Experts > Stacey Peebles

Stacey Peebles's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Stacey Peebles recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Stacey Peebles's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
In Reading the World Dianne C. Luce explores the historical and philosophical contexts of Cormac McCarthy's early works crafted during his Tennessee period from 1959 to 1979 to demonstrate how McCarthy integrates literary realism with the imagery and myths of Platonic, gnostic, and existentialist philosophies to create his unique vision of the world.Luce begins with a substantial treatment of the east Tennessee context from which McCarthy's fiction emerges, sketching an Appalachian culture and environment in flux. Against this backdrop Luce examines, novel by novel, McCarthy's distinctive... more
Recommended by Stacey Peebles, and 1 others.

Stacey PeeblesThere’s no biography of Cormac McCarthy, but I was trying to think what would be the one thing I’d recommend to read about McCarthy, and Dianne rises to the top—this book in particular. In it, she covers the Southern novels, up through Suttree, and she unpacks all of this historical background. It’s a masterful reading. (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

2

Child of God

In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail.  While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance. less
Recommended by Stacey Peebles, and 1 others.

Stacey PeeblesIt’s an elegant little novel about decidedly inelegant subject matter. I’ve taught it a number of times and I just love how it opens up for the reader. It’s certainly not pyrotechnic or linguistically excessive in the way that both Blood Meridian and Suttree are, but there’s so much going on with it. The reader really has to negotiate her own reaction to the character as the character changes... (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

3
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

Publisher's Note: The 25th Anniversary Edition has been reset, causing the text to reflow. Page references...
more

Jocko WillinkThe other book that I've read multiple times is Blood Meridian [by Cormac McCarthy]. (Source)

Esi EdugyanA difficult read that I savour for its wondrous prose and stark vision of humanity. (Source)

Robert MacfarlaneIt’s wild in the astonishing indifference of the desert landscape to human practice – McCarthy evokes this more purely than any other writer. (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

4

The Road

A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the...
more

Oprah WinfreyIt's got everything that's grabbing the headlines in America right now. It's about race and class, the economy, culture, immigration and the danger of the us-versus-them mentality. And underneath it all, pumps the heart and soul of family love, the pursuit of happiness, and what home really means. (Source)

James MillerIt is such a powerful story … against an utterly bleak scenario you have the father and the son, and the novel builds up this incredibly emotive relationship. (Source)

Mark BoyleIn my view, The Road is the greatest novel ever written, and McCarthy one of the most important writers of the last hundred years. Its bleakness is interspersed with sentences so beautiful I wept. (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

5
All the Pretty Horses tells of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers. Across the border Mexico beckons—beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood. less

Meg RosoffA book that explores that whole subject of finding out where you belong in the world, which is not a search that starts and ends between 18 and 21. (Source)

Devon SawaThis is the best book I’ve ever read. https://t.co/AUJLuRAadm (Source)

Daniel ButtnerCormac McCarthy is one of my favorite authors, specifically The Border Trilogy. (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

Don't have time to read Stacey Peebles's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.