My parents had The Gulag Archipelago, by Alzexander Solzhenitsyn, on the shelf. At sixteen I pulled it down and read it through, both volumes, cover to cover.

My parents were worried that it would send me into a depressive spiral. This was probably a valid concern, but for some reason it didn't. Instead, I felt saddened, but also in a strange way uplifted. Like I'd borne witness to something that more people should know about and remember.

So nowadays I feel like everyone should read at least one book in their life, that calls them to bear witness to man's capacity for inhumanity.