Book Recommendations: Social Class

Class struggle is one of those ever-present forces in society that somehow still gets ignored—especially by those not directly affected by it...

Class struggle is one of those ever-present forces in society that somehow still gets ignored—especially by those not directly affected by it. If you’ve grown up working-class, you start to notice how invisible your experience becomes in mainstream narratives, how often your reality is either flattened, aestheticised, or completely erased. Meanwhile, middle-class social media users clutch their Sally Rooney novels like a badge of political awareness, often without engaging with the deeper dynamics at play.

Because it’s so often overlooked in real life, class can go unnoticed in fiction too. Sometimes it’s buried so subtly within a character’s shame, frustration, or silence that it’s easy to miss. Sometimes it’s disguised as something else—race, gender, ambition, failure. But it’s always there, simmering under the surface.

I want to see more open, honest discussion about class in the book world—on social media, yes, but especially in spaces like Substack, where there’s room for longer, more mature conversations. Books are not just an accessory, they are a piece of conversation on societal matters.

So here’s a collection of books—some loud about class, some quiet—that I think deserve attention. Each one, in its own way, captures what it means to navigate a world through a certain position in the class hierarchy.

Classics / Modern Classics

North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell

If you want a classic that actually tackles class conflict head-on, North and South delivers. It’s not just a romance—it’s a novel about industrialisation, workers’ rights, and the brutal realities of class division in Victorian England.

What Gaskell does so well is make visible the everyday violence of capitalism: poverty, hunger, exploitation, and the emotional toll it takes on both workers and employers. Margaret Hale, the protagonist, starts off a bit smug and sheltered, but as the story unfolds, she’s forced to reckon with her own class assumptions. There’s no simple villain or hero—just a web of people trying to survive in a deeply unequal system. Gaskell gives voice to the working class in a way that feels surprisingly modern. It's a quiet kind of radical.

Now despite this being published a little while ago, it is still quite relevant. If you are not from the UK and not aware of our geographical politics there is quite a divide between North and South. As a very basic generalisation the South is seen as rich and the North as poor — obviously that’s a crude way of looking at it. But with that dichotomy in mind you can use this book to pinpoint the current class affairs in the UK.

The Human Stain, Phillip Roth

The Human Stain is a brutal, knotty novel that doesn’t hand you anything cleanly, but at its core is a powerful exploration of shame and class performance. Coleman Silk is a man constantly rewriting himself to escape the constraints of his identity—including his working-class background.

What’s wild is how the novel shows just how far someone has to go, socially and intellectually, to be taken seriously—and even then, respectability is fragile. Roth’s characters are all operating within these rigid, classed ideas of success, academia, language, even love. The novel is messy, frustrating, and incredibly revealing in how it peels back the polite façades people wear to be accepted into elite spaces. And it doesn’t let anyone off the hook.

If you have attended university or work for one, I think this novel is a great way to see all the classes at play in this microcosm. Universities (or college if from the US) are a great place to explore these class boundaries and privilege.

Contemporary Fiction

Sally Rooney

When I say Sally Rooney I mean every Sally Rooney book:

• Normal People

• Conversations with Friends

• Intermezzo

• Beautiful World Where Are You

• Mr Salary

Rooney is the poster girl for “soft politics” in fiction—books that whisper about class while simultaneously drowning in it. And I say that with love and frustration. Her characters are often hyper-aware of their class positioning but rarely empowered by that awareness. The protagonists navigate spaces they’re not quite built for: elite universities, publishing, art scenes. And they know it. They talk about it. But they also self-destruct under it.

The working-class characters in Rooney’s books don’t necessarily want to rebel; they want to be seen, heard, maybe even loved, but they’re tired. And this is realistically what it feels like to be working class. It’s these subtle distinctions in mundane life that add up to debilitating frustration.

The class tension sits in how easily people with money move through the world, versus the quiet panic of those who don’t. What Rooney does well is show that economic precocity doesn't always look like outright poverty—it looks like not texting back because you can’t afford the train. It’s subtle, but it’s real.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh

This one is anti-class consciousness in the most fascinating way. I actually really dislike this novel — but the dislike is solely due to the novel reeking with privilege.

The protagonist is rich, bored, numb—and wants to disappear from the world entirely. It’s like watching someone with all the privilege in the world completely waste it. But that’s the point. Class is a backdrop here, not a conflict. She’s detached because she can be. What makes this novel quietly brutal is how it exposes the emptiness of wealth and the kinds of people society allows to drift. Nobody’s checking in on her, nobody's asking questions—because money fills in all the gaps. It’s not a novel about poverty, but it is about what happens when comfort becomes existential rot.

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo

This is a kaleidoscope of class, race, gender, queerness—all of it tangled together. Evaristo doesn’t just write about class; she archives it. Her characters span generations and social realities, from squatters and cleaners to Oxbridge grads and artists, each shaped by their position within capitalism and colonial residue. What’s powerful here is that class isn’t just about money—it’s about belonging, shame, aspiration, and survival. And she refuses to offer easy binaries. Some working-class characters sell out. Some rich characters have no power. It's messy and human and full of contradictions, which is exactly how class functions in real life.

On Beauty, Zadie Smith

On Beauty is much like The Human Stain. Zadie Smith is always playing with class tension—but On Beauty is especially sharp about how race and class intersect within liberal academic bubbles. It’s a novel full of people who think they’re politically righteous, yet constantly reveal their own blind spots. The Belsey family isn’t working-class, but they’re fractured by class anxieties—of taste, success, Blackness, and authenticity. Meanwhile, the Kipps family brings a more conservative form of respectability politics into play. Nobody is safe from Smith’s critique. She skewers middle-class liberalism with wit and precision, while still giving her characters space to be complicated, flawed people.

Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart

Shuggie Bain is a knife to the chest. It’s one of the most painfully honest portrayals of working-class life I’ve read. Set in Thatcher-era Glasgow, the novel is soaked in poverty, addiction, and isolation. But more than that, it captures how poverty eats away at dignity, love, even language. Shuggie’s queerness is central, but it’s the class violence—structural, generational, emotional—that cuts deepest. There’s no romanticising it. No political speechifying. Just the slow, daily grind of survival in a world that offers no safety nets.

Translated Fiction

Pachinko, Min Jin lee

A lot of the novels above are British because I am British. But, there is also a range of translated fiction that explores class in other cultures as well. Most notable for me is Pachinko.

Pachinko is about class, yes—but through the long, brutal lens of migration, empire, and generational survival. What it shows so clearly is how class is never just economic. It’s tied to nationality, shame, religion, language, even your name. The Korean characters in this novel are treated as second-class citizens in Japan no matter how hard they work or how much they try to assimilate. And yet they keep going, because they have to.

The title itself—Pachinko—says it all. A rigged game, shiny on the surface, but hollow at the core. Lee traces the way structural oppression gets inherited, how one generation’s trauma becomes the next generation’s burden, and how class mobility isn’t always freedom—it’s often just quieter forms of humiliation. This novel doesn’t just portray class struggle—it historicises it, and refuses to let you look away.

Non Fiction

Women, Race & Class, Angela Davis

Saved the best for last. This isn’t fiction—but it should be required reading for anyone who wants to talk about class without flattening it. Davis doesn’t separate race, gender, and class—she shows how they collide, and how mainstream feminism has historically excluded the voices of working-class women and women of colour. What makes this book so sharp is that it refuses feel-good narratives. It’s not interested in “progress” as some clean arc—it’s about power, labour, exploitation, and the messy, often uncomfortable truths about who gets left behind in liberation movements.

This is just a small list of novels on social class but they are a great place to start if you are interested in the matter or simply wanted some more novels on the topic to read.

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