Nathan Englanders 10 Favorite Books
Nathan Englander.Bookseller One Grand Books has asked celebrities to name the ten titles they’d bring with them to a desert island, and they’ve shared the results with Vulture. Below is author of the forthcoming novel Kaddish.com Nathan Englander’s list.
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Nikolai Gogol $18 $18Simply, “The Nose” is a master class in voice. A man chasing his runaway honker around town trying to talk it back onto his face is, to me, perfection.
$18 at One Grand Books Buy
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson $17 $17If you’re only going to read one book this year about an aging Iowa pastor being quietly reflective, then this is the one for you! No one builds a sentence like Marilynne Robinson.
$17 at One Grand Books Buy
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead $17 $17This goes on my short list of gigantical best sellers that, when I read it way back in galleys, made me think, “This is going to be a gigantical best seller — and truly deserves to be.” It’s just fantastically imagined and extraordinarily powerful.
$17 at One Grand Books Buy
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel $16 $16Feeling like your world is currently imploding? Here’s an I-couldn’t-put-it-down dystopian novel that makes the end of days kind of cheery (in the end). I just finished reading it, and am glad to have a place to sing its praises.
$16 at One Grand Books Buy
1984, George Orwell $20 $20As for dystopian, I’m not putting this on the list because we live in a time when those wielding power say things like, “Truth isn’t truth.” (Fun fact: It is!) I’m adding it because, when I was too young to grasp its cautionary aspects, this book showed me what a novel could do.
$20 at One Grand Books Buy
When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka $14 $14I love this poem of a novel. It’s a stunningly rendered exploration of the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
$14 at One Grand Books Buy
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry $18 $18This book killed me dead. A sprawling, character-driven epic set in India in the 1970s. It’s surely a modern masterpiece.
$18 at One Grand Books Buy
Brother, I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat $16 $16If there’s any nonfiction book that I wish had lost its relevance, this is it. But Danticat’s very personal 2007 account of her family’s differing journeys seems even more urgent today, dealing as it does with emigration and asylum and political upheaval.
$16 at One Grand Books Buy
Barbara the Slut and Other People, Lauren Holmes $16 $16This one is a gem — smart, funny, and just what a debut collection should be. Also, of every story I know of that’s narrated by a dog (really), “My Humans” is the joyous best.
$16 at One Grand Books Buy
The Collected Stories, Grace Paley $18 $18I’m singling out a single story once again. “Goodbye and Good Luck” leaves me in tears every time I read it — every time. Also, Paley musters her neighborhood so vividly that I hardly ever walk up Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village without thinking about her.
$18 at One Grand Books BuyMore From This Series
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