Recommended Reads

he Secret History really is, at heart, a mystery — not so much of whodunit but whydunit. The novel explores the idea of how absolute ambition (social, intellectual) corrupts absolutely.

The Night Watch. While I’ve found some of Waters’ work uneven (loved Fingersmith; had a really difficult time getting into Affinity; haven’t yet read Tipping the Velvet), this one has almost every quality a literary geek could hope for recommending it.

Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Are Friends, published in 1970, is the first in a series of four books about these two famous friends — all of which are enduring classics, in my view.

Never minding the book-binge hangover, that’s exactly how I felt while reading What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal], Zoe Heller’s mock tell-all narrated by a spinster history teacher who befriends a new colleague who winds up shagging one of her students.

Just in time for Holiday Shopping Season ‘06, which will begin in earnest this Friday, Alexandra (the head of our Book Operations and Ordering Department, with whom I share an office) and I decided to share with you our top five favorite books each of all time…