Native Son
1940 · 504 pages
Bigger Thomas drives for a rich white family in 1930s Chicago and kills their daughter in a panic his first night. Wright keeps you inside his head and will not soften him.
★ 7.2
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.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
The Crucible
1953 · 143 pages
Salem, 1692: girls caught dancing in the woods begin naming witches, and the town learns that an accusation cannot be answered. Miller wrote it while Congress hunted Communists, and audiences understood immediately.
★ 7.0
Sister Carrie
1900 · 494 pages
Carrie Meeber leaves Wisconsin for Chicago and rises through two men to the New York stage. Dreiser lets her prosper without remorse or retribution, and American fiction has been freer ever since.
★ 7.0
The Adventures of Augie March
1953 · 608 pages
"I am an American, Chicago born," Augie announces, and the novel loosened its collar. He takes every job and every mentor the Depression offers him and refuses to be claimed by any.
★ 7.0
The Jungle
1906 · 290 pages
Jurgis Rudkus comes from Lithuania to work Chicago's killing floors, and the packing plants destroy his family while diseased meat ships out. Roosevelt read it and Congress passed federal food inspection within months.
★ 6.7
Black Boy
1945 · 464 pages
Hunger runs through Wright's Southern boyhood: for food, for books, which he gets by forging notes on a white man's library card. He sets down Jim Crow's cruelty without a word of self-pity.
★ 6.7
A Raisin in the Sun
1959 · 151 pages
Ten thousand dollars of insurance money reaches a Chicago apartment and a Black family goes to war over what it is for. Broadway had never staged a play by a Black woman before.
★ 6.4
Studs Lonigan Trilogy
1935 · 988 pages
On the Irish Catholic South Side of Chicago, a boy leaves eighth grade certain he is somebody. Farrell tracks Studs through poolrooms, gangs, and drink into the Depression, withholding every consolation.
★ 5.3