A totalitarian government controls everything in an imagined future. When a government worker starts to think for himself, he faces dire consequences.

Augie March seeks to break out of the limitations of his humble upbringing through a series of occupations and relationships.

This book-length poem uses four characters in a New York City bar to explore the effects of industrialization and cultural unrest in the middle of the 20th century.

A largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean becomes George Washington's aide-de-camp, a founding father, and the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

An unflinching look at the lives and deaths of a group of German boys on the Western front during World War I.

Forensic psychologist Alex Cross faces a serial murderer who hopes to become the most-feared criminal in America.

In 1939 New York City, Joe Kavalier joins forces with his cousin, Sammy Clay, to create comic book superheroes.

Shadow, an ex-con who has recently lost his wife, takes a job with the mysterious Mr. Wednesday.

Oliver’s visionary poems explore wildness and wilderness in humans and in nature.

Ten houseguests, each with their own dark secret, are lured to an isolated island, where they face a mysterious killer.

This genre-bending memoir blends the personal, the political, and the philosophical into a distinctive story of love, pregnancy, feminism, family, and freedom.

Dark and melancholy in tone, Plath touches on themes of mortality, the feminine spirit, and power.

In the mid-1930s, a young English girl's half-innocent mistake has lifetime repercussions for both her sister and her childhood friend.

In this novel in verse based loosely on a mythological Greek monster, a young boy relies on art to help him cope with his tumultuous life.

Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio, is haunted by the ghost of her dead daughter.

Philip Marlowe scours the Los Angeles underworld for the blackmailer of a millionaire's daughter.

Set in 1980s New York City, a bonds trader finds himself in the middle of a fraught trial after being involved in a car accident in the Bronx.

Set in 1920s England, Waugh examines the wealthy Flyte family through the eyes of the son's less wealthy school friend Charles Ryder.

Set in 1950s Brooklyn, Eilis travels from her tiny Irish village and finds lodgings (and love) in an eccentric boarding house.

A combat pilot has as much trouble with his own army as he does with the enemy he’s fighting in this satirical novel set on a U.S. airbase during World War II.

Sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield spends two days in New York after being expelled from prep school.

Rankine’s prose-poem essays present the lived reality of Black people in America by examining celebrities and everyday interactions.

Schiff separates fact from fiction to reconstruct the life and world of the most influential woman in ancient Egypt.

Six interwoven narratives ranging in style and setting from the South Pacific in 1850 to a post-apocalyptic future Hawaii.

Five decades of poems that offer both political polemics and celebrations of African American life from a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

An interplanetary tourist joins up with a bumbling wizard and embarks on a chaotic voyage.

Letters between two sisters, one a missionary in Africa, and the other trapped in an abusive marriage in Georgia, shed light on the lived experience of rural African American women.

When Easy Rawlins accepts an assignment to find Los Angeles jazz afficionado Daphne Monet, he's sucked into a world of intrigue.

The life of an architect who constructed Chicago's 1893 World's Fair is interwoven with that of a serial killer who stalked his victims there.

Set in a feudal interstellar world, a young boy and his family control the only planet that produces "the spice"—a life-extending drug necessary for space travel.

Four strangers whose lives have been rendered unrecognizable converge in a deserted Italian villa at the close of World War II.

Elle, a free Black woman spying on a Confederate home, finds herself further imperiled when she falls for a fellow double agent.

Guy Montag becomes disillusioned with his job burning books and suppressing ideas, and ends up championing humankind's ability to think for itself.

Frodo and his hobbit friends must leave the Shire and destroy the One Ring in the volcanic fires of Mount Doom.

After her husband discovers their hidden abilities and threatens both her children, Essun has no choice but to follow him into the post-apocalyptic wilderness in order to rescue her daughter.

This memoir weaves universal themes of nature, nurture, and memory with the narrator’s own coming out, her father’s hidden queerness, and his mysterious death.

The Stark family faces the onset of a generation-long winter, the schemes of the rival Lannister family, and the fear of what lies beyond the Wall.

David meets Giovanni in a bar in 1950s Paris and they begin a passionate love affair.

In 1960s India, the lives of affluent twins Rahel and Estha are irreversibly changed upon the arrival of their English cousin.

Stories set in the rural South explore violence and spirituality through the Southern Gothic tradition.

A comprehensive history of New York City dating back from the Native American tribes that first settled the island through 1898.

The Joad family faces hardships that ultimately force them to migrate from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression.

Jay Gatsby throws fancy, well-attended parties at his estate on Long Island, but no one knows where he or his fortune really comes from.

Offred, a Handmaid, describes life in the Republic of Gilead, where women are forced to have children for the ruling class.

A young boy with a great destiny attends Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Four characters—a scholar, his assistant, a troubled young woman, and the building's heir—spend the summer in a haunted house in this ultimate gothic horror novel.

Set in a 1930s mill town in Georgia, a deaf man named John Singer becomes a confidante for the town's downtrodden denizens and for a young outcast girl.

This groundbreaking memoir details the death of Eggers's parents and his experience raising his younger brother.

Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect set off on an interplanetary odyssey after the Earth is demolished to make way for an intergalactic freeway in this offbeat comedy.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson journey to the moors of Southern England to determine whether a supernatural beast is responsible for a suspicious death.

Mohun Biswas is an Indo-Trinidadian man who dreams of owning his own house. His story mirrors a broader struggle for autonomy in a post-colonial world.

In turn-of-the-century New York, heroine Lily Bart is well-born, educated, and beautiful. But she is also poor and looks to ascend into the aristocracy of New York City in this novel of manners.

Set in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho, Ruthie and Lucille are raised by an eccentric aunt Sylvie.

Ginsberg explores the the state of humanity and American politics in this gritty collection, cementing his reputation as the bard of the Beat Poets.

Maya Angelou endures racism, trauma, and poverty in 1930s Arkansas and overcomes them through the strength of her character and the power of literature.

A kaleidoscopic narrative of the 1959 murder of a family in rural Kansas and the search for their killers.

Hester and Galen are conductors in the Underground Railroad who meet when Hester is asked to take in an injured Galen.

A border-transcending collection presents Indian and Indian-American characters navigating multiple worlds.

A first-hand account of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which four expedition teams were trapped by a deadly storm.

A Black man grows up in the South, is expelled from a black college, and confronts racial violence and discrimination in Harlem.

In ancient Rome, a studious young noble becomes a controversial leader who fights to uphold Hellenistic polytheism and stop the spread of Christianity.

Against a backdrop of political unrest in Afghanistan, Amir becomes friends with the son of his wealthy father’s servant.

Human ambassador Genly Ai must understand the ambisexual culture of Gethen if he wants them to join the planetary coalition Ekumen.

The author recounts her difficult childhood growing up in a Texas oil town.

Ursula Todd, born in 1910, repeatedly dies and reincarnates into the same life to correct mistakes and possibly save the world.

Smith uses an imagined intergalactic future to reflect on the realities of life lived here on Earth.

In a clash of language, cultures, and morality in postwar America, middle-aged Humbert Humbert is obsessed with a 12-year-old, Dolores Haze.

A son struggles to come to terms with his parents' experiences during the Holocaust.

Humorous essays about Sedaris's family, his moving to France, and attempts to learn a new language.

In Savannah, Georgia, a rebellious young man is killed in the mansion of a prominent antique dealer.

Saleem Sinai is born at the exact moment when India becomes an independent country. His life, and that of the 1,000 other “midnight’s children” who also possess magical gifts, is inextricably linked to the fate of his nation.

John Self, a successful director, lives a decadent life until he finds the pursuit of pleasure distasteful.

In the early 2000s, the Oakland Athletics flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom, leading them to unexpected success.

Lionel Essrog is a would-be detective who struggles to control his Tourette's Syndrome and gets mixed up with the Mafia.

Over the course of a single day, as she prepares to host a party, Mrs. Dalloway reflects on her youth, contemplates the effects of World War I, and reexamines her marriage.

Two young girls in a poor neighborhood outside 1950s Naples form a precarious bond over shared ambitions for a better life.

New York City police lieutenant Eve Dallas pursues a romantic relationship with a mysterious and wealthy Irishman while investigating a murder case.

Bigger Thomas lives in poverty on Chicago’s South Side in the 1930s. A brief moment of panic and violence changes his life forever.

A retired school teacher in a small coastal town in Maine is brutally honest in her relationships with her family and fellow townspeople.

Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise strike up a friendship characterized by the freedom of the open road.

This pinnacle of magical realism chronicles 100 years and seven generations of the Buendía family in the mythical South American town of Macondo.

A fictional Jeanette's relationship with the Pentecoastal family she was raised in fractures when she falls in love with a girl.

Pak Jun Do is raised in a North Korean work camp for orphans run by his father. As an adult he gains notoriety as a professional kidnapper and becomes a romantic rival to Kim Jong-il.

Trond Sander is a 67-year-old man living alone in an isolated cabin in Norway when a surprise encounter knocks loose a tragic memory from his past.

Set in a bleak near-future California, 18-year-old Lauren suffers from hyperempathy—she feels others' pain as well as her own.

A precocious young girl shares her experience of growing up in Tehran through political unrest and the Islamic Revolution.

Dillard reflects on the spiritual and experiential aspects of the cycles of nature over the course of a year at Tinker Creek in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

A Jewish New York lawyer with a domineering mother confesses his sexual desires and frustrations to his psychoanalyst.

In the early days of the Vietnam War, a British reporter takes issue with a young American’s actions and policies in Saigon.

The second Mrs. de Winter must find out what happened to her predecessor at an isolated Cornish manor, and the sinister housekeeper may hold the key.

An aging English butler reflects on his years of service, along with the feelings and actions that he suppressed in the name of propriety.

Joe Coutz's mother is the victim of a brutal crime on their North Dakota reservation. Joe and his friends set out to find person who hurt her.

On New Year's Eve, 1938, Katey Kontent meets a banker in a jazz bar and is catapulted into upper class New York City society.

A collection of character-driven stories about women facing transitions and examining how their pasts continue to inform their presents.

Inspired by modernist art movements of the time, Ashbery presents an enduring meditation on life and the passage of time.

Writer Jack Torrance takes a job as the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. But he and his family quickly suspect strange and terrible forces are at work.

After a series of deaths, Quoyle takes his two daughters to find a new beginning in their ancestral land—Newfoundland.

A prescient examination of the impact of pesticides on the environment and the chemical industry's spurious marketing claims.

Sascha Duncan, a member of a race of psychics who are forbidden to feel emotions, agrees to help find the killer of several Changeling women.

Essays that paint a picture of life in 1960s California—then the epicenter of American counterculture.

Jess Goldberg is a working class butch who faces external violence and discrimination along her path towards internal acceptance and gender self expression.

This collection addresses suburban malaise, faltering marriages, and flashes of hope amid the disillusionment of city life.

When a young French Algerian named Meursault kills a man, his subsequent trial seems to be less about the murder and more about his supposedly deficient character and the meaning of existence.

In the 1920s, American and British expatriates traipse from Paris's Left Bank to the bullfighting rings in Spain.

Wealthy Herbert Greenleaf sends Tom Ripley to Italy to bring home his wayward son, unaware of Ripley's twisted character.

Characters face unconventional and disturbing moral dillemmas in this darkly funny and memorable collection.

Janie Crawford is an independent woman whose life has been shaped by the three very different men she marries, and by the inhabitants of her small Florida town.

Okonkwo, the local wrestling champion in an Igbo community, sees his way of life drastically altered when Christian missionaries arrive in Nigeria.

An alien race plans to make Earth into a new home after intercepting signals, broadcast by the Chinese government at the height of the Cultural Revolution, to deep space.

Atticus Finch, a small town lawyer, sets an example for his young children by defending an African American man wrongly accused of raping a white woman.

Robert Grainer endures the loss of his family and struggles to survive in the rapidly changing American West.

A new governess in a remote country estate is confronted by the ghosts of two evil servants who haunt the house.

Set in late 1960s and early 1970s Prague, four intertwined characters grapple with love, emotion, and the consequences of public and private actions.

In the pre-Civil War South, Cora and Caesar flee captivity via the Underground Railroad, a literal underground train system.

Profiles of eccentric characters create an examination of the margins of 1940s–1960s New York life and culture.

The story of the five Lisbon sisters who all commit suicide in a Detroit suburb in the 1970s, narrated by a group of boys who are haunted by the event.

A story of music, rebellion, and selling out that centers on record company executive Bennie Salazar, his assistant Sasha, and their acquaintances.

A chronicle of the mass migration of the African American population from the South towards northern and western cities between 1915 and 1970.

Superheroes grapple with moral conundrums as they race against time to find a killer and alter the fate of the world.

A study of characters on the periphery immersed in violence, drinking, and despair, told in deceptively simple prose.

In this satirical novel, Jack and Babette live in a midwestern college town, where a lethal cloud resulting from a chemical spill forces them to evacuate and confront their fear of death.

Two blended families in post-World War II London navigate the shifting perceptions and realities of race, age, nationality, and cultural change.

In 20th century Japan, a young man faces a disintegrating marriage and the creeping impact of a war long past in this tale of intrigue.

In 1520s England, Thomas Cromwell counsels Henry VIII on his efforts to annul his current 20-year marriage in order to wed Anne Boleyn.

A first-generation Chinese-American woman recounts growing up in America in this blend of memoir and folktale.