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.

Interpreter of Maladies

2000 · 208 pages

Nine stories of Indians and Indian Americans living between two countries, told with a calm that makes the losses land late. A married couple confess things to each other during nightly power cuts.

★ 6.3

Americanah

2013 · 588 pages

The defining novel of African immigration to America. Ifemelu leaves Lagos for university, discovers there that she is black, and turns the discovery into a blog that flays the country's racial pieties.

★ 5.2