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American works of enduring power.
Nathaniel Philbrick has long loved the sea. Brown’s first Intercollegiate All-American sailor in 1978, he won the National Book Award in 2000 for his maritime history, In the Heart of the Sea, and his account of the founding of the Plymouth colony, Mayflower, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. His new book, Why Read Moby-Dick?, launches a spirited argument for the necessity of a book that critics once dismissed (and students sometimes approach with dread). When we asked him to recommend three favorites, Philbrick responded with a trio of American classics, including, of course, the masterwork also known as The White Whale.
By Herman Melville
"Moby-Dick is the one book I treasure above all others. It may be about a maimed Nantucket whaling captain on a demented quest to kill a white whale, but it's also about so much more -- all delivered with a seemingly boundless poetic energy. For me, it's the voice of the narrator Ishmael that makes the novel truly indispensable: he's a quirky, likeable smart alec who comes as close as anyone ever has to explaining the meaning of this unfathomable life."
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
"Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote several important novels, but his short stories are where he really shines. I'd suggest starting with the collection Mosses from an Old Manse -- the book that inspired Melville to rewrite Moby-Dick into the masterpiece it is today -- but just about every story he ever wrote places the human psyche in an exquisitely observed historical setting."
By William Faulkner
"When it comes to giving history a mythic and yet personal urgency, I will always look to William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! as the ultimate novel. He found a way to combine Melville's cosmic sprawl with Hawthorne's creepy specificity to create the greatest southern novel ever written."
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With dates announced for his upcoming Old Ideas concert tour, we celebrate the inimitable Leonard Cohen: bard, survivor, legend. His most recent album is a return to form for the balladeer, exploring signature themes of lust and longing, spirituality and struggle, all overlaid with a droll sense of humor as familiar as Cohen's prophetic voice.
When Jack Luxton hears that his estranged brother has been killed in combat, long-buried memories begin to well up like groundwater, and difficult choices Jack thought he reconciled himself to years ago turn out to be close at hand. Man Booker Prize-winner Graham Swift's novel plumbs timeless themes of regret, renewal, and the bonds of love.
The opening story in Matthew Battles's electric collection, "The Dogs in the Trees", documents the inexplicable appearance of arboreal canines. Further gorgeous fantastika follows, producing a volume sure to draw comparisons to Borges and George Saunders.
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