Bookseller One Grand Books has asked celebrities to name the ten titles they’d take to a desert island, and they’ve shared the results with Vulture. Below is author and star of The Post Tom Hanks’s list.
A World Lit Only by Fire, by William Manchester
The dark ages, explained as humans lived through them. A time machine of a book.
An Army at Dawn, by Rick Atkinson
The Liberation Trilogy covers WWII in Africa and Europe, where the small details hold the DNA of the entire conflagration. The final pages will rip your heart out.
1939: The Lost World of the Fair, by David Gelernter
You will go to the Fair with two of the most fascinating people to ever live in a book.
Stasiland, by Anna Funder
You may not be able to comprehend how far a state will go to keep its people subjugated.
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
What Gone With the Wind was to the antebellum plantation, this is to the Russian Grand Hotel.
What It Takes, by Richard Ben Cramer
Thinking about running for office? Going into politics? Really? REALLY???
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari
As in, all of us, each and every person who every stood erect on this spinning globe.
Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst
Espionage and mystery and politics and war at a time when one was either a hero, a villain, or a coward. No exceptions.
Supreme City, by Donald L. Miller
You will never see NYC the same, and will never be without a destination to see.
The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gessen
Current events, ongoing, recognizable, and important to realize.