Over on Tennessean.com/Opinion this morning, you’ll find an early look at my Sunday column for tomorrow. I hope you will give it a read and let me know how you might add to my suggestions for “Essential Reading for a Troubled Time.”
This builds on my column from October 2019, which happily drew many comments from readers with suggestions from their own reading.
In this awkward period for our nation, we have more anchors in common than the daily (hourly) barrage of the constant news cycles ever help us to remember.
Let’s think of a shared reading list like this as our virtual book club. (Our friends at bookstores and the libraries can help.) It’s not only the essential novels and non-fiction, but plays and notable speeches, too. (I can think of no more timely message for this month than Al Gore’s concession speech back in December 2000.)
On my growing list, you will see some titles that are new (e.g., Meacham’s fine biography of John Lewis) and others that are very old (Shakespeare’s “Henry V” and the Book of Job).
Here are the fifteen new nominees from the American canon:
Democracy in America by Alexis de Toqueville.
President Kennedy’s 1963 speech at Vanderbilt
Al Gore’s 2000 concession speech
Jill Lepore’s These Truths
William Shakespeare’s “King Lear”
Andrew Maraniss’ Strong Inside
The Broadway musical “Hamilton”
Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?
Senator John McCain’s eulogy for Fred Thompson
Kevin Phillips’ The Emerging Republican Majority
The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
Jon Meacham’s His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope
The Woman’s Hour by Elaine Weiss
Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger
On Democracy by E.B. White.
What would you add?
