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E L Doctorow's Reading List

The author of “Andrew’s Brain” and “Ragtime” sometimes puts down a book because he can see where the story’s going. “As you practice your craft, you lose your innocence as a reader.”

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By the Book: E L Doctorow (2014)

NYT By the Book column (2014-01-16).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Cover of The Histories
The Histories
Herodotus · Buy on Amazon
"Herodotus is spectacular — part historian, part investigative reporter and inveterate storyteller."
Mind and Cosmos
Thomas Nagel · Buy on Amazon
"An intense philosophical takedown of Neo-Darwinism and scientific materialism. It's a brave contrarian book."
Cosmopolis
Don DeLillo · Buy on Amazon
"A beautiful conceit runs this novel — an epic journey by limo across Midtown Manhattan. DeLillo has a consummate comprehension of the world."
The Angel Esmeralda
Don DeLillo · Buy on Amazon
"DeLillo has a consummate comprehension of the world."
The American Religion
Harold Bloom · Buy on Amazon
"Harold Bloom's "The American Religion," which argues that our domestic Christian religions are more Gnosticism than Christian."
From Eternity to Here
Sean Carroll · Buy on Amazon
"The physicist Sean Carroll's fascinating book about time. Time confounds the physicists. They ask why it goes only one way."
Beowulf
Seamus Heaney · Buy on Amazon
"Here's a book that can be sung."
Essays
Michel de Montaigne · Buy on Amazon
"Montaigne is the most honest memoirist in the world: He didn't try to construct a narrative of his life. A kind of experiment in self-portraiture under a white light."
The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow · Buy on Amazon
"I'd read his "Adventures of Augie March" in college, and it was in the nature of a revelation, the freedom in that narrative."
Cover of Treasure Island
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson · Buy on Amazon
"The books I read as a child made me want to write: Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped"."
Cover of David Copperfield
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens · Buy on Amazon
"The books I read as a child made me want to write: Dickens's "David Copperfield," "Great Expectations" and "A Tale of Two Cities.""
Cover of Les Misérables
Les Misérables
Victor Hugo · Buy on Amazon
"The books I read as a child made me want to write: Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Les Misérables.""
Cover of The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka · 1915 · Buy on Amazon
"The books I read as a child made me want to write: Kafka's "Metamorphosis.""

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