Recommendations
Books Like Roots
Best books to read after Roots by Arnold Wesker
Readers who love Roots by Arnold Wesker are drawn to its combination of authentic working-class voice, the devastating ending in which Beatie discovers her own voice in the moment of losing Ronnie, and the investigation of the gap between socialist idealism and working-class reality — they want plays and novels that deal with class awakening, the Wesker Trilogy tradition, and the political drama of the British postwar stage.
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Buy on AmazonChicken Soup with Barley
by Arnold Wesker
The first play of the Wesker Trilogy — the Kahn family in the East End. The companion investigation of the same world from the Kahn family's perspective: the Jewish socialist immigrants and the erosion of their hopes from the battle of Cable Street to the Hungarian uprising
- 2
Buy on AmazonI'm Talking About Jerusalem
by Arnold Wesker
The last play of the Wesker Trilogy — Dave and Ada trying to live by craft socialism in Norfolk. The companion investigation of the utopian impulse that Beatie's story exposes: Dave and Ada try to live by the values that Ronnie preaches, and the play records their failure
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Buy on AmazonLook Back in Anger
by John Osborne
The companion in the British working-class drama tradition — Jimmy Porter's class rage. The companion play of the same period: both Wesker and Osborne are investigating the class system from the inside, but where Osborne's subject is rage, Wesker's is the gap between socialist idealism and working-class reality
- 4
Buy on AmazonA Taste of Honey
by Shelagh Delaney
The companion in the British working-class drama tradition — Jo in Salford. The companion play organized around a working-class woman's attempt to navigate the world she is in; both Jo and Beatie are defined by their resilience and by their capacity for genuine relationship
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Buy on AmazonSaturday Night and Sunday Morning
by Alan Sillitoe
Sillitoe's companion novel in the angry young man tradition — Arthur Seaton at the lathe. The companion prose work: an investigation of the same working-class world from a male perspective, organized around the same gap between working-class culture and the idealism that tries to address it
- 6Buy on Amazon
The Kitchen
by Arnold Wesker
Wesker's companion play about the workers in a restaurant kitchen. The companion investigation of working-class labor from the inside: the kitchen as a metaphor for the alienation of industrial labor, and Wesker's most theatrical formal strategy
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Buy on AmazonChips with Everything
by Arnold Wesker
Wesker's companion play about the RAF in the 1950s — a middle-class young man who sides with the working-class conscripts. The companion investigation of the British class system from the inside: Wesker's most explicitly political play about how class identity is reproduced in institutions
- 8Buy on Amazon
The Room at the Top
by John Braine
Braine's companion in the angry young man tradition — Joe Lampton's ambition to escape his working-class origins. The companion novel: where Beatie Bryant discovers her own voice by losing Ronnie, Joe Lampton discovers the cost of betraying his class by gaining what he wanted
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