression, told with a heartbreaking intimacy.
The Sound and the Fury (Random House, $16) and As I Lay Dying (Knopf, $17) by William Faulkner. One a slow, dark, gnarling river of a novel, one a quick-twisting creek of narrative ingenuity and liquored-up fantasy, they were pressed into a single proletarian edition after World War II that became a new book unto itself, at once gruesome and funny, populist and profound.
Romantic Comedy: In Hollywood, from Lubitsch to Sturges by James Harvey (Da Capo, $21). Elegantly, thoroughly, and with a wise infatuation, Harvey leads us through Hollywood’s most exquisite products, bringing us not only to a new understanding of the oblique profundities of mass entertainment but to a sort of ethic of love, a wit that holds the irreconcilable demands of sex and civilization in perfect tension.
Summer Lightning
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October 13 editorial cartoonsCartoons Monday's political cartoons include Donald Trump's consolation prize, government workers during shutdown, and more
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Can Gaza momentum help end the war in Ukraine?Today's Big Question Zelenskyy’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles hints at ‘warming relations’ between Ukraine and US
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The Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners being releasedThe Explainer Triumphant Donald Trump addresses the Israeli parliament as families on both sides of the Gaza war reunite with their loved ones
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Marisa Silver’s 6 favorite books that capture a lifetimeFeature The author recommends works by John Williams, Ian McEwan, and more
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Lou Berney’s 6 favorite books with powerful storytellingFeature The award-winning author recommends works by Dorothy B. Hughes, James McBride, and more
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Elizabeth Gilbert’s favorite books about women overcoming difficultiesFeature The author recommends works by Tove Jansson, Lauren Groff, and more
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Fannie Flagg’s 6 favorite books that sparked her imaginationFeature The author recommends works by Johanna Spyri, John Steinbeck, and more
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Jessica Francis Kane's 6 favorite books that prove less is moreFeature The author recommends works by Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie-Helene Bertino, and more
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Keith McNally's 6 favorite books that have ambitious charactersFeature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
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Garrett Graff's 6 favorite books that shine new light on World War IIFeature The author recommends works by James D. Hornfischer, Craig L. Symonds, and more
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Helen Schulman's 6 favorite collections of short storiesFeature The award-winning author recommends works by Raymond Carver, James Baldwin, and more
