Person
Every book AO Scott recommended on podcasts
AO Scott appears on literary discussion podcasts as a thoughtful critic who engages deeply with American classics, literary criticism, and twentieth-century fiction. Throughout his appearances, he offers discerning recommendations and fresh perspectives on canonical works and overlooked masterpieces alike. Scott encourages readers to approach F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby without letting its massive reputation feel like a burden, while also championing Fitzgerald's later novel Tender Is the Night as an actual masterpiece. Expanding into twentieth-century American literature, Scott highlights Wallace Stegner's sprawling and ambitious novel The Big Rock Candy Mountain as a personal favorite and a top contender among all-time books. He demonstrates a deep admiration for the novels of William Maxwell, specifically praising The Folded Leaf and Time Will Darken It as exceptional achievements, alongside the humor and thematic depth of The Chateau. Furthermore, Scott turns to literary criticism and essay writing, identifying Martin Amis's essay collection The War Against Cliché as an indispensable touchstone book. Through these recommendations, Scott reveals an expansive literary taste that values stylistic rigor, emotional resonance, and the enduring complexity of the human experience across both fiction and criticism.
Books recommended by AO Scott
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby by 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
-
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
-
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
-
All the little live things
Discussed“the other book that I think is really interesting which is kind of a mixed bag but an interesting window into stegner's sensibility is a book he wrote from the 60s called All the Little Live things and it's a kind of grumpy old man book about the 60s and hippies and kids”
Where to get it
-
-
Call Me by Your Name
Discussed“what you think about some of the maybe literary adaptations yeah well I think I think the the the big one is uh call me by your name Andre aiman's novel”
Where to get it
-
Crossing to Safety
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner is a critically acclaimed novel that explores the enduring, decades-long friendship between two couples navigating the complexities of marriage, academic life, and personal ambition.
Discussed“and in Crossing to safety that that's kind of doubled because it's a story of two marriages and of the friendship between two married couples also based on stegner and his own wife Mary and very close friends of theirs”
Where to get it
-
MOBY-DICK; or, THE WHALE
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville is a classic American novel detailing Captain Ahab's obsessive quest for revenge against the giant white sperm whale.
Discussed“And the book was forgotten too in in Moby Dick almost. It's like that. I mean, Moby Dick had a longer obscurity”
Where to get it
-
Mormon country
Discussed“he wrote a really fascinating book in the' 40s called Mormon country about Utah and the settlement of Utah and the conflicts between Mormon and non-mormon populations and and Native Americans there”
Where to get it
-
Recapitulation
Recapitulation by Wallace Stegner is a deeply resonant novel that serves as a sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain, following the younger son of the central couple as he returns to Salt Lake City later in life.
Discussed“and recapitulation which you just mentioned is the sequel to it many years later the younger son of boow and Elsa Mason the main couple in Big Rock Candy Mountain comes back to Salt Lake City”
Where to get it
-
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
-
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye by J.
Discussed“It's the book that Holden Caulfield talks about. Maybe the only book that Holden Coughfield and Catcher and the Ry kind of talks about with reverence”
Where to get it
-
The Stranger, The Plague (Coles Notes)
The Stranger by Albert Camus is a foundational work of absurdist literature that explores the profound alienation and emotional detachment of its protagonist, Meursault, against the backdrop of colonial Algeria.
Discussed“Gatsby became a kind of an alienated a tragic figure not as the victim of a cruel class society which may be how he might have looked in the 20s or how he might look now but more as a sort of the malaise of modern life as a figure like Holden Caulfield or like Muro in Kamu's the stranger”
Where to get it
-
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
-
Time's Arrow
Discussed“and he wrote and he wrote times Arrow which is the famous Holocaust novel told in reversed”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'The Great Gatsby' at 100 | The Book Review | 2025-04-11 | 7 |
| A Marine’s Inventive Memoir | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 3 |
| A.O. Scott on the Work of Wallace Stegner | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 6 |
| A.O. Scott Talks About William Maxwell | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 13 |