Episode · EconTalk · 2025-08-25
Books mentioned on Hemingway, Love, and War (with David Wyatt)
What can Ernest Hemingway teach us today about the morality of war, the eternal and transient nature of love, and how to write a masterpiece? Listen as author and teacher David Wyatt talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about Hemingway's epic For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls is a classic novel detailing the experiences of Robert Jordan, an American volunteer attached to an antifascist guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War.
Discussed“Our topic for today is Hemingway's novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
Where to get it
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Green Hills of Africa
Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway is an autobiographical non-fiction account of a month-long big-game hunting safari in East Africa that blends travel writing with deep reflections on literature and art.
Discussed“And by the mid30s with the two non-fictional books, Green Hills of Africa and Death in the Afternoon, he's already shifting away from that clipped style of omission and of short sentences to a much more meditative, reflective, recursive style, which finally culminates in this book.”
Where to get it
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Death in the Afternoon
Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway is a comprehensive non-fiction exploration of bullfighting in Spain that delves deeply into the cultural, historical, and ritualistic aspects of the sport.
Discussed“And by the mid30s with the two non-fictional books, Green Hills of Africa and Death in the Afternoon, he's already shifting away from that clipped style of omission and of short sentences to a much more meditative, reflective, recursive style, which finally culminates in this book.”
Where to get it
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In Our Time
Discussed“Hemingway calls this he calls thinking mental conversation and he uses that phrase at the end of picked your heart a river which is the last story in our time in a passage which he eventually cut a passage at the end of the last story in which Nick is walking back from fishing and he begins to think and”
Where to get it
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A Movable Feast
A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is a celebrated posthumous memoir that details the author's impoverished yet romantic years as a young writer in Paris during the 1920s.
Discussed“If you take a movable feast which is published in 1964 Mary puts it together his fourth wife it's probably the most beloved book he ever wrote his memoir love this is aostumous book then in 1970 we get islands in the stream which is a much underrated again war novel set in Cuba then we get in 1986 the”
Where to get it
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Islands in the Stream
Discussed“If you take a movable feast which is published in 1964 Mary puts it together his fourth wife it's probably the most beloved book he ever wrote his memoir love this is aostumous book then in 1970 we get islands in the stream which is a much underrated again war novel set in Cuba then we get in 1986 the”
Where to get it
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Garden of Eden
Discussed“If you take a movable feast which is published in 1964 Mary puts it together his fourth wife it's probably the most beloved book he ever wrote his memoir love this is aostumous book then in 1970 we get islands in the stream which is a much underrated again war novel set in Cuba then we get in 1986 the”
Where to get it
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The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a powerful collection of interrelated semi-autobiographical stories about American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War, exploring the psychological weight of combat, memory, and storytelling.
Discussed“I just read a biography of Tim O'Brien, you know, the author of The Things They Carried. Who is probably that story? The Things They Carried is the most anthologized reprinted story I think written in the 20th century.”
Where to get it
