50 Books Every Man Should Read Before Turning 50

No one should read any one book, but—books should be read. They educate you, move you, change you, stay with you. Across time and space and language and identity, they provide uncanny access into the minds of others, despite sometimes radical changes to text and context. Books can tell you a story you already know, a story you’ve never heard before, a story you didn’t know how to tell. The throughline here is that books are worth it, your time and effort and curiosity. If you take anything from this list, it is simply to read—whatever you want and as much as you can.

But lists are designed for—let’s call it discussion. It is one of the darkest of editorial arts, in part because it always works on everyone. Even I, a professional listmaker who dwelleth in the darkest and most cynical pits of ye olde content mines, will find my hackles raised by a regular degular VH1 countdown.

Lists reveal blindspots. They show your ass. And authoritative lists of “man books” still have a powerful whiskey-soda, baseball-mitt, Eames-chair whiff about them. We all want to surround ourselves with handsome mid-century furniture every now and again. But taking the prompt at face value: Which books will, in the year of our lord 2022, furnish you with what you need to know? Which will help you? Which will delight and surprise you? Which will impress people? Which will humble you? Which should you, a man under 50, read?

Well, if you ask me—