The Loose Canon

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James Agee & Walker Evans: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). A roving reporter and photojournalist find poetry as well as pain in the lives of Depression-era cotton farmers. John Berger: Pig Earth (1979). A celebration of French peasants living close to the land, sparing none of the blood, sweat, or splendor.

Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941). This echt-American tale of the making of a capitalist titan gets better with every viewing. Robert Altman: Nashville (1975). Altman's chaotic, everybody's-talking style meshed perfectly with the theme in this country-music saga: America adrift socially, sexually, and politically -- and looking for a reason to believe.

Gore Vidal: United States: Essays (1951 - 1990). Elegant and incisive analysis of American literature, politics, and history from our most brilliant wit. His patrician bearings don't stop him from exposing the darkness lurking in the heart of the American dream. Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States (1980). From Columbus to corporate power, here's what your high school history teacher glossed over: bare-knuckled injustice and ruthless class bias that has sparked an impassioned tradition of resistance.

Howlin' Wolf: His Best (1950s - 1960s). Rawboned, wailin' Chicago blues with undertones of pride, hope, and even joy. Los Lobos: Just Another Band from East L.A. (1980s - 1990s). A wonderful blend of bar band boogie, Mexican folk styles, mythic borderland themes, and serious dedication to rock 'n' roll artistry.

Simone de Beauvoir: The Second Sex (1952). In the opening volley of the modern struggle for women's rights, Beauvoir portrays women as a distinct class in need of economic freedom. Mary Daly: Gyn/Ecology (1978). A radical feminist combines theology, mythology, philosophy, history, and biology in her examination of centuries of sexism.

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (1952). This stark parable illuminates the plight of African Americans by way of existentialism, absurdism, and other currents of international postwar thought. Nathaniel Mackey: Bedouin Hornbook/Djbot Baghostus's Run (1986-1993). Avant-garde literature you can love: an evolving multivolume novel of the jazz world that plays with language and ideas the way Thelonious Monk plays with flatted fifths.

James Baldwin: Collected Essays (1955 - 1986). Angry and eloquent, Baldwin expresses the complicated experience of being black before, during, and after the civil rights movement. Cornel West: Race Matters (1993). A preacher and Harvard professor looks deep into the soul of contemporary American culture in search of ways to overcome racism and the self-destructive impulses that racism spawns.

Satyajit Ray: The Apu Trilogy (1955 - 1959). Effortlessly told, luminously portrayed, this growing-up story of a Bengali boy insists that life's simplest truths are always its most resonant ones. Abbas Kiarostami: Where Is My Friend's Home? (1995). This Iranian director is often called the heir to Ray -- and his quiet film about a little boy trying to return a notebook to a friend has a lot of the Indian master's less-is-more sense of conviction.

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