The Waves

The Waves by Virgina Woolf (1931). This grand experiment in narrative depicts six characters—from nursery school to the brink of old age—through a series of interior soliloquies. Stages in their lives are framed by bits of description of a day on a deserted beach; the book’s finale, their reunion at a London restaurant, is a tour de force.

The Way of All Flesh

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (1903). One of the great critiques of Victorian society and morality, this autobiographical novel charts the Pontifex family over several generations. Through the rise and fall of the main character’s piety, Butler rebukes a religious tradition that has grown oppressive and hypocritical.

The White Album

The White Albumby Joan Didion (1979). This essay collection records indelibly the upheavals and aftermaths of the 1960s. Examining key events, figures, and trends of the era—including Charles Manson, the Black Panthers, and the shopping mall—through the lens of her own spiritual confusion, Joan Didion helped to define mass culture as we now understand it.

The Zoo Story

The Zoo Story (1958), The American Dream (1961), and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), three plays by Edward Albee. Albee is American dramaturgy’s master of black comedy and social satire. In The American Dream he lambasts that concept in a one-act farce featuring an over-the-top dysfunctional family and a murder.