In some circles I am known as The Professor. This is not always an affectionate title.
I actually have only one area of expertise. I know books. And in these COVID-stressed times I am often asked, What Should I Read? In this, The Professor is not to be stumped.
Here are eight classic novels which are easy to read and entertaining. I recommend novels because they are the finest books. In reading novels we participate in the action as a character. This is much more powerful than movies, the novel’s closest cousin, because the movie is in our heads.
You can’t be Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man. But you can in a novel. Enough of that. Let’s get to the books.
1. Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser. I can already hear the moans. Dreiser wrote some dull books. But not this one. An edge-of-your-seat read, the suave and successful Hurstwood destroys himself pursuing Carrie through the mean streets of Chicago and New York. Hurstwood is insane, of course. As all good characters should be.
2. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway. Novels are history. The Great War comes to life in Hemingway’s finest book, with a love story that will make strong people weep.
3. Black Boy, by Richard Wright. Wright wrote more tellingly of the psychological plight of Blacks living in the Jim Crow era than any writer dead or alive. Not because he is Black, but because he was an innovator and genius. A sharp, powerful read.
4. The Thin Red Line, by James Jones. The author puts a rifle in your hand and sends you into battle on Guadalcanal. A terrifying and unforgettable experience.
5. Big Sur, by Jack Kerouac. I include this book only because it is the greatest novel ever written. Kerouac’s completely original rhythm will throw some off, but after the first page you are swept along like a surfer.
6. Bullet Park, by John Cheever. Nothing to do with guns, fortunately, since all the characters would have killed each other off in the first few pages. The nightmare landscape of 1960s suburban America does much to explain where we are today.
7. Diary of a Mad Housewife, by Sue Kaufman. Better than the movie, and that’s saying something. Might be hard to find, but buy a copy from Amazon, money well spent, or make a request through your inter-library loan program. They’ll pull it from some dusty shelf and send it over. Kaufman, piercing, stylish, is a shamefully forgotten writer.
8. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I throw this in because I have to. Some novel of the last twenty years will be a classic. This is the most likely candidate. McCarthy can punish the reader with more tricks and ticks than a small time real estate developer, but this is his best book, and an easy (once you catch on), literary read.
These books are classics of our literature. Reading them will make you smarter.
You might even one day be referred to as The Professor. Good luck with that.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com