80 Books Every Man Should Read

Back in 2015, Esquire published a list of “80 Books Every Man Should Read.” It wasn’t our finest moment. The list claimed to be “utterly biased,” and indeed it was. We received criticism from every corner of the Internet, and we deserved it. Only one title (A Good Man Is Hard to Find) was written by a woman, and fewer than ten were written by men of color. It was also a pretty boring set.

In 2016, we published a new and improved list: “80 Books Every Person Should Read,” selected by eight female literary luminaries including Michiko Kakutani, Roxane Gay, and Lauren Groff. It was a good list: surprising, dynamic, and inclusive. But this spring, when we started planning Esquire.com’s first ever Summer Fiction Week (a digital spin on the Summer Reading Issues we published back in the eighties), we asked ourselves: should we not just make our own amends?

And so, we resolved to step back into the literary Thunderdome and issue a new iteration of 80 Books Every Man Should Read. Our editors gathered in our New York office to nominate hundreds of choices, then winnow them down to these 80 worthy standouts. From fiction to nonfiction to poetry, Nobel Prize winners to forgotten geniuses, this list spans a wide swath of forms, writers, and literary history. These books will change you, challenge you, and above all entertain you.

No doubt some of you will have objections to what we selected and what we overlooked. We welcome that, and we want to hear from you. This list is a reflection of the hearts and minds of the people who made it. Think of it like a time capsule. Chances are, in another six years, another group of loving, diligent readers will come along and outdo us.

And now, presented in alphabetical order by author, are the 80 books every man should read.