LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
by Eugene O'Neill
Yale Univ Press
ISBN: 0300046014
You think you're family is screwed up --- meet the Tyrones, a monumentally messed up bunch with every addiction and affliction under the sun. An autobiographical portrait of O'Neill's own dysfunctional family, this play takes place over the course of one day --- the day on which Edmund (the youngest child) has just been diagnosed with tuberculosis and ordered to go to a sanatorium. Feelings of isolation, resentment, blame, guilt, self-pity and self-loathing abound in this immensely brilliant tragedy.
THE JUNGLE
by Upton Sinclair
Bantam Classics
ISBN: 0553212451
Many great books rock the establishment, but few actually change it the way Sinclair's tale of life and death in Chicago's meatpacking district at the turn-of-the-century did. The story is told through the eyes of a young immigrant who arrives in Chicago looking for a new life and lands himself a job in "Packingtown," where working and sanitary conditions are, well, less then desirable. The public found Sinclair's novel to be so unsettling, the government launched an investigation that resulted in the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Warning: You may turn veggie after reading.
MEMOIRS OF AN ANTI-SEMITE : A Novel in Five Stories
by Gregor Von Rezzori
Vintage Books
ISBN: 0679731822
It takes a skillful and brave writer to turn anti-Semitism, especially the compulsive kind practiced in the years leading up to the Holocaust, into something wonderful and wildly entertaining. In the series of interlinking stories set between WWI and WWII in Eastern Europe, Von Rezzori taps into the torn confused mind of a man who grew up in a pathologically anti-Semitic household yet seems to continually find himself befriending and/or falling in love with Jews. The circumstances are deeply sad but the irony of it all is pretty amusing --- a brilliant admixture.
BRAVE NEW WORLD
by Aldous Huxley
Harperperennial Library
ISBN: 0060929871
What would a world of pure ecstasy and euphoria be like? Pretty okay, I think, but as Huxley suggests in his brilliantly satirical and gripping novel, there are dangers inherent in any utopia and a "perfect" world is really anything but. Further food for thought: Huxley's fantasy for the future back in 1932 is not totally unlike the reality of our present.
WALDEN
by Henry David Thoreau
Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807014230
Thoreau's autobiographical ruminations about freedom, autonomy, materialism and nature --- both human and ecological --- comprise this subtle and lyrical piece of classic literature. But I'm not going to lie to you, this isn't really a page turner that you gobble up in one sleepless night --- unless you find listings of scientific nomenclature and lengthy discussions on pond depth exciting stuff. Rather, WALDEN needs to be read the same way it was written --- "deliberately," patiently, and with an open mind. So, put on the Tevas and head out to read it in the park.
THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER
by William Styron
Vintage Books
ISBN: 0679736638
This Pulitzer Prize winning novel is based on the Turner Rebellion in 1831 in which a group of slaves rose up against their masters, leaving 59 white people dead. Styron's haunting account focuses on the rise and fall of Nat Turner, a preacher and a genuinely moral man, who simply could no longer stand the situation in which he found himself. But don't be fooled into thinking this books is nothing more than a dry, thinly veiled history lesson. It's a powerful, imaginative, daring, compelling piece of fiction.
MIDDLEMARCH
by George Eliot
Oxford Univ Press (Trade)
ISBN: 0192834029
Eliot's heroine in this chick-lit classic (George is a woman, in case you didn't know) is a proto-feminist: she's smart and talented and just wants a chance to show the world her stuff. Too bad for her, she lives in Victorian England so she can't be educated in cool things like science or Latin, and she is married to a real jerk. If you like Jane Austen or fancy yourself a women's lit./girl-power type, you really have to have read some Eliot --- and MIDDLEMARCH is a great book to start with.
AS I LAY DYING
by William Faulkner
Knopf
ISBN: 067973225X
Faulkner is a tricky writer who has a very unique (read: sometimes confusing) narrative style --- he likes to jump from character to character, often leaving the reader to wonder who the heck is talking. In AS I LAY DYING, the Bundren family must journey from their home town in order to bury their matriarch. They're a wildly dysfunctional group, which makes their story seem at once very sad and really hilarious. Often regarded as Faulkner's best (definitely his most readable) work, this novel is macabre, deeply psychological and very cool. Chances are you'll come across it again, so why not give it a try now.
HIROSHIMA
by John Hersey
Vintage Books
ISBN: 0679721037
On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 am, we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing more than 100,000 Japanese. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Hersey interviewed six survivors immediately proceeding the attack, and then continued to chronicle their lives for forty years. Whether you're a lover or a fighter, this book will haunt you and make you really, really think --- particularly now the we are a generation living in the shadow of world conflict.
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN
by James Baldwin
Laureleaf
ISBN: 0440330076
This seminal work of literature in general and black literature in particular, is a spiritual, emotional, sexual and cultural tale about a 14 year-old boy coming of age in Harlem in 50's and the unraveling of his tormented, tragic family as they grapple with life's injustices and America's ever-changing social landscape. Baldwin's debut (he was 30 when it was first published) is a brilliant portrayal of the black experience and how race is lived in America --- and reading it leaves little wonder why Baldwin still ranks as on of the most influential black writers ever.
