The Best Classic Books to Have on Your Bookshelf

"The Color Purple" ($21)

The 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" has been adapted into films and a Broadway musical, and has been the target of many banning attempts over the decades. The novel's overt lesbian themes and explicit depictions of sex acts and sexual abuse has made it the subject of intense scrutiny, but the central characters — Celie and Shug — have established themselves as permanent fixtures in the American literary canon.