Monday, September 9, 2013

Brenda Wineapple's six favorite books

Brenda Wineapple's new book is Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877.

She named her six favorite books for The Week magazine. One title to make the grade:
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

In the twisting tale of Thomas Sutpen and his overweening ambition, Faulkner anatomizes the Southern past, transforming it into a drama about race, class, clan, and miscegenation. As such, the novel is about the implosion known as the Civil War, and how it changed everything for Southerners.
Read about the other books on Wineapple's list.

Absalom, Absalom! also appears on Jacket Copy's list of sixty-one essential postmodern readsSarah Churchwell's list of six books on the American Deep South, and Thomas Perry's favorite books list.

--Marshal Zeringue