Middlemarch
1872 · 810 pages
Dorothea Brooke marries a dry scholar for the wrong reasons and a gifted doctor lets small compromises close around him. Eliot knows more about how people actually fail than any English novelist.
★ 9.6
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.
Emile, Or On Education
1762 · 501 pages
Raising an imaginary boy from infancy to marriage, Rousseau insists children learn from things rather than books and should not be reasoned with too early. Our whole picture of childhood descends from it.
★ 7.2
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
1968 · 160 pages
Schooling deposits facts into students like coins into a bank, Freire argues, and that keeps the poor quiet. Real teaching starts from their own words. Only two social science books are cited more.
★ 6.7
Learning to Labour
1977 · 336 pages
Working-class boys are not pushed into working-class jobs, Willis found: they choose them. Twelve lads at a Midlands comprehensive laugh their way through school and hand themselves to the factory floor.
★ 5.2