Explore this recommended reading list from award-winning author Elliot Ackerman. Author of the novels Red Dress in Black & White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and of the non-fiction book Places and Names, his work has appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories, among others. He is both a former White House Fellow and a Marine. He served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.

"I pick my books arbitrarily, with little plan, simply snatching up whatever is around and of interest, or the titles that come up in conversations with friends. That hasn't changed since the coronavirus. If anything, it's made my reading patterns a bit more scattered. These are some favorites from the past several months."  —Elliot Ackerman

 

Speedboat by Renata Adler

"An unconventional novel told in fragments, it follows Jen Fain, a journalist who is navigating the social and political mores of the 1970s. Its energy and structure are as the title implies."

 

 

 

 

 

Empire City by Matt Gallagher

"A dystopian alternate history in which the United States wins the Vietnam war by ending the draft and establishing the all-volunteer military; this allows the unpopular war to be prosecuted to its end. The result is a disfigured, yet eerily recognizable, version of America."

 

 

 

 

Young Hearts Crying by Richard Yates

"A moving portrayal of a couple from their courtship and marriage in the 1950s to their divorce in the 70s, chronicling their heartbreaking attempts to reach their highest ambitions."

 

 

 

 

 

The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes

"A portrait of fin de siècle Paris told through John Singer Sargent's portrait, Dr. Pozzi at Home, in which Pozzi wears the eponymous red coat. It's an era of glamor and decadence—but, also, one of violence, jingoism, and terror—with many parallels to the present."

 

 

 

 

The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini

"The multi-generational story of the Lehman family, told from Henry Lehman's immigration from Bavaria to the Deep South up until the firm's collapse in the 2008 financial crisis. The play, written as one long prose poem, is nothing less than a great American epic."

 

 

 

 

A Burning by Megha Majumdar

"The lives of three characters are transformed by a political attack in complex, unexpected ways. This literary thriller set in contemporary India interrogates notions of social hierarchy, morality, and individual agency, as well as the often arbitrary dispensation of justice."

 

 

 

 

 

Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac

"Colonel Chabert, a Napoleonic War hero left for dead at the Battle of Eylau, returns to Paris after a long recuperation to find his wife remarried and his pension gone. He hires a young, tenacious lawyer to reclaim his pension and his life in a battle of wits."

 

 

 

 

 

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Summaries provided by Elliot Ackerman. Click through on each book title for more information.

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