The novelist summoned the spirits of Virginia Woolf in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Hours” and Walt Whitman in 2005’s “Specimen Days.” His picks:
My Five Most Important Books
1. “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf. We see her learning how to write a great novel by writing one.
2. “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf. Perfectly balanced and [...]
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” is blessed with literary chops and a Hollywood touch. The film version of “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” Chabon’s 1988 debut novel, hits theaters on April 10. His picks:
My Five Most Important Books
1. “Complete Stories of Edgar Allan Poe.” The first writer I fell [...]
1. “Essays” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. A plain-spoken, cunning tour of inconsistency, yearning and faith.
2. “The Moviegoer” by Walker Percy. A seriocomic masterpiece that exploits the human connection between bliss and bale.
3. “Inferno” by Dante. Serious things here. But often very funny too, and useful: it lets you know what really happens if you’re bad.
4. [...]
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 1947
George Marshall
‘Most Newsworthy’
President Truman’s secretary of state used his turn at the podium to unveil and justify his Marshall Plan to repair World War II– ravaged Europe. “The whole world of the future hangs on a proper judgment,” he said. “What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done?”
TUFTS UNIVERSITY, [...]