Want to know what books Steven Amsterdam recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Steven Amsterdam's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
First published in 1979, The White Album is a mosaic of the late sixties and seventies. It includes, among other bizarre artifacts and personalities, the dark journeys and impulses of the Manson family, a Black Panther Party press conference, the story of John Paul Getty's museum, the romance of water in an arid landscape, and the swirl and confusion of the sixties. With commanding sureness of mood and language, Joan Didion exposes the realities and dreams of that age of self-discovery whose spiritual center was California.
more First published in 1979, The White Album is a mosaic of the late sixties and seventies. It includes, among other bizarre artifacts and personalities, the dark journeys and impulses of the Manson family, a Black Panther Party press conference, the story of John Paul Getty's museum, the romance of water in an arid landscape, and the swirl and confusion of the sixties. With commanding sureness of mood and language, Joan Didion exposes the realities and dreams of that age of self-discovery whose spiritual center was California.
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Dan RichardsI feel Joan Didion is the patron saint of a maelstrom of culture and environment of a particular time. She is the great American road-trip writer, to my mind. She has that great widescreen filmic quality to her work. (Source)
Steven AmsterdamWith her gaze on California of the late 60s and early 70s, Didion gives us the Black Panthers, Janis Joplin, Nancy Reagan, and the Manson follower Linda Kasabian. (Source)
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2
In 1913, a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible dangers of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance-his compensatory afternoon calls relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope. Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastatingly unindulgent portrayal of the torment of the betrayal of both honor and love, realized against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire.Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 into a wealthy Viennese Jewish family. He studied at the Universities of Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and... more In 1913, a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible dangers of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance-his compensatory afternoon calls relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope. Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastatingly unindulgent portrayal of the torment of the betrayal of both honor and love, realized against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire.Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 into a wealthy Viennese Jewish family. He studied at the Universities of Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig traveled widely, living in Salzburg, London and New York before settling in Brazil where he and his wife were found dead in 1942. less Steven AmsterdamIt is an ethical story and a dark one: every good intention and social nicety leads him further from the truth and leads Edith further astray. (Source)
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3
When it was first published in 1929, John Cowper Powys's rapturous novel of eros and ideas was compared with works by Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, and D.H. Lawrence. Since then it has won the admiration of writers from Henry Miller to Iris Murdoch. Wolf Solent remains wholly unrivaled in its deft and risky balance of mysticism and social comedy, ecstatic contemplation of nature and unblinking observation of human folly and desire.
Forsaking London for Ramsgard, a village in Dorsetshire, Wolf Solent discovers a world of pagan splendor and medieval insularity, riddled by ancient... more When it was first published in 1929, John Cowper Powys's rapturous novel of eros and ideas was compared with works by Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, and D.H. Lawrence. Since then it has won the admiration of writers from Henry Miller to Iris Murdoch. Wolf Solent remains wholly unrivaled in its deft and risky balance of mysticism and social comedy, ecstatic contemplation of nature and unblinking observation of human folly and desire.
Forsaking London for Ramsgard, a village in Dorsetshire, Wolf Solent discovers a world of pagan splendor and medieval insularity, riddled by ancient scandals and resentments. And there this poetic young man meets two women—the sensuous beauty Gerda and the ethereal gamine Christie—who will become the sharers of his body and soul. Audacious, extravagant, and gloriously strange, Wolf Solent is a twentieth-century masterpiece. less Steven AmsterdamDepending on whom you ask Powys was a notable footnote to 20th-century literature or an overlooked genius. (Source)
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4
In an astonishing feat of narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected President. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.
For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America - and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother. more In an astonishing feat of narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected President. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.
For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh's election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America - and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.
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Nate Bowling (Is Thankful For A/c)@Sifill_LDF @soledadobrien The first and best Philip Roth book I read was called "The Plot Against America." It's wild as hell to watch it unfold IRL. https://t.co/ZWLkHjs5a2 https://t.co/shcD2kJ3Zi (Source)
Steven AmsterdamThe best way to tell stories of horrific times is not through the central players amassing power, but through the lives of the people off to the side, simply trying to survive. (Source)
Sam BourneRoth’s what if? in this book is imagining that Roosevelt is no longer president, and Charles Lindbergh, an isolationist and anti-war politician, is president instead. So the idea is, What if America had stayed out of the war and was morally on the wrong side? (Source)
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5
When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness.
Awe and exhilaration–along with heartbreak and mordant wit–abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's... more When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness.
Awe and exhilaration–along with heartbreak and mordant wit–abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love–love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation. With an introduction by Martin Amis. less 
Richard CohenIt’s more imbued with references to the sun and using the sun as symbol or metaphor – almost a kind of character in the novel – than any other work in literature. (Source)
Bryan CallenSo here are my three must read books. I've been reading a lot of great books like: Outsmart Your Instincts, The Culture Code, and Antonio Damasio’s The Strange Order, and sometimes when you read a lot of nonfiction it’s very enriching, sometimes you need a novel. I really believe you should take a minute and read something beautiful. Listen, listen to Lolita by Nabokov. But also listen to Blood... (Source)
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