Daniel Mendelsohn teaches at Bard and is Editor-at-Large at The New York Review of Books. His books include An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (2017); The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (2006); How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays (2008), and Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture (2012). His latest book is Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones.At The Week magazine he tagged six all-time favorite books, including:
Emma by Jane Austen (1815).Read about the other entries on the list.
For me, the Box Hill picnic — the scene where Emma humiliates Miss Bates — is a key moment in English literature: a masterful example of how perfect command of a narrative can lead to almost unbearable emotion. It never fails to make me actually wince.
Emma is on John Mullan's list of ten of the best wines in literature, and among Lucy Worsley's six best books, Sophie Kinsella's six best books, Tanya Byron's six best books, Judith Martin's five favorite novels, and Monica Ali's ten favorite books.
--Marshal Zeringue
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