Ever wanted to have a few moments of peace, to perhaps be taken back in time to different landscapes and lives or problems that are not your own? Have you ever considered reading a classic book to find that peace and exploration? Maybe when you hear the word “classic,” you immediately think of required reading in your high school English class, stuffy old books that bored you to tears. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that classic books can be some of the richest, even most adventurous, reads. I myself have felt that peace and enjoyment as I explored past fictional worlds. But I’m not the only one who enjoys classic books.
In fact, Goodreads has a list of books that everyone should read at least once, and the list includes over 24,000 books, most of them classics, and has been voted on by more than 103,000 voters. I’m going to help you out by boiling that list down to just 60 books I think you’ll enjoy, so you have plenty to choose from, plus quotes from each and links to sites where you can get them for cheap! So here you go: my list of the 60 best classic books to read!
Oh—one quick note: This was my criteria for inclusion on this list, since I (gasp!) haven’t read all 24,000:
- They’ve all been around for at least 20 years. There are plenty of good books that’ve been written in the last 20 years that’re on Goodread’s big list, but I don’t think you can really call a book “classic” until it’s still voted as an essential read by not only the author’s contemporaries but their kids as well.
- I’ve read them and have a copy, so I can speak to their quality.
(Also, a few of the “best deal” links in this list are affiliate links, which means if you purchase that book through that link, I get a small commission. That commission enables me to keep producing good content for you.)
60 Best Classic Books
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Goodreads description:
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. “To Kill A Mockingbird” became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Why Read It
Seeing humankind through the eyes of young girl and the lens of racism in mid-20th century America? Fascinating.
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Goodreads Description
The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud [hater/]beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.
Why Read It
I promise you you’ll have a smile on your face by the end of it, just because Jane Austen’s wit is so en-pointe and it has such a happy ending.
3. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Goodreads Description
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
From Sauron’s fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.
When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.
Why Read It
The pure epicness of Mr. Tolkien’s imagination will amaze you. If you really want to get lost in another world, this is a good place to go.
4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Goodreads Description:
Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt like an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.
But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?
Why Read It
An appreciation for people that love you.
5. Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Goodreads Description
The Chronicles of Narnia encompasses seven books. This is the description for the first book The Magician’s Nephew:
On a daring quest to save a life, two friends are hurled into another world, where an evil sorceress seeks to enslave them. But then the lion Aslan’s song weaves itself into the fabric of a new land, a land that will be known as Narnia. And in Narnia, all things are possible.
Why Read It
Escape. Jack C. Castillo, an Amazon reviewer, said this about reading The Chronicles of Narnia while suffering from Covid: “This book helped me escape into another time and place, that was comforting to me. I read this just before going to bed, instead of worrying about my lungs falling out.”
6. The Giver by Lois Lowry
Goodreads Description
The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community.
Why Read It
It’s a thought-provoking but quick read.
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Goodreads Description
“My greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be… Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure… but as my own being.” Wuthering Heights is the only novel of Emily Bronte, who died a year after its publication, at the age of thirty. A brooding Yorkshire tale of a love that is stronger than death, it is also a fierce vision of metaphysical passion, in which heaven and hell, nature and society, are powerfully juxtaposed.
Why Read It
An appreciation for every normal relationship you’ve ever been in.
8. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Goodreads Description
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of the The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out of work actor.
Together this dynamic pair begin their journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide “A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have” and a galaxy-full of fellow travellers: Zaphod Beeblebrox – the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out to lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod’s girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ball-point pens he has bought over the years.
Why Read It
Pure laughter.
9. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Goodreads Description
Victor Hugo’s tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Inspector Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
Why Read It
Appreciation for not being destitute or having a criminal record.
10. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Goodreads Description
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.
Why Read It
You’ll be surprised at how much has changed since then…and how much remains the same.
11. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Goodreads Description
Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.
Why Read It
I was fascinated by Edmond’s inner revenge journey.
12. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Goodreads Description
A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.
Why Read It
Setting any story against the backdrop of the French Revolution means its either all about the worst in humanity, or the best. It’s interesting to see where this one ends up.
13. Frankenstein
Goodreads Description
Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley’s chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron’s villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world’s most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.
Why Read It
Although containing too much narrative for today’s audiences, it’s still a fascinating read.
14. The Holy Bible
My Description
How can I describe the wonder of a book that not only so fully explores the life and importance of Jesus Christ, but also gives such a layered description of what faith is? The matter of faith, in any religion and/or higher being, is a deeply personal, highly nuanced thing. As such, its pursuit (i.e., understanding of what true faith really is) is also deeply personal; paths to that true understanding are as varied as the people who seek it. But when one finds it…it’s a beautiful thing. And apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks this: the Bible ranked 34th on a list of more than 24,300 books, voted on by more than 102,000 voters.
Why Read It
Regardless of your type of faith or lack thereof, you can find peace within these pages.
15. The Book of Mormon
My Description
Although I’m sure many people would object to this book being included in Goodread’s list of Books That Everyone Should Read At Least Once, on the basis of its association with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (often called “Mormons”), there are at least 4,000 people (between GoodReads and Amazon), including me, that collectively placed it at 99th out of those 24,300 books. This book, like the Bible, helps readers understand Jesus Christ better, and contains many priceless peace pearls.
Why Read It
Peace and understanding
16. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Goodreads Description
The poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall.
Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.
Why Read It
Stories of mercy vs. revenge are the same across cultures and time periods.
17. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Goodreads Description
At one time Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that there would ever be a story to tell. For the first fifty years of her life nothing at all out of the ordinary had ever happened to her. She was an old-maid watchmaker living contentedly with her spinster sister and their elderly father in the tiny Dutch house over their shop. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. However, with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, a story did ensue.
Corrie ten Boom and her family became leaders in the Dutch Underground, hiding Jewish people in their home in a specially built room and aiding their escape from the Nazis. For their help, all but Corrie found death in a concentration camp. The Hiding Place is their story.
Why Read It
The authenticity and faith of Corrie Ten Boom never ceases to amaze.
18. Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l’Engle
Goodreads Description
Out of this wild night, a strange visitor comes to the Murry house and beckons Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O’Keefe on a most dangerous and extraordinary adventure—one that will threaten their lives and our universe.
Winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal, A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in Madeleine L’Engle’s classic Time Quintet.
Why Read It
If you’re not sure if you like sci-fi, or you like it but not with all the politics, violence, or misogyny, you’ll like this.
19. Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl
Goodreads Description
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man’s Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.
Why Read It
See Goodreads description.
20. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Goodreads Description
A lot of professors give talks titled ‘The Last Lecture.’ Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave, ‘Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’, wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
Why Read It
Beth Revis, one of my favorite authors, said this about The Last Lecture: “Do yourself a favor. Read this book. You’ll feel more human afterwards.”
21. Persuasion by Jane Austen
Goodreads Description
At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen’s last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.
Why Read It
I didn’t appreciate this book when I was younger, but now that I’m older, I see and appreciate its depth.
22. Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Goodreads Description
This swashbuckling epic of chivalry, honor, and derring-do, set in France during the 1620s, is richly populated with romantic heroes, unattainable heroines, kings, queens, cavaliers, and criminals in a whirl of adventure, espionage, conspiracy, murder, vengeance, love, scandal, and suspense. Dumas transforms minor historical figures into larger- than-life characters: the Comte d’Artagnan, an impetuous young man in pursuit of glory; the beguilingly evil seductress “Milady”; the powerful and devious Cardinal Richelieu; the weak King Louis XIII and his unhappy queen—and, of course, the three musketeers themselves, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, whose motto “all for one, one for all” has come to epitomize devoted friendship. With a plot that delivers stolen diamonds, masked balls, purloined letters, and, of course, great bouts of swordplay, The Three Musketeers is eternally entertaining.
Why Read It
Fun.
23. Screwtape Letters
Goodreads Description
A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles, seen from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” Those who know and love the book will no doubt agree that the casting of John Cleese as Lewis’ sardonic and apoplectic middle-management devil is, in a word, inspired.
Why Read It
If you’re at all interested in satire, human nature, or religion, you need to read this.
24. Grimm’s Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm
Goodreads Description
The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, were German linguists and cultural researchers who gathered legendary folklore and aimed to collect the stories exactly as they heard them.
Why Read It
Bet you didn’t know that the stories of Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Rumplestilskin, and Tom Thumb all came from folktales that had been orally passed down for centuries. What is it about these stories that has captivated so many for so long?
25. Stranger in a Strange Land
Goodreads Description
Valentine Michael Smith is a human being raised on Mars, newly returned to Earth. Among his people for the first time, he struggles to understand the social mores and prejudices of human nature that are so alien to him, while teaching them his own fundamental beliefs in grokking, watersharing, and love.
Why Read It
I found this book kind of odd. Because Valentine somehow learns some powers, he eventually starts his own church. Read it to see if you disagree with me.
26. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Goodreads Description
Mere Christianity is C.S. Lewis’s forceful and accessible doctrine of Christian belief. First heard as informal radio broadcasts and then published as three separate books – The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality – Mere Christianity brings together what Lewis saw as the fundamental truths of the religion. Rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity’s many denominations, C.S. Lewis finds a common ground on which all those who have Christian faith can stand together, proving that “at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks the same voice.”
Why Read It
To understand what your Christian friends are thinking or, if you’re a Christian yourself, what unifies you with other Christians.
27. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Goodreads Description
Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
Why Read It
As GoodReads reviewer Jeffrey Keeten said, “This book stands on the shoulders of Phineas. He is simply an amazing character who lifts a wallflower of a plot to the level of a masterpiece.”
28. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Goodreads Description
Tess Durbeyfield knows what it is to work hard and expect little. But her life is about to veer from the path trod by her mother and grandmother. When her ne’er-do-well father learns that his family is the last of a long noble line, the d’Urbervilles, he sends Tess on a journey to meet her supposed kin—a journey that will see her victimized by lust, poverty, and hypocrisy. Shaped by an acute sense of social injustice and by a vision of human fate cosmic in scope, her story is a singular blending of harsh realism and poignant beauty. Thomas Hardy created in Tess not a standard Victorian heroine but a woman whose intense vitality shines against the bleak backdrop of a dying way of life. The novel shocked contemporary readers with its honesty and remains a timeless commentary on the human condition.
Why Read It
“Intense vitality.”
29. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Goodreads Description
Millions of copies sold.
New York Times Bestseller.
Named the #1 Most Influential Business Book of the Twentieth Century.
“Every so often a book comes along that not only alters the lives of readers but leaves an imprint on the culture itself. The 7 Habits is one of those books.” —Daniel Pink, New York Times bestselling author of When and Drive
Why Read It
(light going off over your head)
30. Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Goodreads Description
This is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen.
The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.
Why Read It
I seem to be in the minority, having only given this book 3 stars. It has 4.52 out of 5 stars on Goodreads and 4.7 out of 5 on Amazon
31. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Goodreads Description
Written by a superb prose stylist, a master of both action and atmosphere, the story centers upon the conflict between good and evil – but in this case a particularly engaging form of evil. It is the villainy of that most ambiguous rogue Long John Silver that sets the tempo of this tale of treachery, greed, and daring.
Why Read It
Pirate fun.
32. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Goodreads Description
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future — to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire — both scientists and scholars — and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind’s last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun — or fight them and be destroyed.
Why Read It
Although I’m usually not a fan of “hard” sci-fi, I was really intrigued by the premise that was basically knowledge could solve everything.
33. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
Goodreads Description
It is the amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a maze and look for cheese to nourish them and make them happy. Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life, for example a good job, a loving relationship, money or possessions, health or spiritual peace of mind. The maze is where you look for what you want, perhaps the organisation you work in, or the family or community you live in. The problem is that the cheese keeps moving.
In the story, the characters are faced with unexpected change in their search for the cheese. One of them eventually deals with change successfully and writes what he has learned on the maze walls for you to discover.
Why Read It
Easy to read. Surprising insights.
34. Eye of the World (Wheel of Time #1) by Robert Jordan
Goodreads Description
When The Two Rivers is attacked by Trollocs-a savage tribe of half-men, half-beasts- five villagers flee that night into a world they barely imagined, with new dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.
Why Read It
If you like epic fantasy at all (think Lord of the Rings), this book should definitely be on your TBR list.
35. 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
My Description
The idea is that everyone has their own “love language,” or expression of love that carries more weight for them. For some, it’s words of affirmation. For others, it’s acts of service. Others, quality time. Others, gifts. Others. touch. Once you find the right language to convey love to a particular person, whether it be a spouse, child, parents, etc., you have a much better chance at having a good relationship with that person.
Why Read It
Want a better relationship with a loved one? What do you have to lose by reading this book?
36. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
Goodreads Description
It’s the classic true story of a woman possessed by sixteen personalities. Here is the unbelievable of Sybil Dorsett, a survivor of terrible childhood abuse who as an adult was a victim of sudden and mysterious blackouts. What happened during those blackouts has made Sybil’s experience one of the most famous psychological cases in the world.
Why Read It
Although the diagnosis of multiple personalities or D.I.D. is still a controversial one, you can’t help but be convinced that’s what Sybil had, as evidenced both by her and her psychologist’s experience.
37. Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
Goodreads Description
Armed with only his wits and his cunning, one man recklessly defies the French revolutionaries and rescues scores of innocent men, women, and children from the deadly guillotine. His friends and foes know him only as the Scarlet Pimpernel. But the ruthless French agent Chauvelin is sworn to discover his identity and to hunt him down.
Why Read It
The characterization is so en pointe.
38. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Goodreads Description
Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in the fictional county of Wessex, Hardy’s novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.
Why Read It
If you like dark stories, this book is for you.
39. Contact by Carl Sagan
My Description
Ellie Arroway’s been listening to the stars for years, sure that if she listens hard enough and for long enough, she’ll hear aliens trying to contact us. But when she does finally catch a signal, it’s not easy to understand. Getting others involved to help her ferret out its meaning means that, eventually, the White House gets involved. In fact, every body wants to get involved, even those who never believed she’d find a signal in the first place. Trying to maintain enough control so that she can at least be the first human to make face-to-face first contact with the aliens is a monumental struggle. Because, y’know, humans. And that struggle is nothing compared to what she faces later.
Why Read It
As a hopeless sci-fi devotee, I know I’m biased but I still recommend this book for all the fascinating “what-ifs.” If you liked the understated-but-high-concept vibe of the Arrival and Interstellar movies, you’ll love this book.
40. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Goodreads Description
Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.
Why Read It
Again, the sci-fi thing, only this is the “softer” kind, focused more on the characters than the politics and world-building. Which isn’t to say there isn’t world-building.
41. Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Goodreads Description
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.
A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.
Why Read It
Neil Gaiman always strikes this amazing balance between contemporary, everyday fiction and there’s-a-whole-lot-out-there-we-don’t-understand narrative.
42. Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis
My Description
This is a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche Greek myth, only it’s told from the point of view of the older half-sister of Psyche. It’s divided into two parts. In the first, because of things that happen to Psyche, Orual, the half-sister, is angry at the gods. In the second, Orual comes to understand that the trials that both Psyche and she have gone through have actually been for their good, and the gods aren’t who she thought they were.
Why Read It
Because it’s written by C.S. Lewis. For reals.
43. Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Abe Books Description
When the mysterious and beautiful young widow Helen Graham becomes the new tenant at Wildfell Hall, rumors immediately begin to swirl around her. As her neighbor Gilbert Markham comes to discover, Helen has painful secrets buried in her past that even his love for her cannot easily overcome.
Why Read It
You might enjoy the epistolic way the story is told (kind of like Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff only much older). Some say this is the first feminist book because of what’s revealed about Helen Graham’s past and how she reacts to it.
44. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Wikipedia’s Description
Ender’s Game is a 1985 military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. Set at an unspecified date in Earth’s future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind after two conflicts with the Formics, an insectoid alien species they dub the “buggers”. In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, Earth’s international military force recruits young children, including the novel’s protagonist, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, to be trained as elite officers. The children learn military strategy and leadership by playing increasingly difficult war games, including some in zero gravity, where Ender’s tactical genius is revealed.
Why Read It
Fascinating, thought-provoking premise, more for adults than kids.
45. Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Goodreads Description
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character’, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
Why Read It
Reviewer Karen says it all: “this one is such a perfect cause-and-effect, every-action-has-a-reaction kind of book, that it should really be his most popular and successful, instead of tess, which by comparison, is pure melodrama.”
46. These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, by Nancy E. Turner
Goodreads Description
A moving, exciting, and heartfelt American saga inspired by the author’s own family memoirs, these words belong to Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon—from child to determined young adult to loving mother—she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her, and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.
Why Read It
Gives you a desire to find your own ancestral stories.
47. Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Goodreads Description
This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows..
Why Read It
Again, I’m all about science fiction, which poses the question of what mankind would do if…
48. You Are Special by Max Lucado
Goodreads Description
In the town of Wemmickville there lives a Wemmick named Punchinello. Each day the residents award stickers–gold stars for the talented, smart, and attractive Wemmicks, and gray dots for those who make mistakes or are just plain ordinary. Punchinello, covered in gray dots, begins to feel worthless. Then one day he visits Eli the woodcarver, his creator, and he learns that his worth comes from a different source.
Max Lucado’s beautiful story reminds us that we are special to God just the way we are. Parents and children alike will enjoy this touching portrayal of an eternal truth.
Why Read It
Such a beautiful truth, expressed so simply. Can’t help but make you feel good.
49. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
Goodreads Description
In this second book in the [Ender’s Game] saga, Ender Wiggin is reviled by history as the Xenocide–the destroyer of the alien Buggers. In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.
Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens’ ways are strange and frightening…again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery…and the truth.
Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card’s Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Why Read It
If you liked the Ender’s Game movie, you’ll most likely hate this book. I did. If you didn’t like the movie, however, and are looking for something more adult and philosophical, you’ll enjoy this.
50. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., & William D. Danko, Ph.D.
My Description
It’d be interesting to know if the facts this book revealed about millionaires in 1998, when it was published, still hold true today. Basically, the authors showed that most people we see as millionaires (maybe billionaires weren’t a thing yet back then?) are really drowning in debt. The more common, more actual millionaires are the ones that live next door in your middle-class neighborhood. They’re millionaires because they:
- live well below their means, which means they spend less than they make.
- are first-generation millionaires. They didn’t inherit any wealth.
- believe that financial independence is more important than high social status
- train their kids to be survivors and economically independent.
- chose the right occupation
- made good, strategic investments
In short, they’re millionaires not because they make tons of money; they’re millionaires because they’re wise with the money they’ve got.
Why Read It
Good, sound financial advice.
51. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Goodreads Description
Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in…Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.
Why Read It
Interesting AND funny.
52. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Goodreads Description
For Kivrin, preparing an on-site, [real-time] study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity’s history [the bubonic plague of 1320 b.c.] was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.
But a crisis strangely linking past and future [read: a pandemic] strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin–barely of age herself–finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.
Why Read It
This doesn’t have the convolutions of other time travel books. Instead, it’s basically two plot lines playing out in two very different centuries, with the common thread being plagues of one sort or another and how people react to them.
53. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
My Description
No book by Dr. Seuss is just a simple rhyming book, although there is that. It’s a fun read, best enjoyed with your kids, if you have ’em.
Why Read It
As mentioned, a fun, simple read.
54. Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
Goodreads Description
Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives: they are determined that she know only contentment.
But Sorcha’s joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift—by staying silent. If she speaks before she completes the quest set to her by the Fair Folk and their queen, the Lady of the Forest, she will lose her brothers forever.
When Sorcha is kidnapped by the enemies of Sevenwaters and taken to a foreign land, she is torn between the desire to save her beloved brothers, and a love that comes only once. Sorcha despairs at ever being able to complete her task, but the magic of the Fair Folk knows no boundaries, and love is the strongest magic of them all.
Why Read It
Most reviewers loved it for the story and the relationship between Sorcha and her brothers. Be forewarned, though: there is a graphic rape scene. I stopped reading at that point.
55. Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
My description
This is the second book in the Anne of Green Gables series, following vivacious Anne as she turns 16, starts teaching school, discovers new orphans at Green Gables, and finds Gilbert Blythe less irritating and more interesting than he was before.
Why Read It
If you’ve read it before, re-read it for nostalgia’s sake. If you haven’t, read it for the sake of being carried away by a well-drawn character.
56. A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel
Goodreads Description
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965 in Mooreland, Indiana, it was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed “Zippy” for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period—people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.
To three-year-old Zippy, it made perfect sense to strike a bargain with her father to keep her baby bottle—never mind that when she did, it was the first time she’d ever spoken. In her nonplussed family, Zippy has the perfect supporting cast: her beautiful yet dour brother, Danny, a seeker of the true faith; her sweetly sensible sister, Lindy, who wins the local beauty pageant; her mother, Delonda, who dispenses wisdom from the corner of the couch; and her father, Bob Jarvis, who never met a bet he didn’t like.
Whether describing a serious case of chicken love, another episode with the evil Edythe across the street, or the night Zippy’s dad borrowed thirty-six coon dogs and a raccoon to prove to the complaining neighbors just how quiet his two dogs were, Kimmel treats readers to a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and shy as she navigates the quirky adult world surrounding Zippy.
Why Read It
This is guffaw-worthy funny.
57. Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
Goodreads Description
Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home. Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnapped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk’s local Nac Mac Feegle – aka the Wee Free Men – a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny. Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds – black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors – before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone.
Why Read It
Because sarcasm.
58. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Goodreads Description
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. Wanderer, the invading “soul” who has been given Melanie’s body, didn’t expect to find its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
As Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who still lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she’s never met. Reluctant allies, Wanderer and Melanie set off to search for the man they both love.
Why Read It
I think it’s a seminal book in the sci-fi genre, but who am I to say?
59. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Goodreads Description
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know.
Why Read It
YA fantasy + romance at its finest.
60. The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield
Goodreads Description
All children mythologize their birth…So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter’s collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself — all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter’s story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.
As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.
Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida’s storytelling but remains suspicious of the author’s sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.
Why Read It
Because there needed to be a horror tale in this mix. If you like “feral” reads or mysteries with dark twists, this one’s for you.
So there you have it! Sixty of the best classic books! Enjoy!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think?
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