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Cynthia P Cain
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Collected Essays
James Baldwin
James Mustich
It can be a little too easy to pin labels on James Baldwin: black, gay, expatriate, aesthete. But every label sells him short, diminishing the singularity of his work. That he wrote specifically of his time and place—America in the middle of the twentieth century—and engaged its most dangerous theme...show more
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The Good Earth
Pearl S. Buck
Published in 1931, while Modernism was turning fiction artfully on its ear, Buck’s simple, plot-driven tale of the shifting fortunes of Chinese peasants Wang Lung and O-Lan was innovative in its own way, marking the introduction of Asian characters into mainstream Western literature. In its pages, r...show more
O Pioneers!
Willa Cather
In Hanover, Nebraska, a Swedish immigrant dies and leaves his farm not to his sons, but to his daughter. Despite drought, economic depression, and the demands of the land the family inhabits, Alexandra Bergson, one of American literature’s most vivid heroines, is determined to make a success of the ...show more
The Cherry Orchard
Anton Chekhov
Chekhov wrote more than a dozen plays, but the last four are his most accomplished and most performed, and the quartet—because of their original realization by Konstantin Stanislavski under the auspices of the Moscow Art Theater—are seminal works in theatrical history. Deeply humanistic, Chekhov’s f...show more
The Awakening
Kate Chopin
This is my #1 book of all time! Beautifully written and daring to speak the truth, it captures the essential paradox of women's lives: Family and motherhood or creativity and passion. The fact that this is on the list makes me trust you. 100%
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Are You Somebody?
Nuala O'Faolain
This is the compassionate memoir of an Irish journalist and television producer who restored her self in its writing, recovering all the lives that crossed hers on her way to her encounters with “the challenges of middle age and the challenges of loneliness.” It begins with O’Faolain in her early th...show more
Normal People: A Novel
Sally Rooney
Gorgeously written portrayal of a modern intimate relationship that manages to be a page-turner.