Some books are comfortable; others leave you uneasy, questioning things you took for granted. This list brings together novels and nonfiction that have changed public debates and still provoke discussion.
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Novels that question society
1984 by George Orwell. Surveillance, propaganda and the manipulation of truth. Terms like “Big Brother” and “doublethink” come from it.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. A society controlled not by fear but by pleasure and conditioning. Often compared with 1984.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. A theocratic regime strips women of their rights.
Beloved by Toni Morrison. The legacy of slavery, told through a haunted family.
Race, gender and class
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Two essays on race and religion in America, as urgent now as in 1963.
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. Why women writers need money and space of their own.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. The author worked low-wage jobs to see whether she could live on them.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. A letter to his son about being Black in America.
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Rethinking the world
Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Shows that many people’s view of global poverty, health and population is far more negative than the data.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Exposed the effects of pesticides and helped launch the environmental movement.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. A sweeping history that questions the stories humans tell about progress. Some historians criticize its generalizations, which makes it a good starting point for discussion.
Reading with an open mind
read authors you expect to disagree with, and try to state their argument fairly;
