Required Reading: Nonfiction Books

The very word nonfiction defines some literature by what it is not. But often such books, including these 10, changed minds and lives

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X (1965) His account of his evolution from Malcolm Little, criminal, to Malcolm X, charismatic black militant leader, appeared shortly after his assassination. At once an unsparing confession and spiritual quest, the book tells a haunting tale of racial persecution and rebirth.

CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS (1930) In this late summation of his life's work, Sigmund Freud set out to explain why people living in happily ordered public groups can be so miserable in private. The answer, elegantly argued, is that societies thrive by curbing the hungers of individual egos. Hence anger and feelings of guilt; and...

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