I turn to Babel for reassurance that literature is capable of showing the real and terrifying mayhem that results when national systems collapse, while still preserving some modicum of love for human beings. If I ever need my ear tuned, this is where I go. Babel is a particular master of that unnamed space between sentences; the place where, in my view, a piece’s real sensibility gets made: what does the writer omit, and how does he link his observations?

Published just before he died of AIDS, Wojnarowicz’s memoir is a classic of outlaw literature and political fury. Wojnarowicz — who was a great artist as well as writer — wheels through his wickedly difficult childhood, the deaths of friends and lovers, great sex writing, thoughts about art, screeds against the likes of Jesse Helms, all the while facing down his own imminent demise. It’s sad, funny, angry and transporting, a kaleidoscope on fire.

Havel is one of the great heroes of the 20th century, a playwright and towering intellect frequently jailed for his involvement in dissident organizations like Charter 77, who wrought change by simply deciding to act as if Communist Czechoslovakia was a free society. Among the arguments he posited in his most famous essay was that by “living in truth” in their daily lives, people could differentiate themselves from the officially mandated culture proscribed by the State since power depends on submission to succeed.

It seems to me that one thing we should be trying to keep in mind these days is the phrase, “It could be worse.” This book shows us a much-worse time and its tragic effects on a group of tender friends/lovers/artists. We should energetically protect our system, and try to heal the toxic divisiveness afflicting us, and resist the lies being routinely promulgated, from above and on social media, because when a system fails, the victim is human decency – all these dear hearts suddenly living reduced, fearful, degrading lives. We have, as Paul Simon put it, “lived so well, so long” that we may be in danger of forgetting that the results of chaos are real.

He was as good a writer as he was a freedom fighter and president. This is a book worthy of his storied life.

My mother suggested I read this as a teenager. I remember crying as I read the book. There is a kind of hope in his account of life in Auschwitz that makes his own life story–Levi committed apparent suicide in 1987–all the more devastating. I was destroyed by that. This book is a little forgotten today, but if I had a child I’d ask them to read it because it’s a lesson on life, and about history and memory.

Of all the great memoirs to come out of the Black Power Movement (Angela Davis, Bobby Seales, Amiri Baraka, Nina Simone) Assata is my favorite. I draw a lot of inspiration from the Black Power Movement, and the way that she describes her activism is overflowing with passion and heart.

“I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda. I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” – Malcolm X Luckily, I found this book in paperback when I was eleven. It is a book that should be required reading at a young age. Malcom X’s mind, struggle, fight, pain and truth will live on because this book will keep popping brains open. Look past the propaganda machine that reduces his role in history; there is a whole world of thought here, and that is a world I like to be in.

I read this recently — it’s a small and significant book. It’s the autobiographical account of a teenage boy who journeys through the Nazi death camps with his father, desperately clinging to life and each other when humanity has become perversely distorted. It’s almost beyond human and beyond language. When I read it, I wondered how someone would interpret this story if they dug it up in ancient ruins centuries from now. Could it be true? What are we capable of in terms of cruelty and survival?

A compassionate book about a remarkable man (whom the author knew personally). Sivaram was a rigorous journalist, a sophisticated thinker on topics ranging from analytic philosophy to counterinsurgency theory, and a militant who fought for justice for the Tamil minority. Even if you know nothing about the Sri Lankan conflict, this book is worth reading just to understand how a person like Sivaram could have existed anywhere on Earth.

Novuyo Tshuma’s House of Stone tells the story of the 1980s Zimbabwean genocide of the people of Matabeleland in the south of the country with passion and virtuosity. A young man pesters his adoptive family to reveal his father’s identity, until the terrible truth of his conception in an act of brutality during the ethnic cleansing is revealed.