#74 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

The atrocities committed against millions of black men, women and children during the slave trade are unspeakable. Yet Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent in the book) speaks boldly about her life as a slave girl in this heartrending narrative. A slave girl soon learns that her duties include more than working in the kitchen or toiling in the fields. Her master may demand the use of her body for his own pleasure. To escape her depraved master’s attentions, Linda takes refuge in a crawl space in her grandmother’s house and lives thus, unable to sit or stand, for seven years. This imprisonment is the first step on her long journey toward freedom.

#73 King, Queen, Knave by Vladimir Nabokov

Lights up on a large, bright bedroom. Franz and Martha lie naked on the bed. They have just finished disporting themselves. Franz, wears a pair of tortoise shell glasses.

Martha: How shall we kill him? Poison? A gun?

Franz: Yes. I want you.

Martha: Later, my love. We must find a way to kill my husband, who is also your uncle.

Franz: Right. (Pause) Wait. What are we talking about?

Martha: Oh, Franz, you’re such an idiot. Perhaps that’s why I love you.

Franz: I feel like I could kill for you.

Martha: Yes. About that, how shall we do it?

Franz: Well personally I prefer the couch…

Martha: Concentrate, Franz!

#72 Emma by Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse would be a perfect role model for young women, if she weren’t such a snobby busybody. True, Emma—witty, beautiful, rich, and at the pinnacle of society in her small country village—has reasons to be a snob. In matters of love, however, she is a bit Clueless. Declaring that she herself shall never marry, Emma spends her days interfering in the love lives of her friends—especially Harriet Smith, a shy young woman with little sophistication, whom Emma magnanimously decides to take on as a protégée. Emma’s attempts to direct Cupid’s arrows always hit the wrong mark, until, at last, to her own surprise, she is struck in the heart herself.

#71 Equus by Peter Shaffer

My horse’s hooves are nothing like the sun; Velvet is far more soft than his ears soft. If snow be white, then his teeth are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow upon his mane. I have seen horses dappled, brown and white, But no such dapples are in his coat; And in some perfumes there is more delight Than in the sweat that from him reeks. I love to hear him neigh, yet I know That music hath a more pleasing sound; I saw a god once go; My horsey gallops above the ground. And so, by Equus, I think my horse more rare than any stallion anywhere.

#70 The Otterbury Incident by C. Day Lewis

“The Incident” is what the boys called the mass of rubble that was left when a bomb fell in the middle of Otterbury, a fictional town in which the “incidents” of this story take place. It is a tale about a group of youngsters who like to play war during wartime. Ted and Toppy each command their own company of boys in whatever the game may be. During their childish though realistic play--the boys pretend to be soldiers, lawyers and detectives—they stumble upon actual criminal activity. Think The Goonies set in England, circa 1945: counterfeit money; cool kid-crafted inventions and a secret hideout.

Incidentally, C. Day Lewis was Daniel’s father.

#69 White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Most families are related by blood, but some families are related though history. Archie, Samad, Clara, Alsana, Magid, Irie and Millat make up two separate families whose lives are linked through their shared past: an unlikely friendship between Archie Jones, a white Englishman, and Samad Iqbal, a man from Bangladesh. The two become friends as mere boys, during WWII, but in middle age, Samad and Archie would rather relive the wars of the past than face the wars raging within their own families. Both have married much younger women, and as each man’s children grow up, Archie and Samad find themselves on one side of a generational gap that seems unbridgeable.

#68 Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

Originally a radio play, the book tells of a day in the life of a Welsh fishing vilage so small, everyone can guess the father of each illegitimate child. Willy Nilly the postman announces the contents of each inhabitant’s mail to everyone in town. Mrs. Ormore-Pritchard, twice-widowed, gets into bed with each of her dead husbands every night. Mr. Pugh orders a book to learn the best way to poison his wife. Everyone has a secret, a vice, in this town of gossips, drunkards, philanderers, nosey-parkers and lovers. The town on the fishboat-bobbing sea is picturesque and quaint, but life remains difficult and lonely in this elegiac and lyrical work.