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" What one book should every man read? I would recommend the Scribner edition of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. I know of no book that contains more information about the experience a man goes through before he attains knowledge about the world, himself, and the nature of courage. Hemingway was a great artist, but our fascination with him is the fact that, for good or bad, he was an emblematic figure whose life seemed to be a microcosm of all men.  Hemingway learned that most rhetoric about war was largely made up by liars, men who try to erase the paucity of their own lives by creating suffering for others. He also learned that love was transcendent and that the world was a fine place and well worth the fighting. He also learned that once writing became your greatest vice as well as your greatest virtue, the only thing that could separate you from it was death. Ernest Hemingway was a tragic man, but no American writer has ever surpassed him in terms of stylistic influence. Plus, how can you ever forget stories like &amp;quot;The Snows of Kilimanjaro&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber&amp;quot;?  If you could have a drink with any writer (living or dead), who would it be, where would you go, what would you order, and what would you talk about?  I would like to sit by a campfire with Geoffrey Chaucer on the road to Canterbury and meet all of his friends: the Miller who told the most unforgettably ribald and scatological story in English literature, the Pardoner and the Summoner who sold indulgences and pigs&amp;#039; bones as relics, the countryman priest who was pious and humble and kind, the Wife of Bath with all her eccentricities, and my favorite character, the good Knight who represents all that is admirable in human beings and who reminds us that The Song of Roland is always with us. I&amp;#039;d like to join them on their journey because no group in literature better reflects the diversity of the human family than they do. I have the feeling there&amp;#039;s a Tabard inn just on the other side of the big curtain, and when we get there we&amp;#039;ll meet Chaucer and Will Shakespeare and William Faulkner and maybe even Homer, four men who would quickly recognize one another in a cast of seven billion. Life is a grand party. They understood that. Why not celebrate with them? My favorite words from all the words ever written can be found in Shakespeare&amp;#039;s Henry IV: &amp;quot;By my troth, I care not. We owe God a death... Let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.&amp;quot;  Or as Robert Frost said, what better place for love is there than the earth? Men need guidance. What&amp;#039;s the most valuable lesson you&amp;#039;ve learned from a book?  The most informative book I ever read is T.E. Lawrence&amp;#039;s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It&amp;#039;s an incredible work. The prose is as lyrical as the human language gets. The portrayal of the Great War and the bloody hand of an empire at work are lessons we have not yet learned, at least in my opinion. If a person wishes to see our future as a neocolonial power, I think he&amp;#039;ll find it in Lawrence&amp;#039;s description of the desert war of 1915-18.  The descriptions of the Bedouin mindset, the horrific detail in the chapter describing the attack on a hospital train, and the unimaginable cruelty in the village massacre make us wonder if Cain&amp;#039;s mark isn&amp;#039;t still with us. What book were you surprised you loved? What book were you surprised you hated? And what book are you most ashamed you&amp;#039;ve never read?  I have loved many books and have hated none. I fell in love with books through the WPA book mobile program. When I was a kid, public libraries were in short supply, but each Thursday an old bread truck with shelves built along the walls visited our dead-end street. This was a great treat for kids whose parents seldom had spare money for books. I loved the Hardy Boys just as the girls in our neighborhood loved the Nancy Drew series. I also loved Richard Halliburton&amp;#039;s Book of Marvels. For me, reading became a lifetime pleasure as well as necessity. The only way to learn how to write is to read. The only way to learn human history is to read. The key to all our problems lies in books. Also there can be no democracy without an educated electorate. This is why all demagogues and dictators despise books and those who write and read them. I&amp;#039;ve read many books whose content I&amp;#039;m repelled by. John Wesley Hardin&amp;#039;s autobiography is one of the best accounts ever written about the life of a sociopath. Books allow us to know our enemies. On occasion I receive mail from irate readers who proudly tell me they are so angered by the content of my work that they have destroyed every one of my books in their possession. I have always been tempted to explain that destroying one&amp;#039;s property is not a good way to get even with other people, but I&amp;#039;ve always decided that silence on the matter is the better choice. What are you reading next?  Right now I&amp;#039;m reading Michael Korda&amp;#039;s Clouds of Glory, a biography of Robert E. Lee, and Alafair Burke&amp;#039;s All Day and a Night. -- James Lee Burke is the author of more than thirty novels, including such New York Times best-sellers as Light of the World, Creole Belle, Swan Peak, The Tin Roof Blowdown, and Feast Day of Fools. His new novel Wayfaring Stranger is out this week. PLUS: James Lee Burke: What I&amp;#039;ve Learned &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a29413/james-lee-burke-books-you-should-read/>