Laurence Leamer's 6 favorite books that took courage to write
The author recommends works by George Orwell, Truman Capote and more

Laurence Leamer's new book, Warhol's Muses, paints a group portrait of 10 women who inspired artist Andy Warhol. Below, Leamer, who is also the author of the best-sellers Capote's Women and The Kennedy Women, names six favorite books that took courage to write.
'Life and Fate' by Vasily Grossman (1980)
Set during World War II in Stalingrad, Grossman's novel is a paean to Russian courage as well as a devastating portrait of Communist totalitarianism. Grossman had the courage to write his opus while living in the Soviet Union. It is a daring work on so many levels, the 20th-century Russian counterpart to Tolstoy's 19th-century masterpiece War and Peace. Buy it here.
'The Age of Innocence' by Edith Wharton (1920)
Wharton came from an aristocratic New York family. She wrote a series of brilliant novels exposing the hypocrisy and deceit of the world in which she was born. The Age of Innocence is a savage portrait of the elite world that was her home, and is no less savage for being written in such a subtle manner. Buy it here.
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 Right Stuff' by Tom Wolfe (1979)
Wolfe was a conservative in a liberal intellectual age, and he often stood alone. But nobody wrote about his era better than he did. I chose the book he wrote about astronauts. I could have picked almost anything he wrote. Buy it here.
'1984' by George Orwell (1949)
An obvious choice but an inevitable one. Is there any other modern book of such prescience with such relevance to our time? Great writers are daring writers, and book after book, Orwell showed the way. Buy it here.
'The Executioner's Song' by Norman Mailer (1979)
Much of Mailer's writing is over-wrought. Not this time. He steps back and lets the story tell itself. With the most sensitive, intimate details, he writes about the murderer Gary Gilmore, whose execution in 1977 was the first in the U.S. in almost a decade. Mailer doesn't judge Gilmore's terrible childhood a reason to exonerate. Nor does he caricature him as a creature of pure evil. He understands him. Buy it here.
'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote (1966)
Capote was a slight, queer, Southern-born New Yorker who knew nothing about the people of Kansas. But he went there and wrote a masterpiece about the two killers who wiped out a farm family. In Cold Blood created a whole new kind of nonfiction as well as the true crime genre. Buy it here.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Inter Alia: Rosamund Pike is 'electric' in gut-wrenching legal drama
The Week Recommends Australian playwright Suzie Miller is back with a follow up to her critically-acclaimed hit play Prima Facie
-
Unforgivable: harrowing drama about abuse and rehabilitation
The Week Recommends 'Catastrophic impact' of abuse is explored in 'thought-provoking' series
-
The Bad Guys 2: 'kids will lap up' crime caper sequel starring Sam Rockwell and Awkwafina
The Week Recommends 'Wittier and more energetic', this film 'wipes the floor' with the original
-
I Am Giorgia: 'self-serving' yet 'amazing story' of Italy's first female prime minister
The Week Recommends Giorgia Meloni, once a 'short, fat, sullen, bullied girl', explains how she became one of the most powerful people in politics
-
The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939
Feature Wrightwood 659, Chicago, through Aug. 2
-
6 classic homes built in the 1950s
Feature Featuring a firehouse-turned-home in Indiana and an award-winning house in Maryland
-
Critics' choice: Delights from the African diaspora
Feature Mahari in Chicago, Kabawa in New York City and Elmina in Washington, D.C.
-
Alex G, Tyler, the Creator and Jessie Murph
Feature "Headlights," "Don't Tap the Glass" and "Sex Hysteria"