Kurt Andersen's five most essential books

Kurt Andersen is the author of Turn of the Century, a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book. He was a co-founder of Spy magazine and has been a columnist and critic for The New Yorker and Time. His new novel is Heydey.

He named his five most essential books for Newsweek. And addressed two related issues:

A Classic You Revisited With Disappointment:

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway. His manliness was easier to admire before I'd actually become a man.

A Book To Which You Always Return:

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I return to it once a decade. Each time it reads like a different novel.

Read more about Kurt Andersen's five most essential books.

Gatsby was a classic book that, upon revisiting, disappointed David Wroblewski.

--Marshal Zeringue