The Castle
1926 · 352 pages
K. arrives in a village claiming the castle above it hired him as land surveyor, and never reaches anyone who can confirm it. Waiting becomes the whole of his life there.
★ 8.4
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.
Bartleby the Scrivener (and other short stories)
1853 · 176 pages
Hired to copy documents in a Wall Street office, a clerk answers every request with "I would prefer not to." He explains nothing, and quiet refusal turns out to be unanswerable.
★ 7.1
The Good Soldier Svejk
1923 · 784 pages
Josef Svejk, a Prague dealer in stolen dogs officially certified an idiot, is swept into the Austro-Hungarian army and obeys every order so eagerly that the whole war machine looks ridiculous.
★ 6.6
Palace of Dreams
1981 · 208 pages
Clerks in an Ottoman ministry collect the dreams of every subject and sift them for the one that foretells the empire's fate. Albania's dictatorship banned it within months, after twenty thousand copies sold.
★ 6.3
The Organization Man
1956 · 429 pages
Whyte went into corporations and the new suburb of Park Forest and found Americans trading the old ethic of individual striving for belonging. The organization wanted the whole man, and got him.
★ 5.8