Brad Gooch
Brad Gooch is a writer and professor of English at William Paterson University in New Jersey. His most recent book is Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America (Knopf, $25).
Symposium by Plato (Penguin Classics, $9). A riff on some of the same issues of erotic love as found in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, this Platonic dialogue is a “true” account of a dinner party held in Athens at the home of Agathon in 416 B.C. to celebrate his winning the equivalent of a Tony for his tragedy that season. Socrates raised the bar for the next 25 centuries in his finale of an aria on what we talk about when we talk about love.
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton (Harcourt, $16). Thomas Merton’s autobiography tells of his conversion from a wickedly ambitious literary type in Cambridge and Manhattan to a cloistered Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, which he entered in 1941, at age 26. Written as an act of obedience for his abbot, the transparent prose in this updated Pilgrim’s Progress proved irresistible. Merton’s resolve to erase his own ego backfired: The book went on to sell millions of copies.
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 Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16). O’Connor’s stories emit a compressed feeling of having taken the most ambitious, dark themes of classical literature, blindfolded them, spun them around three times, and deposited them in a small Southern town as provincial and full of moral dilemma as the Galilee of the Gospels.
Three Poems by John Ashbery (out of print). Frank O’Hara once bragged of one of his poems: “It is even in / prose. I am a real poet.” John Ashbery pushed this sentiment over the cliff in Three Poems, which are three masterworks in prose, free falls of meditation.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (Ballantine Books, $21). Deceptively shelved under “Young Adult,” this complex fantasy-adventure trilogy is the thinking kid’s Harry Potter. Instead of pimpled Harry, we get a brainy preteen heroine, Lyra Belacqua. You’ve got to love a contemporary writer who dares to take on string theory, original sin, and Socrates’ personal daemon, no matter what the genre.
Less Than Zero
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The Sun Also Rises
Less Than Zero
-
Court allows Trump’s Texas troops to head to Chicago
Speed Read Trump is ‘using our service members as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,’ said Gov. J.B. Pritzker
-
Political violence: The rise in leftist terrorism
Feature A new study finds that, for the first time in decades, attacks by far-left extremists have surpassed far-right violence in the U.S.
-
The GOP: Merging flag and cross
Feature Donald Trump has launched a task force to pursue “anti-Christian policies”
-
Lou Berney’s 6 favorite books with powerful storytelling
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by Dorothy B. Hughes, James McBride, and more
-
Elizabeth Gilbert’s favorite books about women overcoming difficulties
Feature The author recommends works by Tove Jansson, Lauren Groff, and more
-
Fannie Flagg’s 6 favorite books that sparked her imagination
Feature The author recommends works by Johanna Spyri, John Steinbeck, and more
-
Jessica Francis Kane's 6 favorite books that prove less is more
Feature The author recommends works by Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie-Helene Bertino, and more
-
Keith McNally's 6 favorite books that have ambitious characters
Feature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
Garrett Graff's 6 favorite books that shine new light on World War II
Feature The author recommends works by James D. Hornfischer, Craig L. Symonds, and more
-
Helen Schulman's 6 favorite collections of short stories
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by Raymond Carver, James Baldwin, and more
-
Beatriz Williams' 6 timeless books about history and human relationships
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Jane Austen, Zora Neale Hurston, and more