This fall Warby Parker is helping to support our Early Literacy Initiative. As it turns out, they love reading as much as we do! In particular, titles featuring characters who blaze their own trail, march to the beat of their own drummer, and go their own way. 

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

A picaresque tale with a hero described as a “runner after good things, servant of love, embarker on schemes, recruit of sublime ideas and good-time Charlie” on a “campaign after a worthwhile fate.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Fiesty Taylor Greer is determined to get away from poverty-stricken small-town Kentucky and heads west in her 1955 Volkswagon, only to breakdown on a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma where a woman leaves an abused child in the front seat of her car. 

 

 

 

 

Drop City by T. Coraghassan Boyle

Set in 1970, Drop City, a California cult relocates to Alaska and clashes with the local homesteaders.

 

 

 

 

 

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

A couple from an unnamed war-torn country escape to a series of cities through unexplained portals.

 

 

 

 

 

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton is hospitalized for nine weeks and her busy husband asks her estranged mother to come to sit with her. The two reconcile over gossip about the small rural town where Lucy grew up and her mother still lives.

 

 

 

 

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Jane Crawford returns to Florida in her forties and recounts her life to her childhood friend in flashbacks corresponding to her three marriages. 

 

 

 

 

 

A Time to Be Born by Dawn Powell

 Satirical historical fiction about a self-centered newspaper publisher and his scheming novelist wife set in WWII- era New York City. 

 

 

 

 

 

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!