Person
Every book A.O. Scott recommended on podcasts
A.O. Scott’s most recommended books
- The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
- So long, see you tomorrow by William Maxwell
- All Aunt Hagar's Children CD by Edward P. Jones
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Time will darken it by William Maxwell
- Lost in the city by Edward P. Jones
- Yonnondio: from the thirties by Tillie Olsen
- The Folded Leaf by William Maxwell
- Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen
- The Happiness of Getting it Down Right by Frank O'Connor
A.O. Scott is a prominent cultural critic and writer who frequently shares his literary insights and reading choices on The Book Review podcast. Scott engages deeply with classic and contemporary works, offering nuanced critical perspectives. Discussing F. Scott Fitzgerald, he highlighted Tender Is the Night as the author's actual masterpiece and encouraged readers to revisit The Great Gatsby without letting its towering reputation feel like a burden. As touchstones for his own reading life, Scott praised Martin Amis's literary criticism collection The War Against Cliché and named Wallace Stegner's sprawling, youthful novel The Big Rock Candy Mountain as an all-time favorite candidate. His eclectic taste extends to modern fiction and short stories, having recently read Ali Smith's novels Winter and Autumn, Sigrid Nunez's National Book Award-winning fiction winner The Friend, and specific matched stories from Edward P. Jones's interconnected collection All Aunt Hagar's Children. Through these discussions, Scott demonstrates a broad appreciation for both canonical American literature and contemporary fiction, guiding podcast listeners through sophisticated literary landscapes with thoughtful analysis and personal enthusiasm for the written word.
Books recommended by A.O. Scott
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The Big Rock Candy Mountain
The Big Rock Candy Mountain is a sprawling, semi-autobiographical novel by Wallace Stegner that chronicles an itinerant American family's struggles and wanderings across the West through decades of marriage and changing economic times.
Discussed“so in Big Rock Candy Mountain Bo and Elsa Mason are the main couple and it's about their Decades of marriage they're very much based on stegner's own parents”
Where to get it
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So long, see you tomorrow
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell is a celebrated, poignant novella that explores a childhood memory, isolation, and a tragic murder in a small Midwestern town.
Discussed“and I think especially later on he had a big success kind of late in life with a novel called so long to you tomorrow almost a Nolla again revisiting his childhood”
Where to get it
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All Aunt Hagar's Children CD
All Aunt Hagar's Children CD is a masterful collection of short stories by acclaimed author Edward P.
Discussed“there are two books of stories lost in the city and all ant hegar's children and in the middle of them this wonderful novel The known world”
Where to get it
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The Great Gatsby
F.
Discussed“I read it for the first time in a high school English class, which I think is true of a lot of people. I don't know if you did. Certainly did.”
Where to get it
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Time will darken it
Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell is a quiet, deeply observant novel set in a small Illinois town during the early twentieth century, chronicling the moral complexities and domestic strains faced by a principled lawyer.
Recommended“and a lot of the earlier books starting with time will darken it and also the folded Leaf his third and fourth novels I said them in the wrong order”
Where to get it
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Lost in the city
Discussed“there are two books of stories lost in the city and all ant hegar's children and in the middle of them this wonderful novel The known world”
Where to get it
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Yonnondio: from the thirties
Discussed“she also wrote a novel or a novel was published that she had written earlier in the 1930s called yon Ando which is often taught in University classes now like in in literature of the depression”
Where to get it
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The Folded Leaf
The Folded Leaf is a classic coming-of-age novel by American author William Maxwell that explores the complex, intense, and enduring friendship between two young men navigating the challenges of school and early adulthood in the mid-twentieth century.
Discussed“and a lot of the earlier books starting with time will darken it and also the folded Leaf his third and fourth novels I said them in the wrong order”
Where to get it
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Tell Me a Riddle
Discussed“Tilly olssen is a uh a writer who's best known for a collection of short stories called tell me a riddle which was published in the early 1960s”
Where to get it
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The Happiness of Getting it Down Right
The Happiness of Getting it Down Right by Frank O'Connor and William Maxwell is a rich collection of correspondence that chronicles the enduring professional and personal relationship between the celebrated Irish writer and his esteemed New Yorker editor.
Discussed“I believe his first novel was right center of Heaven which he was kind of unhappy with and which wasn't reprinted until the library of America postumus volumes that came out in 2008”
Where to get it
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The Known World
The Known World by Edward P.
Discussed“and whose novel The known world is about the period of slavery just 10 years before the Civil War”
Where to get it
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They Came Like Swallows
They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell is an exquisite autobiographical novel that captures the profound ripple effects of the 1918 influenza epidemic on a Midwestern family through the shifting perspectives of its members.
Discussed“and it was almost like in so many of these books whether it's so long see you tomorrow or or time will darken it or they came like swallows or the late short Story collection”
Where to get it
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Unquiet
Discussed“so now she's written a book that is the first person Recollections of a woman who's a writer who is exactly lyman's age”
Where to get it
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Autumn
Autumn by Ali Smith is a reflective contemporary novel that captures the shifting political and cultural landscape of Great Britain.
Recommended“because the book I most recently finished reading is her Autumn”
Where to get it
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Tender is the Night
Tender Is the Night by F.
Recommended“even though he wrote after Gatsby I think what is actually his masterpiece Tender is the night.”
Where to get it
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The Chateau
The Chateau is a novel by William Maxwell that follows a young American couple traveling through France in the postwar era, navigating cultural differences and personal expectations.
Recommended“he wrote a wonderful very funny novel called The Chateau about a trip to France and a a kind of classic variation on the Americans abroad theme”
Where to get it
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The friend
Why people recommend it: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez is an acclaimed, award-winning novel that explores profound themes including suicide, grief, and the deep bond between a grieving writer and a very lovable Great Dane.
Recommended“last year's National book award fiction winner the Friend by sigd Nunes”
Where to get it
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The War Against Cliché
The War Against Cliché is a celebrated collection of literary criticism by Martin Amis spanning four decades of writing, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Recommended“and his previous collection the war against cliche which is a collection almost entirely of his literary criticism is is one of my sort of Touchstone books”
Where to get it
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Winter
Winter by Ali Smith is a contemporary novel that serves as the second installment in the author's ambitious quartet exploring the four seasons.
Recommended“the book I've most recently started reading is um Winter by Ali Smith”
Where to get it
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A Room of One's Own
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf is a groundbreaking feminist essay that examines the historical, social, and financial barriers limiting women's access to creative independence and literary production.
Discussed“and the essay I mean silence is in a way is in dialogue with with A Room of One's Own which is Wolf's very important you know almost you'd say revolutionary essay”
Where to get it
The other 19 books A.O. Scott recommended or discussed, ranked
- All the little live things by Wallace Stegner
- Ancestors by William Maxwell
- Better Living Through Criticism by A. O. Scott
- Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
- Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
- Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
- How to Be Both by Ali Smith
- Juliet, naked by Nick Hornby
- Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis
- MOBY-DICK; or, THE WHALE by Herman Melville
- Mormon country by Wallace Stegner
- No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
- Recapitulation by Wallace Stegner
- Silences by Tillie Olsen
- Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell
- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
- The Stranger, The Plague (Coles Notes) by Albert Camus
- Time's Arrow by Martin Amis
- True Grit by Charles Portis
Books A.O. Scott wrote
Appearances
Other mentions (5: passing, ad reads, own books)
“I mean he he made he made Lolita Doctor Strange Love is an adaptation of a of a novel by Terry Southern Barry lyen Clockwork Orange you know the majority maybe of of Kubrick's features”
“I mean he he made he made Lolita Doctor Strange Love is an adaptation of a of a novel by Terry Southern Barry lyen Clockwork Orange you know the majority maybe of of Kubrick's features”
“I think there's a forthcoming literary adaptation that you didn't mention partly because it's been around for years and has been close to unreleasable which is the adaptation of of Martin 's London Fields”
“so I mean recently back in the spring there was an adaptation of Ian mccuin on chz Beach and it was a pretty good movie”
“for example of BOS lurman Great Gatsby you know which is a fascinating kind of crazy interpretation of that book”