Men's books that women should read

The Atlantic Monthly | September 2005

by Terry Castle

Seven Pillars of Wisdomby T. E. Lawrence (1926). I have yet to meet a female contemporary who has read this book—perhaps because Lawrence writes mainly about bone-jarring camel rides, blowing up Turkish trains on the Damascus-to-Medina line, and mooning over handsome Arab boys. Yet for insights into imperialism, the modern Middle East, and the kinky, coquettish personality of the twentieth century's strangest Englishman, this book is matchless. Men love other men in so many odd ways here; it's like getting into the Boys Only tree house. The intelligent female reader is freed into a pure and illuminating voyeurism. (Castle neglects to mention that this is authored by the real "Lawrence of Arabia" about which the great film was made.)

The Face of Battleby John Keegan (1976). Keegan's now classic description of what it was like to be an ordinary soldier on the Agincourt, Waterloo, or Somme battlefields is harrowing, humane, profound. Even the most pacifistic woman will be moved to new respect for the stunning bravery so many men have exhibited over the centuries in the face of horrific mass violence. The book is timely now in a new way, as American female soldiers are losing arms, legs, eyes—even their lives—in the world's latest horror show.

She also mentions The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway, and Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

(for the rest of the article, see The Atlantic Monthly)