Below I’ll give you my selections for the best Norman Mailer books by a few categories. I will cover these and other great books more in depth later.
- The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition (2000)
- The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (1995)
- The Fight (2013)
- The Executioner’s Song (2012)
- An American Dream: A Novel (2015)
- Marilyn: A Biography [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2012] Norman Mailer (2012)
- Ancient Evenings: A Novel (2014)
- The Deer Park: A Novel (2015)
- In Cold Blood (1994)
- Harlot’s Ghost: A Novel (1992)
- Vidal vs. Mailer (2035)
- The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing (2004)
The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition (2000)
Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War, The Naked and the Dead received unprecedented critical acclaim upon its publication and has since become part of the American canon.
The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (1995)
Fifty years after the March on the Pentagon, Norman Mailer’s seminal tour de force remains as urgent and incisive as ever.
The Fight (2013)
In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaïre, two African American boxers were paid five million dollars apiece to fight each other. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible “professor of boxing.” The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali was voluble. Observing them was Norman Mailer, a commentator of unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity.
The Executioner’s Song (2012)
Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning and unforgettable classic about convicted killer Gary Gilmore now in a brand-new edition.Arguably the greatest book from America’s most heroically ambitious writer, THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG follows the short, blighted life of Gary Gilmore who became famous after he robbed two men in 1976 and killed them in cold blood.
An American Dream: A Novel (2015)
In this wild battering ram of a novel, which was originally published to vast controversy in 1965, Norman Mailer creates a character who might be a fictional precursor of the philosopher-killer he would later profile in The Executioner’s Song.
Marilyn: A Biography [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2012] Norman Mailer (2012)
‘Genius’ The New York Times In 1973, Norman Mailer published Marilyn, his celebrated in-depth account of the life of Marilyn Monroe, as a glossy, fully illustrated coffee-table tome. His work was immediately acclaimed – and an enduring bestseller, rumoured to have sold more copies than any of his other works except The Naked and the Dead. Yet, until now, it has never been made available in paperback edition.
Ancient Evenings: A Novel (2014)
Norman Mailer’s dazzlingly rich, deeply evocative novel of ancient Egypt breathes life into the figures of a lost era: the eighteenth-dynasty Pharaoh Rameses and his wife, Queen Nefertiti; Menenhetet, their creature, lover, and victim; and the gods and mortals that surround them in intimate and telepathic communion.
The Deer Park: A Novel (2015)
Amid the cactus wilds some two hundred miles from Hollywood lies a privileged oasis called Desert D’Or. It is a place for starlets, directors, studio execs, and the well-groomed lowlifes who cater to them. And, as imagined by Norman Mailer in this blistering classic, Desert D’Or is a moral proving ground, where men and women discover what they really want—and how far they are willing to go to get it.
In Cold Blood (1994)
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy.
Harlot’s Ghost: A Novel (1992)
With unprecedented scope and consummate skill, Norman Mailer unfolds a rich and riveting epic of an American spy. Harry Hubbard is the son and godson of CIA legends. His journey to learn the secrets of his society—and his own past—takes him through the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the “momentous catastrophe” of the Kennedy assassination. All the while, Hubbard is haunted by women who were loved by both his godfather and President Kennedy.
Vidal vs. Mailer (2035)
Commencing at about the point where they’d become the two most famous writers in the world, Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal engaged in a vicious and oh-so-public feud that went on for decades. Their 1971 confrontation on the Dick Cavett show is probably the most famous literary encounter ever captured by television.
The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing (2004)
“Writing is spooky,” according to Norman Mailer. “There is no routine of an office to keep you going, only the blank page each morning, and you never know where your words are coming from, those divine words.” In The Spooky Art, Mailer discusses with signature candor the rewards and trials of the writing life, and recommends the tools to navigate it.
Best Norman Mailer Books Worth Your Attention
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some norman mailer books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Norman Mailer in Context
Author(s): Maggie McKinley
ID: 3551285, Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Year: 2021, Size: 2 Mb, Format: pdf
Four men shaking: Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher
Author(s): Shainberg, Lawrence
ID: 2762613, Publisher: Shambhala, Year: 2019, Size: 2 Mb, Format: epub
Jack and Norman: A State-Raised Convict and the Legacy of Norman Mailer’s "The Executioner’s Song"
Author(s): Jerome Loving
ID: 1682800, Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, Year: 2017, Size: 8 Mb, Format: epub
Please note that this booklist is not errorless. Some books are really record-breakers according to Los Angeles Times, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.