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Rachel Kushner's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Rachel Kushner recommends? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Rachel Kushner's favorite book recommendations of all time. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

The Brothers Karamazov book cover1

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky

4.5
The Brothers Karamasov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays t
Randall Stephenson portraitAdam Townsend portraitChristian B Miller portrait Recommended by Randall Stephenson, Adam Townsend, Christian B Miller, and 3 others.
Rachel Kushner portrait
Rachel Kushner

This book taught me something I knew on a much deeper level but did not have the language or the reasoning to state: that innocence is something very durable and interior, and also evanescent. [source]

Randall Stephenson portrait
Randall Stephenson

CEO/AT&T

Favorite book: The Brothers Karamazov. [source]

Adam Townsend portrait
Adam Townsend

@FinchmanWill @jposhaughnessy @Cernovich @mcclay_roman My son's favorite book of all time [source]

Journey to the End of the Night book cover2

Journey to the End of the Night

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Ralph Manheim, William T. Vollmann

4.3
Louis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932,
Neil Strauss portraitDavid Downie portraitQuentin Hardy portrait Recommended by Neil Strauss, David Downie, Quentin Hardy, and 1 others.
Rachel Kushner portrait
Rachel Kushner

This novel taught me, early on, about hyperbole … I took it as a lesson and challenge, about description, accuracy, truth, and the powers of exaggeration to produce humour. [source]

David Downie portrait
David Downie

I was particularly fascinated by Céline’s portrait of the city because Paris is one of the characters in the book. You get a real sense of what Paris looked like. [source]

3

The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities

Marguerite Duras, Rachel Kushner

4.3
A hardcover omnibus edition of the French writer's most famous novel alongside her fascinating wartime writings and a collection of searingly honest and intimate autobiographical essays. EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS.

Marguerite Duras was one of the leading intellectuals and novelists of post-war France, but her wartime writings were not published in full until after her death. The Warti
Rachel Kushner portrait Recommended by Rachel Kushner.
4

God, Justice, Love, Beauty: Four Little Dialogues

Jean-Luc Nancy and Sarah Clift

3.9
The four talks collected here transcribe lectures delivered to an audience of children between the ages of ten and fourteen, under the auspices of the "little dialogues" series at the Montreuil's center for the dramatic arts. Modeled on Walter Benjamin's "Aufklarung fur Kinder" radio talks, this series aims to awaken its young audience to pressing philosophical concerns.

Each talk in God, Justice,
Rachel Kushner portrait Recommended by Rachel Kushner.
Pick-Up book cover5

Pick-Up

Charles Willeford

4.1
In Pick-Up, Charles Willeford has created a work of psychological suspense that is at once poignant, terrifying, and utterly authentic in its depiction of alcoholic desire and destruction.
Rachel Kushner portrait Recommended by Rachel Kushner.