The Grapes of Wrath
1939 · 464 pages
The Joads lose their Oklahoma farm and drive west to California, where the promised work is a lie. Steinbeck's fury at what was done to them still comes off the page.
★ 9.0
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.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
1941 · 432 pages
Sent to Alabama in 1936 to report on cotton tenancy, Agee returned with an act of devotion: three sharecropping families recorded down to the nails in their shoes, alongside Walker Evans's photographs.
★ 7.0
Hard Times
An Oral History of the Great Depression
1970 · 462 pages
Evicted tenants, migrant pickers, stockbrokers, and a man who ran for president tell Terkel what the Depression did to them. What comes through hardest is how many took the collapse as personal failure.
★ 5.7