As soon as it first appeared in 1953, this gem by the great Saul Bel­low was hailed as an Amer­i­can clas­sic. Bold, expan­sive, and keen­ly humor­ous, The Adven­tures of Augie March blends street lan­guage with lit­er­ary ele­gance to tell the sto­ry of a poor Chica­go boy grow­ing up dur­ing the Great Depres­sion. A ​“born recruit,” Augie makes him­self avail­able for hire by plungers, schemers, risk tak­ers, and oper­a­tors, com­pil­ing a record of choic­es that is — to say the least — eccentric.