These Are a Few of Our Favorite Books
Welcome to the official Substack of the unofficial Fifth Column Book Club! The book club was founded by Victoria in 2021—the first book pick was Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public. It was mostly run over e-mail until Heather had the brilliant idea of creating a Whatsapp chat. Somewhere along the way, Jaye’s take-charge attitude made them our de facto leader, and in early 2023 Ameya decided to make this Substack. Any book club member is welcome to become a writer and publish book reviews or other content here—stay tuned.
As mentioned in an earlier post, we recently re-organized the Whatsapp chats. There is now a new chat specifically for book discussion and planning; the old chat is now for general Fifdom chatter.
Shortly after spinning up the new book club chat, ChayaLeah asked everybody what their favorite books were; if possible, a fiction and a nonfiction pick from each person. In this post we’ll list everyone’s picks.
The Picks
We got a wide range of responses, some of which could be fodder for a future book club pick.
Lya:
Non fic probably Days of Rage right now if you hadn’t read that yet. Play is Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Fiction… maybe Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman in stuff I’ve read recently but I’ve also been wanting to revisit Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater and Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question
Also fun: The Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford that really captures the psychotic people in the art world
John:
Fiction: 1984 (call me basic, I don't care).
Nonfiction: genesis. J/k. Democracy in America
Victoria:
Fiction: real recency bias here but The Secret History is incredible. She has thoroughly endognized the western cannon and explicitly rejected Neitzche (subtweeting my husband here).
Non-fiction: Theory of Moral Sentiments
Tysen:
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Jaye:
Special Topics in Calamity Physics is my fave fiction, mostly bc the person who gave it to me called it a smarty pants coming of age book for smarty pants girls, which I was.
And for nonfiction….tough since I did just start reading non fiction when we started this book club BUTTTTT maybe Bad Blood or (ahem) the Mothman Prophecies. Hard to say FAVE, reading and attachment to what I’m reading is so contextual 😶🫥
Daniel:
Fiction: I Am Legend
Non fiction: The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Olga:
Fiction:
Hank Green’s “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” and “A Beautifully Foolish Endeavour “
Nonfiction:
Frederic Bastiat “The Law”
Sandy:
Non fiction I’ll nominate Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, Thomas Sowell’s Conflict of Visions and Vision of the Anointed as the three books that first drew me into why people think the way they think.
ChayaLeah:
I’m a big fan of Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness and Clive James’ cultural amnesia. Love both of them.
Laura:
Nonfiction- anything by John McPhee, but especially: Encounters with the Archdruid; The Control of Nature; and Uncommon Carriers.
Fiction- The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel
Gordon:
Fiction- The Remains of the Day, The Bridge of San Luis Rey or anything by Tom Wolfe.
Non Fiction- anything by Thomas Sowell
Ameya:
Fiction: The Expanse series
Nonfiction: The Last Lion (3 volume Churchill bio by William Manchester that I "read" over two years. A bit dated, except the last volume which came out decades after the first, but still great.)
Eric:
Fiction: The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant. (I’m a Virginia native with a taste for homemade hooch)
Nonfiction: Stephen Ambrose’s two volume biography of Eisenhower
Gabi:
Fiction: The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant. (I’m a Virginia native with a taste for homemade hooch)
Nonfiction: Stephen Ambrose’s two volume biography of Eisenhower
ChayaLeah (again):
I have one more recommendation: I love the book The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simon. It’s a trilogy. It’s not the greatest piece of literature ever written, but it’s a beautiful love story that takes place during the siege of Leningrad and it follows them alll the way to present day. If you love a good love story this is for you.
Vanessa:
Fiction that had a big impact on me: Albert Camus’ The Plague, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
A fairly recent work of Non-fiction that challenged me in great ways is Sarah Schulman’s Conflict is not Abuse. I also love William Cronon’s epic ecological and economic history of Chicago, Nature’s Metropolis. And TJ Jackson Lears’ book, No Place of Grace about anti-modernism at the turn of the century US.
Mujo:
Fiction - Mortdecai Trilogy
Non-fiction - Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller
Benjy:
I can’t settle on one, but at least I’m not typing all these out.
Biberone:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for "fiction" (come on, we all know it all happened and DJT is actually Zaphod Beeblebrox) and The Happiness Diary by Nicolae Steinhardt for non.
Zach:
(1) Fiction: For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway) - I read it over a few weeks while on/off guard duty and patrols along the Gaza border in the IDF. Inspired me to spend 3 weeks following in Hemingway's footsteps in Spain once I finished my service and a lifelong passion for Civil War-era Spain (Beevor's The Battle for Spain and Orwell's Homage to Catalonia are recommended). Have reread the book a couple times, still brilliant.
(2) Nonfiction: David McCullough's John Adams biography. Was on the verge of tears when I finished it, Adams was such a wholesome, brilliant, and underappreciated Founding Father and I couldn't handle his (obviously inevitable 🙄) death at the end of the book
Kathleen:
I’m bad with favorites (everything is contextual!), but if you want to define it as what do I read again & again & again - Emma & Persuasion, Letters from the Earth & Huckleberry Finn. (But I mostly read detective novels, like Sarah Caudwell’s, again & again for pleasure). Nonfiction- Julia Child’s autobiography… I love her. PJ O’Rourke - if I had to choose one, or three - Eat the Rich, All the Trouble in the World, Holidays in Hell. More recently, I did love Stasiland.
Rob:
I’ve been trying to restart The Lord of the Rings for another round for a while now. It’s the only thing I keep rereading, so I guess I might have to say that.
As far as nonfiction, the first thing that jumped to mind was 1 Dead in Attick by Chris Rose.
Alisa:
Books that stuck with me, All the Light we cannot see, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Tolstoy, and Amor Towles A gentleman in Moscow. Non fiction is a whole lot I can't choose from.
And if I need a good laugh, David Sedaris to the rescue.
Dominic:
Growing up, I always said To Kill a Mockingbird was my favorite book. However, The Road (by Kmele's favorite Cormac McCarthy) has taken the #1 spot since then. There's never been a book I can revisit quite so easily. There's some thing about the simplicity of the story -- it's almost biblical.
As for nonfiction, Dave Barry Does Japan is the funniest book I've ever read. Meeting him at the Miami live show was definitely one of my peaks 😂
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