Jonathan Alter's six favorite books

Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, reporter, columnist and television analyst. He spent 28 years at Newsweek, where he was a longtime senior editor and columnist and wrote more than 50 cover stories. He has also written for the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The New Republic and other publications. Since 1996, Alter has been an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. His 2010 book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, went to #4 on the New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller List and was one of the Times' "Notable Books" of the year. The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, published in 2006, was also a bestseller.

One of his six favorite books, as told to The Week magazine:

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam

I read this book in high school; its depiction of how brilliant, well-intentioned policymakers got us into the Vietnam War taught me that journalism and history can be fused in a big book that stands the test of time.

Read about the other books on Alter's list.

The Best and the Brightest is one of the Barnes & Noble Review's five top books on U.S. generals in an era of change.

--Marshal Zeringue