What would Don Draper read?
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on AMC's "Mad Men"
When Don Draper of “Mad Men” was seen last season with a book by Frank O’Hara, readers started buzzing about how cool he was to read the New York poet’s work.
The way I remember that episode is that Don wasn’t exactly digging poetry with O’Hara’s ”Meditations on an Emergency” (1957). Instead, it was a gift for one of his girlfriends, wasn’t it? Fans of the wonderful AMC series may wish Don were a reader, but there hasn’t been much evidence for it.
Yet the Daily Beast has a fun list of books Don could be reading. To read like a “Mad” man, it suggests things like “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, “Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates, “Exodus” by Leon Uris. Its coolest pick: J.D. Salinger’s “Franny & Zooey” (1961). Surely actor Jon Hamm has read some of those books (he graduated from John Burroughs, after all). And Draper is smart - he must have done some reading along the way.
Best selling books from 1962 included “Travels with Charley” by John Steinbeck and “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson. In 1963, “Profiles in Courage” by John F. Kennedy. 
If you were in a book club with Don Draper, what books would you suggest?
I would suggest John Updike’s “Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories,” which sat in many a suburban bookcase (sometimes, as in my parents’ house, on the same shelf as “Franny & Zooey”) in 1962-63.
What I (unfortunately) remember from the ’60s: Readers Digest’s condensed versions of books. Maybe 4 in one volume.
Jane got a good memory
Henry Miller, Henry Miller, Henry Miller.
Tropic of Cancer was banned until 1961! Of course Don would be interested - not that he should be reading erotic fiction.
I think the Drapers are definitely members of the Book of the Month Club. Everybody was in the 1960s, and Betty is very much in step with what “everyone” does. Whether Don reads any of them, though, I’d be doubtful about. He’s a busy guy, what with leading multiple lives and all. Maybe he picks up some of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books Betty also gets by mail. “7 Days in May” came out, condensed (to three days?), in the fall of 1962; I can see him liking that one.
Jon Hamm, though, is very deep,and he’s a big reader. I’ve heard him say he likes contemporary fiction and also books about math and science and how things work.
Ian Fleming’s James Bond - of course.
is he really deep? i need to read more about him. on saturday night live i was kind of disappointed he was not more don draperly. but that’s not necessarily deep, just complex, and perhaps a little nasty.
but here’s another thought: Cheever. He lives a Cheeverish life, in one sense.
Very Cheeverish.
Did you know 1962 was the year Helen Gurley Brown published “Sex and the Single Girl”?