Brenda Wineapple's six favorite books

Brenda Wineapple's new book is Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877.

She named her six favorite books for The Week magazine. One title to make the grade:Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

In the twisting tale of Thomas Sutpen and his overweening ambition, Faulkner anatomizes the Southern past, transforming it into a drama about race, class, clan, and miscegenation.