Solzhenitsyn dies

Russian author and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died Sunday evening, August 3 at the age of 89. Click here for the New York Times obituary.
Solzhenitsyn's acounts of torment and survival in the Soviet Union's slave labor camps exposed to his countrymen and to the world some of the darkest secrets of the Stalinist regime. According to a commentator on NPR whom I heard this morning, Solzenitsyn's exile in the US was a bitter one. His books had gained him international renown, but his vocal criticism of the conduct of the Vietnam war and of the commercialism of American culture was not popular in his adopted country. He could not wait to move back to his native home after the fall of the Soviet Union, but again, his voice, criticising what he saw as the selling out of the Revolution by the younger generation of Russians was not popular. It remains to be seen what his legacy will be; but no one can deny that his groundbreaking books inspired in millions the idea that a totlatarian empire could in the end be defeated by individuals with integrity. His works include:

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch Find this book in our catalog
Cancer Ward Find this book in our catalog
The Gulag Archipelago Find this book in our catalog

Readers interested in works of dissent and social consciousness-raising from the 20th century might enjoy:
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Here's one from the 21st century:
Nickel and Dimed on (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

I would welcome any other suggestions you might have for similar books.