Ask HN: Book that exalts man's spirit?

Faulkner, in his Nobel Price acceptance speech, wrote this:

“[Man] has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.”

What book have you read -- no matter the author, no matter its age or genre -- that has done exactly this for you?