This applies to popular works that are often recommended by others (for me: bell hooks’s work, Man’s Search for Meaning, Braiding Sweetgrass) but it also applies to the classics that people don’t necessarily recommend because they’re difficult— often assigned instead of recommended because they’re important— but their significance and perceived difficulty often overshadows the fact that yes, they’re actually really that fucking good. The works in this category that come to mind for me are Moby Dick and Le Samouraï. What are yours?
