Jews without Money

Author: Mike Gold

First line: I can never forget the East Side street where I lived as a boy.

Why you should read this book: Published during the depression, this book fictionalizes the author's childhood growing up in the Jewish ghetto of New Yorks Lower East Side. Thieves and gangsters abound, and his diminutive Yiddish mother is a tireless Marxist hero battling a world where uninhibited capitalism crushes those who do not hold its reins.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're still afraid of Communism.