theLeftAhead Literary Canon
Fiction[In Reverse Chronological Order]:Charles Yu - Interior ChinatownMadeline Miller - CirceAndrew Sean Greer - LessColson Whitehead - The Underground RailroadHarper Lee - Go Set a WatchmanViet Thanh Nguyen - The SympathizerPhil Klay - RedeploymentJason Mott - The ReturnedSalman Rushdie - Joseph Anton: A MemoirGillian Flynn - Gone GirlStephen King - 11/22/63Jess Walter - The Financial Lives of the PoetsJohn Updike - TerroristJeff Lindsay - Darkly Dreaming DexterJen Banbury - Like a Hole in the HeadNorman Mailer - The Gospel According to the SonEthan Hawke - The Hottest StateMona Simpson - A Regular GuyDavid Foster Wallace - Infinite JestJohn Updike - Rabbit at RestSalman Rushdie - The Satanic VersesToni Morrison - BelovedMargaret Atwood - The Handmaid's TaleBret Easton Ellis - Less Than ZeroJohn Updike - Rabbit Is RichNorman Mailer - The Executioner's SongStephen King - The ShiningJohn Updike - Rabbit ReduxKurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-FiveNorman Mailer - An American DreamJack Kerouac - Big SurPhilip K. Dick - The Man in the High CastleJohn Updike - Rabbit, RunHarper Lee - To Kill a MockingbirdJack Kerouac - On the RoadJames Baldwin - Go Tell It on the MountainJ. D. Salinger - The Catcher in the RyeErnest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell TollsJames Joyce - Finnegans WakeJohn Steinbeck - The Grapes of WrathJ. R. R. Tolkien - The HobbitErnest Hemingway - A Farewell to ArmsVirginia Woolf - To the LighthouseErnest Hemingway - The Sun Also RisesF. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great GatsbyJames Joyce - UlyssesJames Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManD.H. Lawrence - The RainbowArthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the BaskervillesJoseph Conrad - Lord JimOscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian GrayMark Twain - Adventures of Huckleberry FinnLeo Tolstoy - War and PeaceLouisa May Alcott - Little WomenFyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime and PunishmentCharles Dickens - Great ExpectationsCharles Dickens - A Tale of Two CitiesJonathan Swift - Gulliver's TravelsJohn Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress
Non-Fiction[In Reverse Chronological Order]:Barack Obama - A Promised LandKarla Cornejo Villavicencio - The Undocumented AmericansEdward Snowden - Permanent RecordMichelle Obama - BecomingBob Woodward - Fear: Trump in the White HouseTa-Nehisi Coates - We Were Eight Years in Power: An American TragedyBernie Sanders - Bernie Sanders Guide to Political RevolutionNeil deGrasse Tyson - Astrophysics for People in a HurryTimothy Snyder - On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth CenturyMichael Eric Dyson - Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White PeopleBernie Sanders - Our Revolution: A Future to Believe InJ. D. Vance - Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in CrisisAlice Y. Walker - Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, & the Foundations of a MovementGloria Steinem - My Life on the RoadBernie Sanders- Outsider in the White HouseTa-Nehisi Coates - Between the World and MeDavid McCullough - The Wright BrothersDavid Axelrod - Believer: My Forty Years in PoliticsBryan Stevenson - Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and RedemptionSuki Kim - Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's EliteNaomi Klein - This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The ClimateHillary Clinton - Hard Choices: A MemoirElizabeth Warren - A Fighting ChanceMichael Lewis - Flash Boys: A Wall Street RevoltDoris Kearns Goodwin - The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of JournalismMalala Yousafzai - I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the TalibanMalcolm Gladwell - David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling GiantsReza Aslan - Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of NazarethRay Kurzweil - How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought RevealedNate Silver - The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don'tRachel Maddow - Drift: The Unmooring of American Military PowerJon Ronson - The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness IndustryBill Clinton - Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong EconomyWalter Issacson - Steve JobsPhilip Dray - There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in AmericaMichelle Alexander - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorblindnessBill Simmons - The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports GuyEdward M. Kennedy - True Compass: A MemoirFareed Zakaria - The Post-American WorldThomas L. Friedman - Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew AmericaDavid Plouffe - The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic VictoryMalcolm Gladwell - Outliers: The Story of SuccessScott McClellan - What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of DeceptionNaomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster CapitalismBarack Obama - The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American DreamDoris Kearns Goodwin - Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham LincolnRay Kurzweil - The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend BiologyMarcus J. Borg - The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of FaithHillary Clinton - Living HistoryJohn Feinstein - The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball ForeverJohn Wooden - They Call Me CoachAlan Dershowitz - Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000William Shaw - Westside: Young Men and Hip Hop in L.A.Jennifer Harbury - Bridge of Courage: Life Stories of the Guatemalan Compañeros and CompañerasArthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. - A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White HouseBarack Obama - Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and InheritanceJoyce Johnson - Minor Characters: A Beat MemoirHoward Zinn - A People's History of the United StatesEduardo Galleano - Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a ContinentSaul D. Alinsky - Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic RadicalsAbbie Hoffman - Steal This BookAlex Haley & Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm XMartin Luther King, Jr. - Why We Can't WaitFrederick Douglass - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveThomas Jefferson - Notes on the State of Virginia
Poetry[In Reverse Chronological Order]:Kevin Coval - A People's History of ChicagoTyehimba Jess - OlioTony Hoagland - Application for Release from the DreamAmy Gerstler - Scattered at SeaPeter Balakian - Ozone JournalJames Franco - Directing Herbert White: PoemsRae Armantrout - Money ShotCharles Bukowski - The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New PoemsSaul Williams - Said the Shotgun to the HeadFrank Marshall Davis - Black Moods: Collected PoemsTupac Shakur - The Rose that Grew from ConcreteDonald Hall - Without: PoemsMaya Angelou - And Still I RiseJack Kerouac - Heaven and Other PoemsSeamus Heaney - NorthShel Silverstein - Where the Sidewalk EndsMaya Angelou - Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I DiiieGary Snyder - The Back CountrySylvia Plath - The Colossus and Other PoemsAllen Ginsberg - Howl and Other PoemsT.S. Eliot - Four QuartetsFernando Pessoa - Poesia Inglesa (1)Ezra Pound - PersonaeAlfred Tennyson - Idylls of the KingWalt Whitman - Leaves of GrassEdgar Allan Poe - The RavenGeorge Gordon Byron - Don JuanWilliam Blake - Songs of Innocence and ExperiencePhillis Wheatley - Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and MoralJohn Milton - Paradise LostWilliam Shakespeare - Shakespeare's SonnetsHomer - The OdysseyHomer - The Iliad