Mark Robichaux

Mark Robichaux is an editor at The Wall Street Journal, and author of Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business (John Wiley & Sons, $28), which was published in October.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster, $8). McMurtry creates literature out of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. His descriptions of the Western landscape and lifestyle are arresting, but his characters make the book a must-read, particularly the loquacious Gus and the laconic Woodrow Call. They transcend cowboy cliches and offer tragic portraits of loyalty and redemption.

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner (Penguin USA, $17). If you drink water and you live in the United States, read this book. With wit and precision, Reisner explains the far-fetched and non-stop quest for the most precious resource in the American West. He shows how political corruption and greed won out over vision, and why billions in taxpayer money was wasted in an attempt to control nature and transform the West.

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Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup (Dover Publications, $9). The true story of an educated, free black man from New York who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in the South. Northrup himself narrates the terrifying events that ultimately leave him in central Louisiana on a cotton plantation, where he spends 12 years before being rescued. A painful look at the nation’s past, told in a gripping, unbelievable story.

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Biography by Edward Rice (Da Capo Press, $20). Few men can match the accomplishments of Burton, the 19th-century spy, soldier, explorer, geographer, and one of history’s most intriguing characters. A speaker of 29 languages, he translated the Kama Sutra and Arabian Nights for the Western world, and was the first European to enter the forbidden cities of Mecca and Medina. The definitive account of an incredible life.

Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell (Random House, $16). One of the best books on life in the Big Apple. Mitchell perfectly captures a bygone New York City in these New Yorker stories from the 1930s to the 1960s. His nimble, lyrical style brings life to old haunts like the Fulton Fish Market and McSorley’s saloon, and his profiles of New York characters are intimate and appealing. Savor it.

Oranges by John McPhee (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $12). A genius at spinning magic out of the mundane, McPhee makes this one too sweet to pass up. His dogged reporting allows him to charm readers with delightful sketches of oranges from Florida’s famed Indian River, the first orange magnates, juice companies, and a thoroughly intriguing profile of orange barons. You’ll never think of oranges in the same way.