Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Ghostly globalization.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

So good.

The White Album by Joan Didion

The panic and dread of an upper class observer with extreme sensitivity and need for control.

A fundamentally conservative person living in a time of rapid social change, seeing only disintegration.

Much of her writing is so good that you forget that what she's actually saying is bad. Bad as in either incorrect or immoral, and sometimes both.

Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhar

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski

Ryszard Kapuściński is the spiritual father of every Vice story that's like, "ooowee, watch me gambol with the unruly foreign poors." Just look at this bio.

The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits & Encounters