Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

I somehow missed reading this in high school. What a fantastic book! So clear, such powerful and direct language. It's easy now in America to look back on slavery, 150 years later, and think of it as some distant past abstraction. Reading Douglass' own account of his own suffering as a slave removes that distance, and reminds us of our collective guilt in the United States of being heirs to such inhumanity.

Also dare I say it, but it's a quick and entertaining read. Really tightly written, not a tedious effort at all. Accessibility is valuable.