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.

The Joy Luck Club

1989 · 288 pages

Four women who fled China met over mahjong in San Francisco, and when one dies her daughter takes the empty seat. Tan's sixteen interlocking stories carry the mothers' buried lives across.

★ 6.1

White Teeth

2000 · 464 pages

Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal met in a tank in 1945 and are still arguing in North London, while their children reject every inheritance on offer. Smith made multicultural Britain a comic epic.

★ 5.2