The Books canon

Sourced and shelved.

Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.

Hojoki

1212 · 109 pages

Writing from a hut ten feet square, a Kyoto recluse recalls the fire, whirlwind, famine, and earthquake that destroyed the capital, and concludes that nothing built by people is meant to stay.

★ 7.0

Walden

1854 · 802 pages

Two years in a cabin by a Massachusetts pond, and the permanent argument against a life spent earning. Thoreau writes about beans, loons, and why most people lead lives of quiet desperation.

★ 8.2