literary history books

100 monumental novels from literary history

Almost 4,000 years ago, an unknown scholar in ancient Mesopotamia wrote the first known book on a series of clay tablets. The story was “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” a fictionalized recounting of the life of an ancient king of Uruk. While the art of telling stories dates back even further, this singular epic poem is in large part responsible for the development of literature as we know it today.

In the millennia since this story was first written down, there have been millions, if not billions, more books written and published. A voracious reader could charge through a stack a day and not even make a dent in the world’s literary canon. This truth poses a problem for many readers: How does one know which few thousand books to read in a lifetime? How do you determine which are worth the time and brain space, and which are not?

Today, Stacker helps readers solve this age-old quandary—at least when it comes to novels. We’ve dug through the literature of the world, using sources like Goodreads, awards lists, and New York Times Best Seller columns to round up 100 monumental novels everyone should read before they die. These books are important for a variety of reasons. Some made the list because of the powerful stories they tell. Some made the list because of the way their form or style changed writing as a whole. Some made the list because of the representation they give to underseen and undervalued cultures or identities, and some made the list simply because, like “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” their very existence changed the course of the world.

Two caveats to note before diving into the following pages. Only novels (including some ancient epic poems) were considered for the list. So many important and influential authors, like William Shakespeare and Niccolò Machiavelli, have been left out, not because their contributions aren’t great but because they never authored long-form fictional narratives. Also, for many of these works, especially the earlier ones, an exact publication date is difficult to nail down. In an effort to remain consistent, we consulted Goodreads for all publication years.

So, from ancient Greek epics like “The Odyssey” to modern hits like “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” read on to find out which novels Stacker considers must-reads.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

- Author: Anonymous - Date published: 1800 B.C.

Literary scholars agree that “ The Epic of Gilgamesh ” is the oldest existing piece of written fiction in the world. Early versions of the text, which is an epic poem detailing the adventures of a real-life Sumerian King named Gilgamesh, date as far back as approximately 1800 B.C.  However, the most complete versions of this foundational text are more recent, dating from the  12th century B.C.

- Author: Homer - Date published: 750 B.C.

“ The Iliad ” is an epic poem about the roles of men and gods during the Trojan War. Another foundational text of world literature, the poem is attributed to the blind poet Homer. For centuries, scholars have debated whether Homer really existed , with many believing the poem may have actually been written by a group of individuals over a long period of time.

The Odyssey

- Author: Homer - Date published: 700 B.C.

You can hardly mention “The Iliad” without also mentioning “ The Odyssey .” The epic poem tells the story of Odysseus’s journey home from the Trojan War, as he battles monsters, fates, and gods to return to his home and family. Just as “The Iliad” set the stage for future groundbreaking pieces of war literature, so did “The Odyssey” set the stage for adventure tales.

The Panchatantra

- Author: Vishnu Sharma - Date published: 300 B.C.

Originally written in Sanskrit, “ The Panchatantra ” is a collection of fables and folklore that gives instruction on how to live. While the book itself is an important piece of Indian literature, it’s also representative of an entire genre of folklore, fairy tales, and fables that began to be transcribed around this time. Eventually, these types of stories went on to be the foundation for today’s fantasy genre.

- Author: Virgil - Date published: 19 B.C.

Another epic poem originally written in Latin, “ The Aeneid ” tells the story of Aeneas and includes legend of the founding of Rome. This tale from 19 B.C. is one of the earliest known examples of historical fiction.

Metamorphoses

- Author: Ovid - Date published: 8 A.D.

No list of monumental novels would be complete without Ovid’s “ Metamorphoses ,” a masterpiece of ancient literature. A narrative poem, the book chronicles the history of the world, tying together all existing myths and histories from the beginning of the world up through the rule of Julius Caesar. It is thought to have inspired later literary greats like William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, and Salman Rushdie.

The Satyricon

- Author: Petronius - Date published: 66

“ The Satyricon ” is a satiric mock epic about an impotent man’s quest to regain virility. It built on the satire established by the Roman writers who first introduced it. Similar in tone to books by authors like David Sedaris, the hilarious, tongue-in-cheek tale surely inspired other famous comic writers in the millennia since.

Daphnis and Chloe

- Author: Longus - Date published: 150

One of few surviving examples of an ancient Greek novel, “ Daphnis and Chloe ” is Longus’s only known work. A pastoral romance, the book follows two young orphans, a shepherdess, and a goatherd as they attempt to figure out how to consummate their love. The work has inspired dozens of artists since, including Shakespeare, Henry Fielding, and Maurice Ravel.

The Golden Ass

- Author: Apuleius - Date published: 158

“ The Golden Ass ” is the only novel written in Latin that has survived in its entirety. A story of magic and romance, it follows a young man who attempts to turn himself into a bird but ends up as a donkey instead. By turns bawdy, sweet, and fantastic, this early novel will hold your attention from beginning to end.

- Author: Anonymous - Date published: 900

Jumping ahead several hundred years, we come to “ Beowulf ,” an Anglo-Saxon epic poem. Written in Old English, the story follows the titular hero as he fights a monster, the monster’s mother, and a dragon, eventually becoming the king of modern-day Scotland. The book is similar to books like “Le Morte d’Arthur” and “The Once and Future King” in that it mixes fantasy with history.

The Tale of Genji

- Author: Murasaki Shikibu - Date published: 1008

Widely considered the world’s first novel, “ The Tale of Genji ” is a look at courtly life in Japan’s Heian period. The book is also significant in that it was written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu, who worked as a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court. While the original manuscript, written in an archaic form of Japanese, no longer exists, scholars have around 300 others from the same time period.

The Song of the Cid

- Author: Anonymous - Date published: 1140

One of the earliest pieces of Spanish literature, “ The Song of the Cid ” is an epic based on real-life events that tells the tale of a Castilian hero who works to liberate his beloved Spain from its Moorish captors. The novel is significant in that it brought Islamic and Spanish literature to the world stage.

The Arabian Nights

- Author: Anonymous - Date published: 1315

Some scholars consider “ The Arabian Nights ” to be the greatest Arabic, Islamic, and Middle Eastern contribution to world literature. The novel is a collection of short stories (mainly fables and folklore) tied together by a framing device. The tales included in this work have shaped thousands of novels and Hollywood productions and continue to act collectively as a “ monument to the ageless art of storytelling ,” according to Arab culture specialist Dr. Muhannad Salhi.

The Divine Comedy

- Author: Dante Alighieri - Date published: 1320

When discussing Dante Alighieri’s “ Divine Comedy ,” the BBC called it “Western literature’s very own theory of everything.” A massively important piece of world literature, the nearly 1,000-page tome is an Italian poem from the Middle Ages about a man’s journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven in pursuit of his great love.

The Outlaws of the Marsh

- Author: Shi Nai’an - Date published: 1370

“ Outlaws of the Marsh ” is the first of China’s four great classical novels, works whose stories have permeated the country’s culture so thoroughly that citizens of all ages are familiar with them. Set during the Song Dynasty, it tells the story of 108 men and women forced into the hills by feudal governments who band together to form an army, are granted amnesty, and then fight for their country against various foes.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

- Author: Unknown - Date published: 1397

Written by an unknown poet, “ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ” is considered on par with Chaucer’s works and “Beowulf” in both content and form. One of the best-known Arthurian tales, the story follows a Knight of the Round Table who accepts a challenge from a mysterious knight, undertaking a year-long quest and entering into a chivalrous romance along the way. Famed fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien is a known fan of the novel.

The Canterbury Tales

- Author: Geoffrey Chaucer - Date published: 1400

There are over 90 manuscripts of Chaucer’s “ The Canterbury Tales ” from the 1400s that still exist, a testament to its enormous popularity in its time. Written in medieval English, the book follows a group of 31 pilgrims as they make their way from Tabard Inn to Canterbury Cathedral. In order to pass the time, the members of this fictional group agree to tell two tales each on the way out and two tales each on the way back. While the work was never finished, it remains hugely influential in pop culture today.

- Author: Thomas More - Date published: 1516

An early example of sociopolitical satirical fiction, Thomas More’s “ Utopia ” is the story of a fictional island’s various customs. Written in Latin, the book is seen by modern scholars as an example of utopian/dystopian science fiction and certainly must have influenced modern works like “The Handmaid’s Tale” or “The Hunger Games.”

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

- Author: Luo Guanzhong - Date published: 1522

Set toward the end of the Han Dynasty, “ Romance of the Three Kingdoms ” is another of China’s four great classical novels. A mix of real history, legend, and myth, the book has hundreds of characters but primarily follows three feudal lords as they attempt to replace and restore the crumbling dynasty. The most well-known section follows Liu Pei and his sworn brothers Chang Fei, a giant, and Kuan Yu, an invincible knight, who are aided by a wizard named Chuko Liang and fight for control over the Han throne.

The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities

- Author: Anonymous - Date published: 1554

The crown jewel of the Spanish Golden Age, “ The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and His Fortunes and Adversities ” is an example of a picaresque novel or one that follows the adventures of a lovable, low-class hero who relies on his wits and “street knowledge” to get by. For centuries scholars have worked to determine the author of the novel, but haven’t been able to come to a conclusive decision.

The Faerie Queene

- Author: Edmund Spenser - Date published: 1590

The first epic written in English, “ The Faerie Queene ” went on to inspire some of the world’s most famous poets and novelists like John Milton and Alfred Tennyson. Edmund Spenser’s allegorical work tells the story of several knights who are representative of different virtues, and the work as a whole is meant to glorify Queen Elizabeth I.

Monkey: The Journey to the West

- Author: Wu Cheng’en - Date published: 1592

The third of China’s four great classical novels, “ The Journey to the West ” is considered by some to be the most popular novel of all time in East Asia. (The addition of "Monkey" to the title comes from the definitive English translation.) Another picaresque novel, this book follows a monk as he journeys to the western regions of Asia in order to collect sacred texts, receiving help from spirits and gods, and fighting monsters and ogres along the way.

Don Quixote

- Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - Date published: 1605

Clocking in at over 1,000 pages, “ Don Quixote ” is considered by many to be the first modern novel . Published in 1605, the book is about a nobleman, Alonso Quijano, who is obsessed with chivalric romances and decides to become a knight errant himself. Unfortunately for the newly knighted Don Quixote de la Mancha, the world no longer has any use for medieval knights. Sancho Panza, the intelligent squire in "Don Quixote," established the enduring "sidekick" character. 

Paradise Lost

- Author: John Milton - Date published: 1667

An epic work in both scale and ambition, John Milton’s “ Paradise Lost ” is one of the greatest novels-in-verse ever written in the English language. It tells the story of the biblical fall of man as it happened, taking place in heaven, hell, and on Earth.

The Pilgrim’s Progress

- Author: John Bunyan - Date published: 1678

At one point in history, Christianity and culture were so intertwined that almost every popular work had heavy religious influences. “ The Pilgrim’s Progress ” is a perfect example of this. Enormously influential in its time, the allegorical tale follows a man’s journey through life as he searches for salvation. Even today, John Bunyan’s book remains one of the most widely read books written in English.

Robinson Crusoe

- Author: Daniel Defoe - Date published: 1719

When Daniel Defoe’s “ Robinson Crusoe ” was first published, it listed Crusoe himself as the author , leading many to believe that it was a real-life travelogue and not a fictitious adventure tale. To this day, many critics point to the book, which covers 30 years of a castaway’s life on a deserted island, as the beginning of realistic fiction.

Gulliver’s Travels

- Author: Jonathan Swift - Date published: 1726

Where Daniel Defoe set out to write a realistic travelogue, Johnathan Swift set out to satirize the popular genre. Fans both past and present love the tale about a wayfaring seaman who finds himself in far-flung foreign lands like Lilliput and Laputa. Immensely popular when it was first released, “ Gulliver’s Travels ” sold out its initial print run in a matter of days.

- Author: Voltaire - Date published: 1759

Voltaire’s most celebrated work, “ Candide ” is, on its surface, the tale of a gentleman who embarks on grand and romantic adventures all around the world while constantly being battered by fate. On a deeper level, the story is an attack on the philosophical idea that “all is for the best” and that we live in the “best of all possible worlds.”

Dream of the Red Chamber

- Author: Xueqin Cao - Date published: 1791

The last of China’s four great classical novels, “ Dream of the Red Chamber ” has an entire field of scholarship called “Redology” devoted to it. Generally regarded as the greatest novel to ever come out of China , the book is one part romance, one part history of one of the world’s greatest nations, and one part family history. The full work spans three lengthy volumes, but the heart of the story has been edited down into a single book for modern readers.

Pride and Prejudice

- Author: Jane Austen - Date published: 1813

An immediate success upon publication, “ Pride and Prejudice ” remains one of the most read English language novels in the world. Jane Austen’s classic love story has inspired hundreds of other novels, movies, and TV shows, and her romantic leads, the opinionated Elizabeth and proud Mr. Darcy, are some of the most dazzling and recognizable characters ever written.

Frankenstein

- Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly - Date published: 1818

Many literary scholars see Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly’s “ Frankenstein ” as the  the first science-fiction story ever written. The gothic horror novel tells the story of a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who creates a sapient creature in his lab and then unleashes him on the world. It would be hard to overstate its influence on modern pop culture.

- Author: Nikolai Gogol - Date published: 1842

Although scholars and readers constantly debate what Gogol was attempting to do with “ Dead Souls ,” there’s no debating its importance in the canon of Russian literature. The novel, which ends in the middle of a sentence, follows a middle-class man, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, as he wanders around the motherland collecting the names of dead serfs while encountering dozens of other middle-class people. While the book certainly won’t appeal to everyone, it provides an excellent picture of Russia during the 19th century.

The Three Musketeers

- Author: Alexandre Dumas - Date published: 1844

“ The Three Musketeers ” is considered by some to be the most famous historical novel of all time. Alexandre Dumas’s most celebrated work is actually about four swordsmen (D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis) whose bond of friendship carries them through many an adventure, battle, and romance relatively unharmed.

- Author: Charlotte Bronte - Date published: 1847

Literary critic Daniel S. Burt has called Charlotte Bronte “the first historian of the private consciousness” thanks to her novel “ Jane Eyre ,” the first to focus on a lead character’s moral and spiritual development. Well ahead of its time, this romantic novel follows the titular Jane Eyre through a rough childhood, as a student and teacher at a school, and then—in what readers remember best about the novel—as she accepts a job as governess and slowly begins to fall for her mysterious employer, Mr. Rochester.

Wuthering Heights

- Author: Emily Bronte - Date published: 1847

Charlotte Bronte’s younger sister Emily wrote “ Wuthering Heights ,” a classic example of a gothic novel. The book, about the ill-fated love between Heathcliff and Catherine, contains elements of the supernatural, a host of scandals, and more than one love triangle.

The Scarlet Letter

- Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne - Date published: 1850

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “ The Scarlet Letter ” is significant for two reasons. It is the first novel to draw from the puritan roots of the United States, taking a good hard look at the negative effects our country’s rigid morality can have on individual lives. It is also one of the few examples of a novel influenced by the transcendentalist movement , which had a huge impact on modern American philosophy.

- Author: Herman Melville - Date published: 1851

Widely regarded as one of the “greatest works of imagination” in American literary history, per Goodreads, “ Moby-Dick ” is, at its heart, a meditation on America. On the surface, however, the book is an action-packed tale of a madman’s pursuit of an unknowable sea creature.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

- Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe - Date published: 1851

In the same way “Moby-Dick” is imaginative, “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin ” is unflinchingly based in reality. Scandalous in its time for its antislavery sentiments, the book has more than earned its place in American literary history. Abraham Lincoln credited the story, which was written by a white housewife morally opposed to slavery, with igniting the flame that became the Civil War .

Madame Bovary

- Author: Gustave Flaubert - Date published: 1857

A story about a bored wife’s affairs and romantic fantasies, “ Madame Bovary ” was so scandalous at the time of its publication that it caused a public outcry and wound up banned in multiple countries. With a complicated main character who is self-obsessed and morally corrupt, many readers feel that Flaubert’s central message was one of finding happiness and fulfillment with what life hands you, rather than always searching for greener grass somewhere else.

A Tale of Two Cities

- Author: Charles Dickens - Date published: 1859

No such list would be complete without an entry from Charles Dickens, who is often considered the best writer of the Victorian era. In “ A Tale of Two Cities ,” Dickens spins a story of political prisoners, reunited families, romantic love, and the events that lead up to the French Revolution. The book is one of the best-selling novels of all time.

Les Miserables

- Author: Victor Hugo - Date published: 1862

Another novel set in the midst of the French Revolution, “ Les Miserables ” made the radical move of featuring a working-class hero. A story of love and redemption, Victor Hugo’s famous work is, in simplistic terms, a cat-and-mouse tale featuring Jean Valjean, an altruistic ex-convict, and Inspector Javert, a policeman focused more on retribution than justice. Incredibly layered and nuanced, the 1,300-page novel rewards those who manage to read the whole thing.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

- Author: Lewis Carroll - Date published: 1865

Ever since the first publication of Lewis Carroll’s “ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ” in 1865, the fantasy tale about a girl who falls into a subterranean world has never been out of print. Considered one of the best examples of literary nonsense fiction, the book has had an enormous impact on our culture and on more recent fantasy tales.

War and Peace

- Author: Leo Tolstoy - Date published: 1867

“ War and Peace ” is an epic saga that chronicles Napoleon’s invasion of czarist Russia and the multitude of ways it affected life for the average citizen. Arguably Leo Tolstoy’s best work, the novel is a world classic.

Little Women

- Author: Louisa May Alcott - Date published: 1868

Another author who was heavily influenced by the transcendentalist movement in America is Louisa May Alcott. Her book “ Little Women ,” about four sisters during the Civil War era, is far too often classified as girls’ or women’s literature. But the novel’s much deeper themes of family duty, death, gender roles, and personal ambition have value for all readers.

The Brothers Karamazov

- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Date published: 1879

No other book on our list has earned as much international acclaim as “ The Brothers Karamazov .” The Russian novel earned this praise thanks to the way it tackles tough topics like the existence of God, free will, faith, doubt, reason, and morality. A story of a murder within a family, the epic was author Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s last work.

The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants

- Author: Shi Yukun - Date published: 1879

Another well-known piece of Chinese literature, “ The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants ” follows a Robin Hood-esque character named Lord Bao and the men who make up his court as they fight crime and corruption all over China. An absorbing tale, the book also gives international audiences a look at how influential Confucian philosophies were in the country.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

- Author: Mark Twain - Date published: 1884

“ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ” is a direct sequel to Mark Twain’s other famous work, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” The novel follows the titular Huckleberry Finn, a boy who runs away from his small town with Jim, an enslaved boy who escapes his enslavers. The two go on a series of wild adventures on the Mississippi River. The novel is notable not just for its commentary on racism in America , but also for being the first book to use vernacular English throughout.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

- Author: Oscar Wilde - Date published: 1890

A study of man’s vanity, cruelty, selfishness, and hedonistic impulses, “ The Picture of Dorian Gray ” was considered so immoral when it was first published that it was heavily censored. The only novel ever written by Oscar Wilde, the book is about a young man who essentially sells his soul to the devil in order to obtain eternal youth. Although the story is incredibly dark, the slim novel is easily readable and accessible for modern-day audiences.

- Author: Bram Stoker - Date published: 1897

“ Dracula ” is a gothic horror novel about the vampire Count Dracula, who attempts to leave his native Transylvania in search of fresh blood and new victims. A genuinely chilling read, the book is notable not just for its own content but for the various ways it has shaped fantasy literature and the thousands of vampire stories it inspired.

Heart of Darkness

- Author: Joseph Conrad - Date published: 1899

The final 19th-century book on our list, “ Heart of Darkness ” is about a ferryboat captain’s obsession with an ivory trader and his suspicion that this trader is not a genius like everyone believes—but insane. At its core, the book is an argument that there is very little separating the "savage" (the protagonist’s racist conception of Black men) from civilized people—at heart, we’re really all the same. "Heart of Darkness" has inspired numerous adaptations, the most well-known probably being Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now."

- Author: Upton Sinclair - Date published: 1905

Upton Sinclair’s “ The Jungle ” is about the tragic lives of an immigrant family in Chicago. Although Sinclair intended the book to reveal how horrifically immigrants were being exploited and how desperately he thought the country needed to turn to socialism, many readers walked away more focused on the unsanitary practices of the meat industry that he exposed. In this area, the novel did lead to an abundance of reforms and changes, including the Meat Inspection Act .

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

- Author: James Weldon Johnson - Date published: 1912

When “ The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man ” was first published, it was attributed to an anonymous author, as publishers weren’t sure how its unflinching examination of race in America was going to be received. The emotional novel follows a Black man who “passes” for white as he journeys from the rural South to the exclusive suburbs of the Northeast. Wildly successful, the book inspired a generation of Black authors and many Harlem Renaissance works.

Swann’s Way

- Author: Marcel Proust - Date published: 1913

“ Swann’s Way ” is the first volume in Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time,” which fictionalizes his youth in Belle Epoque France. Described as a “ perfect rendering of life in art ,” the book deals with the themes of childhood, involuntary memory, and the meaning of an individual life.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

- Author: Agatha Christie - Date published: 1920

“ The Mysterious Affair at Styles ” was Agatha Christie’s debut novel. While the book, which sees Christie’s most beloved character Hercule Poirot solve a murder, may not be regarded as her best work, it still is worthy of inclusion as it started her on the path toward becoming the best-selling fiction author of all time.

- Author: Hermann Hesse - Date published: 1922

Written in German, “ Siddhartha ” is about a wealthy Indian man who leaves his charmed life behind in order to find spiritual fulfillment and meaning. A mix of various religious philosophies and cultures, the book didn’t become popular in the United States until the '50s and '60s, when it had a major influence on the counterculture generation.

- Author: James Joyce - Date published: 1922

A modernist masterpiece, “ Ulysses ” is about a single day in the life of a Dubliner named Leopold Bloom, alongside a host of his friends and acquaintances. Written in a stream of consciousness, nothing really notable happens in the book, leading many readers to give up far short of the 700-plus-page end. Still, the book is a major achievement in 20th-century literature thanks to its experimental narrative techniques and subtle humor.

The Magic Mountain

- Author: Thomas Mann - Date published: 1924

Hugely influential in German literary history, “ Magic Mountain ” is another novel that doesn’t have any real central plot. In fact, scholars and readers have debated for years over what this book is about, other than the destructiveness and cynical attitudes of civilization.

Mrs. Dalloway

- Author: Virginia Woolf - Date published: 1925

“ Mrs. Dalloway ” covers a single day in the titular character’s life as she prepares for a party. Going about her errands and chores, Mrs. Dalloway reflects on the choices that led her to this particular moment and wonders about what the future will hold. Virginia Woolf’s famous work is significant because it demonstrates that novels don’t only have to be about extraordinary adventures, but can be about everyday life, as well.

The Great Gatsby

- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald - Date published: 1925

A standard of the Jazz Age, “ The Great Gatsby ” perfectly embodies many of the values of its time, like personal freedom and the unapologetic pursuit of pleasure. Most folks, whether avid readers or not, are at least somewhat familiar with the story of the fabulously rich Jay Gatsby, who’s in love with the unattainable Daisy Buchanan and throws massive parties at his Long Island mansion in the hopes of earning her affections.

Home to Harlem

- Author: Claude McKay - Date published: 1928

The author of “ Home to Harlem ,” Claude McKay, was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. His most famous work follows two men from very different circumstances as they move through Harlem’s intense nighttime scene and navigate race in America by day.

- Author: Virginia Woolf - Date published: 1928

Another monumental novel by Virginia Woolf, “ Orlando ” has long been a classic in the LGBTQ+ community. Taking place over three centuries, the book follows its central character as a mysterious change transforms him from a man to a woman, and the subsequent ways her place in the world changes. Often studied by feminist, gender, and transgender students, the book has been adapted into several movies, plays, and even an opera.

All Quiet on the Western Front

- Author: Erich Maria Remarque - Date published: 1929

Although it’s fiction, “ All Quiet on the Western Front ” gives readers an all-too-real look at World War I. Written by a German veteran, the novel paints a vivid picture of the social and emotional stress felt by the soldiers, as well as the difficulty for many of them to readjust to civilian life after the fighting was over. During WWII, the heavy book was among those burned en masse by the Nazis.

- Author: Nella Larsen - Date published: 1929

Written by one of the most preeminent female writers of the Harlem Renaissance, “ Passing ” was an instant success upon publication in 1929. The story of two former childhood friends and their renewed fascination with each other’s lives, the book makes important points about Americans’ understanding of race and gender.

A Farewell to Arms

- Author: Ernest Hemingway - Date published: 1929

“ A Farewell to Arms ” was Ernest Hemingway’s first best-seller and America’s most important WWI novel. The semi-autobiographical book follows an ambulance driver who falls in love with an Italian nurse despite the horrors surrounding both of them. The novel was so important to Hemingway that he reportedly rewrote the ending almost 40 times in order to get the words exactly right.

The Sound and the Fury

- Author: William Faulkner - Date published: 1929

Set in Jefferson, Missouri, “ The Sound and the Fury ” centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats and some of the most memorable characters in American literature. Separated into four sections, each piece of the book is told from the perspective of a different family member and in a different narrative style. The book’s success in the '30s certainly played a role in William Faulkner eventually winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Good Earth

- Author: Pearl S. Buck - Date published: 1931

Written by the daughter of two missionaries in China, “ The Good Earth ” is about life in agrarian China and pits the humble and goodhearted Wang Lung against the greedy, noble House of Hwang. The book may feel slowly paced to a modern reader, but for 1930s audiences it was impactful enough to encourage them to consider the Chinese as allies in the impending WWII.

Brave New World

- Author: Aldous Huxley - Date published: 1932

Although “ Brave New World ” was published 90 years ago, it is incredibly relevant to the current moment and the world we live in. A dystopian novel, Aldous Huxley imagines a future World State where citizens are placed in a hierarchy based on their (genetically modified) intelligence and the entire culture is conditioned to follow the government blindly. The book acts as a warning against state control, consumerism, and the lack of individuality.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

- Author: Zora Neale Hurston - Date published: 1937

Initially ill-received, Zora Neale Hurston’s “ Their Eyes Were Watching God ” has become a classic in Black and feminist literature in the intervening years. The book follows a young Black woman in the '30s who’s desperately searching for her own identity through three marriages and a physical journey back to her roots.

The Grapes of Wrath

- Author: John Steinbeck - Date published: 1939

This Great Depression novel both won the Pulitzer Prize and was publicly banned the year it was published. “ The Grapes of Wrath ” follows the Joad family as they’re pushed off their Oklahoma farm by effects of the Dust Bowl and travel by car across the country to California, “the promised land.” The powerful drama underscores the vast gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country.

The Stranger

- Author: Albert Camus - Date published: 1942

“ The Stranger ” is a story of a senseless murder. It’s also a close look at the philosophies of existentialism and the absurd. Readers of this short and simple work either identify with the main character’s completely indifferent outlook on life—or hate it.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

- Author: Betty Smith - Date published: 1943

“ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ” is a coming-of-age tale featuring a young woman raised in a tenement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the start of the 20th century. Emotional, honest, and at times downright hilarious, the book reminds readers that all one really needs to get through life is a tenacious attitude and a strong sense of self.

Cry, the Beloved Country

- Author: Alan Paton - Date published: 1948

The most important novel to come out of South Africa’s apartheid era, “ Cry, the Beloved Country ” is about a Black man’s life in a Black country under white man’s rule. It follows a Zulu pastor, Stephen Kumalo, and his son, Absalom, as they do their best to navigate life in a country that’s torn apart by racial injustice.

- Author: George Orwell - Date published: 1949

Often paired with “A Brave New World,” “ 1984 ” is another dystopian novel that’s very relevant to today’s world. Often assigned reading for high school students, George Orwell imagines life in a totalitarian state where every move is watched by the Thought Police. When one man becomes disillusioned with the state and attempts to change things, the consequences are swift and heavy.

Invisible Man

- Author: Ralph Ellison - Date published: 1952

Narrated by a nameless character, “ Invisible Man ” examines the multitude of obstacles Black men face in America. Taking place in the Deep South, the streets of Harlem, Communist rallies, and underground “battle royals,” the book won the National Book Award for fiction in 1953.

The Fellowship of the Ring

- Author: J.R.R. Tolkien - Date published: 1954

While the content of “ The Fellowship of the Ring ” may not be as heavy as the subject matter of many of the other books on this list, J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel still earns its spot for its impact on fantasy literature. For the uninitiated, the book, which is the first in a trilogy, follows a band of adventurers as they set out across Middle Earth to destroy a ring of great, dark power. Tolkien established many of the fantasy tropes used by subsequent authors.

Giovanni’s Room

- Author: James Baldwin - Date published: 1956

Another classic of LGBTQ+ literature, “ Giovanni’s Room ” is about an American living in Paris who’s engaged to a woman and involved in a homosexual affair with an Italian bartender. Masterfully written, the book focuses on the inner turmoil of a person caught between the life society tells him he should live and the life he sees for himself. James Baldwin’s controversial work is credited with opening the door for a wider conversation about homosexuality and bisexuality.

Atlas Shrugged

- Author: Ayn Rand - Date published: 1957

Ayn Rand herself considered “ Atlas Shrugged ” to be her magnum opus. In the book, Rand fleshes out her philosophy of objectivism through a dystopian story where private business owners are increasingly put upon by the government and decide to leave everything behind to begin their own capitalist society. While not widely beloved at first, the book has demonstrated great staying power and is still read all over the world to this day.

Things Fall Apart

- Author: Chinua Achebe - Date published: 1958

One of the first African novels to achieve international acclaim, “ Things Fall Apart ” is about life in pre-colonial Nigeria as told through the eyes of a “strong man” named Okonkwo. Often compared to Greek and Roman tragedies, the book examines how clan and village life was negatively affected by the arrival of European colonizers and Christian missionaries.

To Kill a Mockingbird

- Author: Harper Lee - Date published: 1960

“ To Kill a Mockingbird ” is set in a small Southern town and is at once a story of childhood and one of a place rocked by a crisis of conscience. While modern attitudes surrounding the book have shifted slightly, with many pointing to the “white savior” complex written into lawyer Atticus Finch, there’s no denying how big an impact this American classic had toward racist attitudes in the '60s. The impact was so big that it earned reclusive author Harper Lee the Pulitzer Prize the following year.

Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man

- Author: U.R. Ananthamurthy - Date published: 1965

“ Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man ” begins with the death of Naranappa, a renegade Brahmin who has flouted the Hindu rules of purity for years. As his village argues about whether or not his body should be given a proper burial, they are forced to reckon with the questions of God, religion, and rebirth.  

Season of Migration to the North

- Author: Tayeb Salih - Date published: 1966

One of the most impactful novels in Arabic literature, “ Season of Migration to the North ” is concerned with the impact of Western colonialism on rural African societies, particularly in Sudan. This is the story of two men who return to their native Sudan after jaunts in Europe, one turned into a monster by the clash of cultures, the other doing his best to hold both parts of his identity together despite their obvious dissonance. The book itself is considered a turning point in postcolonial narratives.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

- Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Date published: 1967

Columbian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez published his magical-realism masterpiece “ One Hundred Years of Solitude ” in 1967. The book follows several generations of the Buendia family, whose patriarch founded the fictional town of Macondo. It deals with themes like solitude, the repetition of history, the fluidity of time, and elitism.

Slaughterhouse-Five

- Author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - Date published: 1969

The science-fiction, antiwar novel “ Slaughterhouse-Five ” follows Billy Pilgrim through WWII as he survives a bombing, spends time in a prisoner-of-war camp, readjusts to civilian life, and occasionally time-travels. The novel has been subject to many banning and censorship campaigns thanks to its frank tone and often vulgar content.

Gravity’s Rainbow

- Author: Thomas Pynchon - Date published: 1973

A postmodern epic, “ Gravity’s Rainbow ” is to the second half of the 20th century what “Ulysses” was to the first half. Set in Europe post-WWII, the book primarily focuses on the program responsible for Germany’s V-2 rockets and the mysterious inclusion of a “black device” in one of these rockets. Although it won the National Book Award, Thomas Pynchon refused to accept or even acknowledge the victory .

Petals of Blood

- Author: Ngugi wa Thiong’o - Date published: 1977

On the surface, “ Petals of Blood ” is about the investigation of a triple murder in Kenya. However, a deeper read reveals that the book is actually speaking about the Mau Mau Rebellion and a people who are disillusioned with leadership that has failed to pull their country out of its “developing nation” status. The book made such an impact upon publication that its author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, was jailed without charges—an incident that ignited protests around the world.

Midnight’s Children

- Author: Salman Rushdie - Date published: 1981

“ Midnight’s Children ” is essentially about India’s independence from colonialism and the partition of the country. Told through the eyes of one of the 1,001 children born at midnight on its independence day, the book examines what it means to be a master and a victim of a certain point in history. Massively popular in both the U.K. and the United States, the novel has won a host of international awards.

The Color Purple

- Author: Alice Walker - Date published: 1982

An epistolary novel, “ The Color Purple ” is a collection of letters written between sisters in rural Georgia during the early 20th century. A touchstone of Black American literature, the book was one of the first to break the silence on domestic and sexual abuse and violence. Because of that content, the book is often challenged and has even been banned at certain points.

The Handmaid’s Tale

- Author: Margaret Atwood - Date published: 1985

Over the past several years, Margaret Atwood’s “ The Handmaid’s Tale ” has benefited from renewed popularity, largely thanks to the release of the Hulu TV series based on the novel. Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel imagines a totalitarian state where women are property and their bodies tools used merely to advance the agenda and power of the state, the Republic of Gilead. A scathing, satirical warning, the book is a cornerstone of feminist literature.

- Author: Toni Morrison - Date published: 1987

Set just after the Civil War, “ Beloved ” was inspired by a real-life woman, Margaret Garner. It’s a story of a former enslaved woman who can’t beat back her memories of the past or its influence over her, no matter how hard she tries. Toni Morrison’s most acclaimed work, the novel is currently banned in some U.S. public schools thanks to its racial and sexual content.

The Alchemist

- Author: Paulo Coelho - Date published: 1988

“ The Alchemist ” holds the distinction of being one of the most translated books of all time, currently available to read in 67 languages . The enchanting and lyrical tale follows a shepherd boy as he travels from his native Spain to Egypt in search of an elusive treasure. Along the way, he learns invaluable lessons about life and the worth we all have inside ourselves.

The Remains of the Day

- Author: Kazuo Ishiguro - Date published: 1989

“ The Remains of the Day ” is a slow-paced novel filled with the musings of a butler near the end of his career. Stevens, devoted to a life of service, has missed out on several opportunities, including a possible romance with a former housekeeper. Nearing the end of his professional life, he begins to realize that the loyalty he’s shown to his work and master may have been misplaced. The novel won the Man Booker Prize the year of its release.

Like Water for Chocolate

- Author: Laura Esquivel - Date published: 1989

Mexican author Laura Esquivel’s “ Like Water for Chocolate ” was a #1 best-seller in her native country and in the United States for two years after its publication. It’s the story of a young Mexican woman, Tita, who is forbidden from marrying her lover, Pedro, and must care for her ailing mother instead. A tragic, heart-wrenching story, the book includes elements of magical realism similar to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work.

The Things They Carried

- Author: Tim O’Brien - Date published: 1990

A collection of linked fictional episodes, “ The Things They Carried ” follows a platoon of American soldiers through the Vietnam War and after returning home. A veteran himself, O’Brien makes every attempt to steer clear of the politicization of the war, but his work ensures that everyone back home understands what it was really like out there in the jungles.

- Author: Toni Morrison - Date published: 1992

While the content of Toni Morrison’s work always stands apart from her contemporaries, with “ Jazz ” it’s really the style of the novel that makes it such a must-read. Set in Harlem in the 1920s, the book mimics Jazz music, with individual characters “improvising” solo sections of the book, often in a “call and response” format, which all come together to create a melodic whole.

Stone Butch Blues

- Author: Leslie Feinberg - Date published: 1993

“ Stone Butch Blues ” was once an underground classic, but over the past decade it has become a much more widely read hit. The book follows Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl growing up in Upstate New York during the '50s and '60s and coming to terms with her own identity as a lesbian. Set in a pre-Stonewall world, when social pressures and politics kept many from living as their true selves, the book packs a powerful message about identity and acceptance.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

- Author: Haruki Murakami - Date published: 1994

Haruki Murakami’s “ The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle ” is best described as sci-fi meets magical realism. The book follows a Japanese man who goes in search of his wife and her cat, both of whom have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. His search takes him into the netherworld and reveals long-buried secrets about WWII.

Infinite Jest

- Author: David Foster Wallace - Date published: 1996

Cataloged as an “encyclopedic” novel, “ Infinite Jest ” stands out for both its content and its form. Set in a tennis academy and a halfway house in a future mutation of our world, the novel follows one of the most messed-up families to appear in modern literature, a group of political radicals, a group of recovering addicts, and a group of elite tennis players. Throughout its 1,088 pages, it also experiments with endnotes, racking up nearly 400 in total by the end of the book. While a literary best-seller, the book is hardly for the faint of heart (or attention span).

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

- Author: J.K. Rowling - Date published: 1997

While it remains to be seen whether or not “ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ” will stand the test of time, the effect the book has had on literature as a whole is indisputable. The tale about a boy wizard launched a series that would go on to sell more than 450 million copies , be translated into 67 languages, and make J.K. Rowling the first billionaire author.

The Kite Runner

- Author: Khaled Hosseini - Date published: 2003

“ The Kite Runner ” is set in Afghanistan during the fall of the country’s monarchy, the Soviet-Afghan War, and the rise of the Taliban. The story of fathers and sons, friendship, redemption, and reading, the book primarily follows Amir and Hassan, childhood friends torn apart by a horrific act. The novel spent over two years on the New York Times Best Seller list.

- Author: Betool Khedairi - Date published: 2004

Partly a coming-of-age novel, “ Absent ” follows a teenage girl, Dalal, who lives with her uncle and aunt in a Baghdad apartment as she undertakes real responsibility for the first time and begins to fall in love. The book is also an examination of life under restrictions and amid unthinkable violence, as well as the power of the human spirit.

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• 12 Great Books to Read to Understand Periods in Literature

English literature has a long and illustrious history that has spawned some of the world’s most famous writers, novels, plays and poems.

You should also read…

• A Guide to Britain’s Most Famous Writers
• 12 Essential English Novels Everyone Should Read

That history can be broken down into a number of distinct literary eras, in each of which a set of characteristics or beliefs shaped the works of literature produced. Sometimes the best way of understanding different periods of literary history is to read the works that each period produced. It’s often hard to narrow down the wealth of literature springing from each era of literature to just one or two exemplary texts, but this article seeks to give you a beginner’s guide to the most prominent periods in English literary history.

Medieval Literature (500 – 1500)

The earliest works of English literature arose from the writing down of tales that had probably been around for centuries before, surviving via the oral tradition. Medieval literature tends to be split into Old English (658-1100) and Middle English (1100-1500), and these are two of the most prominent works from this period.

English Literature is said to begin with Beowulf , an epic Anglo-Saxon poem by an unknown author, thought to have been penned anywhere between the 8th and 11th centuries. It speaks of Scandinavian kings, mythical beasts and battles, and is extremely important for being the the longest surviving epic poem in Old English.

2. Geoffrey Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales

Later in the medieval period, a civil servant named Geoffrey Chaucer popularised the use of vernacular English, with the writing of his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales . More than twenty individual stories are presented in the context of a story-telling contest that takes place between a group of pilgrims who are en route to Canterbury Cathedral. Thanks to this and other works, Chaucer is often thought of as “the Father of English Literature”.

The Renaissance Era (1500 – 1670)

Stemming from the period of huge cultural advance known as the Renaissance (which began in Italy in the 13th century but took a while to reach England), this period in English literature is dominated by Elizabethan playwrights such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and John Webster. Other notable writers include Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. A key influence in this period was the revival in interest in classical literature, which had a profound influence not only on writing, but on art and philosophy.

3. William Shakespeare – Henry IV Parts 1 and 2

All Shakespeare is worth reading, and will help you get a sense of this period of English literature; but Henry IV, particularly Part I, is noted for being amongst the playwright’s best. Contrasting between serious and funny scenes, between solemn kings and bawdy drinking houses, it’s a superb example of the kind of contrasts Elizabethan audiences would have enjoyed. It also introduces one of Shakespeare’s greatest and most enduringly popular characters: the roguish knight, Sir John Falstaff.

4. Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene

A contemporary of Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser was another highly influential Elizabethan poet, who exemplified Elizabethan literature with his defining masterpiece, The Faerie Queene , an allegorical poem written in celebration of the Tudor dynasty and the reign of Elizabeth I. It’s one of the longest poems in the English language, and represents an important development in modern English verse. Her Majesty must have approved: on the strength of this poem, its author was granted a pension for life.

The Restoration (1660 – 1700)

This relatively narrow period of literary history coincides with the end of the Stuart monarchs, and is generally thought of as literature that flourished under the restored court of Charles II. It’s difficult to pin it down to exact dates, though, as literature was in a state of flux during this period, with new genres (such as the laudatory ode) springing up and responding to the political, social and economic state of play at the time; this influenced different literary genres at different times. Poetry is by far the most important genre of this period.

5. John Bunyan – The Pilgrim’s Progress

The allegorical elements of Spenser’s Faerie Queene likely influenced John Bunyan in his writing of The Pilgrim’s Progress , an important religious poem that is an allegorical treatment of Christian life, particularly the idea of personal salvation. Its protagonist, Christian, is an ‘everyman’ character, and the poem is differentiated from similar preceding texts by the simplicity of its style.

6. John Milton – Paradise Lost

More than seventy years after The Faerie Queene brought fame to Edmund Spenser, John Milton brought out another epic poem that would secure his reputation as another of the country’s finest poets. Paradise Lost , more than ten thousand lines in length, tells the Biblical story of the Fall of Man, and it’s an achievement made all the more impressive by the fact that it was dictated in its entirety, Milton having gone blind some years before he wrote it. Though Paradise Lost isn’t archetypal Restoration literature, and Milton is studied separately from other Restoration literature, this is certainly one of the most famous and influential works that sprung from this period.

The Age of Enlightenment (1700 – 1800)

The Age of Enlightenment, sometimes referred to as the Age of Reason, was a cultural movement led by philosophers such as Francis Bacon and René Descartes. It was characterised by a scientific, rational approach to the issues of the day, challenging prevailing beliefs, which had a religious basis. The movement advocated the logical working out of problems, the use of empirical evidence to support beliefs, and the rejection of superstition. Isaac Newton and Mozart are two of the famous names this era spawned.

7. Alexander Pope – The Rape of the Lock

Based on an incident said to have been described to Pope by a friend, The Rape of the Lock is his most famous poem. It’s a witty satire of England’s ruling classes, written in the style of the classical heroic epics (such as the works of Homer) that he also devoted his time to translating. The work is an important example of satire during this period (of which Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is also an excellent example), the aim of which was to poke fun at society’s failings and corruption, particularly when contrasted with the prevailing ideals.

The Romantic Period (1798 – 1870)

The Romantic period was a response to the major social change taking place in England at the time, with the Industrial Revolution seeing a move from countryside to town, and the advent of polluted, overcrowded industrial cities. The Romantic period was also a reaction against the thoughts and ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, in which poets in particular rejected the scientific rationalisation of nature.

8. William Wordsworth – Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth was one of a group of poets whose work exemplifies Romanticism, and his poems, many of which were written at his home in the Lake District, are some of the finest examples of Romantic literature. The Lyrical Ballads was a collection of poems mostly by Wordsworth, with a few contributed by his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Though the response to the collection at the time of its publication was underwhelming, it is now seen as an important development in English literature because the simpler language used – a reaction against the florid, overly intellectual language of 18th century poetry – made the poems accessible to anybody. This was also an acknowledgement of the fact that human emotion is a universal experience, whether rich or poor – an idea also reflected in the title of the collection and the use of the ballad form, which came from a long tradition of oral storytelling beloved of the poor.

Transcendental Movement (1830 – 1860)

While the likes of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley dominated the Romantic scene here in England, another movement was developing over in America, where Romanticism influenced New England Transcendentalism. Followers of this movement believed in the innate goodness of the individual and of nature, but also that the individual is prone to corruption by society and its organised religion and politics. Like Romanticism, Transcendentalism reacted against rationalisation and advocated the power of inherent human spirituality.

9. Louisa May Alcott – Little Women

The Transcendentalist writer of whom most British people will have heard is Louisa May Alcott, author of the much-loved Little Women series. Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was a prominent figure in the movement, and his ideas shaped Alcott’s education and upbringing, making the movement an important backdrop to her literary career. Her family and its transcendental thinking formed the inspiration for Little Women – the character of Jo being a loose portrayal of Alcott herself. The novel is still a childhood staple in homes in the USA and Britain alike.

Literary Realism (1820-1920)

Literary realism began in France in the mid-19th century, though a move towards realism had begun earlier; Jane Austen’s novels are part of the transition. Its focus was on realistic depictions of contemporary life and society, including realistic details of day-to-day life – the kind of scenes previously shunned in favour of the idealised subjects of the Romantics.

10. George Eliot – Middlemarch

The true masterpiece of this period is George Eliot’s Middlemarch , its realism evident even from its subtitle: “A Study of Provincial Life”. The Middlemarch of the novel’s title is a fictional Midlands town populated by the many characters whose lives intermingle in a series of masterfully woven plotlines. The realistic details with which Eliot narrates her characters’ problems and their reactions to the real-life issues of the day (such as the development of the railways) are what makes the novel so impressive, earning it high praise from literary critics, some of whom have described it as the greatest of all English novels.

Victorian Literature (1837 – 1901)

The reign of Queen Victoria saw the novel come to the fore as the leading literary genre, and it was a period that saw the emergence of some of the country’s most famous writers, including Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray and the Bronte sisters. Poetry was still a prominent literary genre, with Browning and Tennyson two of the most famous Victorian poets; but this form was far less significant than it had been during the Romantic period. Later in the Victorian period we see drama emerge as a significant genre again for the first time since the Renaissance, with Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas, and the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

11. Charles Dickens – Oliver Twist

Victorian novelist Charles Dickens is one of the most famous of all English authors, and his novels are often seen as the archetypal Victorian novels. They’ve been so influential that the term “Dickensian” is often used to describe anything reminiscent of his novels, in particular the atmosphere conjured up in his tales of young street urchins living in urban poverty in grim Victorian London. The atmosphere of one of his most famous novels, Oliver Twist , is a good example of this. It tells the tale of a young orphan, who’s living in appalling conditions in a workhouse before he’s sent to live with an undertaker – from whom he escapes and goes on to join a group of juvenile pickpockets. It speaks powerfully about the treatment of orphans in Victorian London, and is also a good example of Dickens’ superb characterisation – notably the character of Fagin, ringleader of the pickpockets.

Modernism (1901-1939)

Just as previous literary movements had rebelled against the attitudes of those that had gone before them, so literary modernism reacted against the conservative attitudes of the Victorian period; the First World War was also a key influence. An important characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness, which saw a spate of literary experimentation; the stream-of-consciousness novel was one such innovation.

12. James Joyce – Ulysses

In James Joyce’s Ulysses , the idea of stream-of-consciousness was taken to the extreme in a novel described as “a demonstration and summation of the entire [Modernist] movement”. In a way, it’s a modern retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey , based on the experiences of its protagonist throughout the course of a day in Dublin. The novel broke new ground in many ways, but its most famous characteristic is its use of a different literary genre or experiment for each chapter; one, for example, has no punctuation, while another is written as though it were a play.

The Ten Best History Books of 2021

Our favorite titles of the year resurrect forgotten histories and help explain how the U.S. got to where it is today

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

After 2020 brought the most devastating global pandemic in a century and a national reckoning with systemic racism , 2021 ushered in a number of welcome developments, including Covid vaccines , the return of beloved social traditions like the Olympics and public performances , and incremental but measurable progress in the fight   against racial injustice . 

During this year of change, these ten titles collectively serve a dual purpose. Some offer a respite from reality, transporting readers to such varied locales as ancient Rome, Gilded Age America and Angkor in Cambodia. Others reflect on the fraught nature of the current moment, detailing how the nation’s past—including the mistreatment of Japanese Americans during World War II and police brutality—informs its present and future. From a chronicle of civilization told through clocks to a quest for Indigenous justice in colonial Pennsylvania, these were some of our favorite history books of 2021.

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz

“It’s terrifying to realize that most of humanity lives in places that are destined to die,” writes Annalee Newitz in the opening pages of Four Lost Cities . This stark statement sets the stage for the journalist’s incisive exploration of how cities collapse—a topic with clear ramifications for the “global-warming present,” as Kirkus notes in its review of the book. Centered on the ancient metropolises of Çatalhöyük , a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia; Pompeii , the Roman city razed by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E.; Angkor , the medieval Cambodian capital of the Khmer Empire; and Cahokia , a pre-Hispanic metropolis in what is now Illinois, Four Lost Cities traces its subjects’ successes and failures, underscoring surprising connections between these ostensibly disparate societies. 

All four cities boasted sophisticated infrastructure systems and ingenious feats of engineering. Angkor, for instance, became an economic powerhouse in large part due to its complex network of canals and reservoirs, while Cahokia was known for its towering earthen pyramids , which locals imbued with spiritual significance. Despite these innovations, the featured urban hubs eventually succumbed to what Newitz describes as “prolonged periods of political instability”—often precipitated by poor leadership and social hierarchies—“coupled with environmental collapse.” These same problems plague modern cities, the writer argues, but the past offers valuable lessons for preventing such disasters in the future, including investing in “resilient infrastructure, … public plazas, domestic spaces for everyone, social mobility and leaders who treat the city’s workers with dignity.”

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age

A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history―and figure out why people abandoned them

Covered With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace

In the winter of 1722, two white fur traders murdered Seneca hunter Sawantaeny after he refused their drunken, underhanded attempts to strike a deal. The ensuing furor, writes historian Nicole Eustace in Covered With Night , threatened to spark outright war between English colonists and the Indigenous inhabitants of the mid-Atlantic. Rather than enter into a prolonged, bloody battle, the Susquehanna River valley’s Native peoples forged an agreement, welcoming white traders back into their villages once Sawantaeny’s body had been metaphorically “covered,” or laid to rest in a “respectful, ritualized way,” as Eustace told Smithsonian magazine’ s Karin Wulf earlier this year.

“Native people believe that a crisis of murder makes a rupture in the community and that rupture needs to be repaired,” Eustace added. “They are not focused on vengeance; they are focused on repair, on rebuilding community. And that requires a variety of actions. They want emotional reconciliation. They want economic restitution.”

The months of negotiation that followed culminated in the Albany Treaty of 1722 , which provided both “ritual condolences and reparation payments” for Sawantaeny’s murder, according to Eustace. Little known today, the historian argues, the agreement underscores the differences between Native and colonial conceptions of justice. Whereas the former emphasized what would now be considered restorative justice (an approach that seeks to repair harm caused by a crime), the latter focused on harsh reprisal, meting out swift executions for suspects found guilty. “The Pennsylvania colonists never really say explicitly, ‘We’re following Native protocols. We’re accepting the precepts of Native justice,’” Eustace explained to Smithsonian . “But they do it because in practical terms they didn’t have a choice if they wanted to resolve the situation.”

Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America

An immersive tale of the killing of a Native American man and its far-reaching implications for the definition of justice from early America to today

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

The Sackler family’s role in triggering the U.S. opioid epidemic attracted renewed attention this year with the release of “ Dopesick ,” a Hulu miniseries based on Beth Macy’s 2018 book of the same name , and Patrick Radden Keefe ’s award-winning Empire of Pain , which exhaustively examines the rise—and very public fall—of the drug-peddling American “dynasty.” 

Meticulously researched, the book traces its roots to the early 2010s, when the journalist was reporting on Mexican drug cartels for the New York Times magazine . As Keefe tells the London Times , he realized that 25 percent of the revenue generated by OxyContin, the most popular pill pushed by Sackler-owned Purdue Pharma, came from the black market. Despite this trend, the family was better known for its donations to leading art museums than its part in fueling opioid addiction. “There was a family that had made billions of dollars from the sale of a drug that had such a destructive legacy,” Keefe says, “yet hadn’t seemed touched by that legacy.” Infuriated, he began writing what would become Empire of Pain .

The resulting 560-page exposé draws on newly released court documents, interviews with more than 200 people and the author’s personal accounts of the Sacklers’ attempts to intimidate him into silence. As the New York Times notes in its review, the book “paint[s] a devastating portrait of a family consumed by greed and unwilling to take the slightest responsibility or show the least sympathy for what it wrought.” 

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin

Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain

Historian Keisha N. Blain derived the title of her latest book from a well-known quote by its subject, voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer : “We have a long fight and this fight is not mine alone, but you are not free whether you are white or Black, until I am free.” As Blain wrote for Smithsonian last year, Hamer, who grew up in the Jim Crow South in a family of sharecroppers , first learned about her right to vote in 1962, at the age of 44. After attempting to register to vote in Mississippi, she faced verbal and physical threats of violence—experiences that only strengthened her resolve.

Blain’s book is one of two new Hamer biographies released in 2021. The other, Walk With Me by historian Kate Clifford Larson , offers a more straightforward account of the activist’s life. Comparatively, Blain’s volume situates Hamer in the broader political context of the civil rights movement. Both titles represent a long-overdue celebration of a woman whose contributions to the fight for equal rights have historically been overshadowed by men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America

Explores the Black activist’s ideas and political strategies, highlighting their relevance for tackling modern social issues including voter suppression, police violence, and economic inequality

Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love by Rebecca Frankel

On April 30, 1942, 11-year-old Philip Lazowski found himself separated from his family during a Nazi selection in the Polish town of Zhetel. Realizing that the elderly, the infirm and unaccompanied children were being sent in one direction and families with work permits in the other, he tried to blend in with the children of a woman he recognized, only to hear her hiss , “Don’t stand next to us. You don’t belong in this group.” Looking around, Lazowski soon spotted another stranger and her daughters. Desperate, he pleaded with her to let him join them. After pausing momentarily, the woman— Miriam Rabinowitz —took his hand and said, “If the Nazis let me live with two children, they’ll let me live with three.”

All four survived the selection. From there, however, their paths temporarily diverged. Lazowski reunited with his family, remaining imprisoned in the Zhetel ghetto before fleeing into the nearby woods, where he remained hidden for the next two and a half years. Miriam, her husband Morris and their two children similarly sought refuge in a forest but did not encounter Lazowski again until after the war. (Lazowski later married one of the Rabinowitz daughters, Ruth, after running into Miriam at a 1953 wedding in Brooklyn—a “stroke of luck that … mirrors the random twists of fate that enabled the family to survive while so many others didn’t,” per Publishers Weekly .) 

As journalist Rebecca Frankel writes in Into the Forest , the Rabinowitzes and Lazowski were among the roughly 25,000 Jews who survived the war by hiding out in the woods of Eastern Europe. The majority of these individuals (about 15,000) joined the partisan movement , eking out a meager existence as ragtag bands of resistance fighters, but others, like the Rabinowitzes, formed makeshift family camps, “aiming not for revenge but survival,” according to the Forward . Frankel’s account of the family’s two-year sojourn in the woods captures the harsh realities of this lesser-known chapter in Holocaust history, detailing how forest refugees foraged for food (or stole from locals when supplies were scarce), dug underground shelters and remained constantly on the move in hopes of avoiding Nazi raids. Morris, who worked in the lumber business, used his pre-war connections and knowledge of the forest to help his family survive, avoiding the partisans “in the hope of keeping outside the fighting fray,” as Frankel writes for the New York Times . Today, she adds, the stories of those who escaped into the woods remain “so elusive” that some scholars have referred to them as “the margins of the Holocaust.”

Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love

From a little-known chapter of Holocaust history, one family’s inspiring true story

The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship, and Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age by Amy Sohn

Though its title might suggest otherwise, The Man Who Hated Women focuses far more on the American women whose rights Anthony Comstock sought to suppress than the sexist government official himself. As novelist and columnist Amy Sohn explains in her narrative non-fiction debut, Comstock , a dry goods seller who moonlighted as a special agent to the U.S. Post Office and the secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, spent more than four decades hounding activists who advocated for women’s reproductive rights. In 1873, he lobbied Congress to pass the Comstock Act , which made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious” material—including documents related to birth control and sexual health —through the mail; in his view, the author adds, “obscenity, which he called a ‘hydra-headed-monster,’ led to prostitution, illness, death, abortions and venereal disease.”

The Man Who Hated Women centers on eight women activists targeted by Comstock: among others, Victoria Claflin Woodhull, the first woman to run for president; anarchist and labor organizer Emma Goldman; Planned Parenthood founder and notorious eugenicist Margaret Sanger ; abortionist Ann “ Madam Restell ” Lohman; and homeopath Sarah Chase , who fought back against censorship by dubbing a birth control device the “Comstock Syringe.” Weaving together these women’s stories, Sohn identifies striking parallels between 19th- and 20th-century debates and contemporary threats to abortion rights. “Risking destitution, imprisonment and death,” writes the author in the book’s introduction, “[these activists] defined reproductive liberty as an American right, one as vital as those enshrined in the Constitution. … Without understanding [them], we cannot fight the assault on women’s bodies and souls that continues even today.”

The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship, and Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age

A narrative history of Anthony Comstock, anti-vice activist and U.S. Postal Inspector, and the remarkable women who opposed his war on women’s rights at the turn of the 20th century

African Europeans: An Untold History by Olivette Otele

In this sweeping chronicle , scholar Olivette Otele challenges white-centric narratives of European history by tracing African people’s presence on the continent from the 3rd century to the 21st. Featuring a rich cast of characters, including Renaissance duke Alessandro de’ Medici , 18th-century polymath Joseph Boulogne , and actress and artists’ muse Jeanne Duval , African Europeans artfully examines changing conceptions of race and how these ideas have shaped both real-world experiences and accounts of the past. 

“The term ‘African European’ is … a provocation for those who deny that one can have multiple identities and even citizenships, as well as those who claim that they do not ‘see color,’” writes Otele in the book’s introduction. “The aims of this volume are to understand connections across time and space, to debunk persistent myths, and to revive and celebrate the lives of African Europeans.”

African Europeans: An Untold History

A dazzling history of Africans in Europe, revealing their unacknowledged role in shaping the continent

The Eagles of Heart Mountain by Bradford Pearson

Life at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, where some 14,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated between August 1942 and November 1945, was punctuated by harsh winters, inadequate medical care, and racist treatment by white staff and locals. A year or so after the camp’s opening, however, prisoners gained an unlikely source of hope: high school football. As journalist Bradford Pearson writes in The Eagles of Heart Mountain , the team—made up mainly of second-generation immigrants who’d never played the sport before—went undefeated in the 1943 season and lost just one game the year after that. 

Pearson juxtaposes the heartwarming tale of the underdog Eagles with details of how players resisted the draft. Reluctant to fight on behalf of a country that had ordered their detainment, several of the young men refused to enlist, leaving them vulnerable to (additional) imprisonment. “We are not being disloyal,” declared the Heart Mountain–based Fair Play Committee. “We are not evading the draft. We are all loyal Americans fighting for justice and democracy right here at home.”

The Eagles of Heart Mountain: A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in World War II America

The impeccably researched, deeply moving, never-before-told tale about a World War II incarceration camp in Wyoming and its extraordinary high school football team

About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks by David Rooney

“[F]or thousands of years,” argues David Rooney in About Time , humans have “harnessed, politicized and weaponized” time, using clocks to “wield power, make money, govern citizens and control lives.” A former curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, home of Greenwich Mean Time , Rooney traces his fascination with horology to his childhood, when his parents ran a clockmaking and restoration business. Over a lifetime spent studying clocks, the scholar realized that the devices could be used as windows into civilization, revealing insights on “capitalism, the exchange of knowledge, the building of empires and the radical changes to our lives brought by industrialization.”

About Time centers on 12 clocks created over some 2,000 years, from a sundial at the Roman forum in 263 B.C.E. to a plutonium time-capsule clock buried in Osaka, Japan, in 1970. As the centuries progressed, timekeeping tools became increasingly accurate—a development that could “never [be] politically neutral,” notes the Washington Post in its review of the book. Instead, the standardization of time enabled capitalist endeavors like the opening and closing of financial markets and social control measures such as laws limiting when consumers could purchase alcohol. Overall, writes Rooney, his “personal, idiosyncratic and above all partial account” seeks to demonstrate that “monumental timekeepers mounted high up on towers or public buildings have been put there to keep us in order, in a world of violent disorder, … as far back as we care to look.” 

About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks

A captivating, surprising history of timekeeping and how it has shaped our world

America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s by Elizabeth Hinton

Between July 1964 and April 2001, almost 2,000 urban rebellions sparked by racially motivated police intimidation, harassment and violence broke out across the U.S. These “explosions of collective resistance to an unequal and violent order,” in Elizabeth Hinton ’s words , are often characterized as riots—a term the Yale historian rejects in favor of “rebellion.” Citing a rich trove of historical data, Hinton’s America on Fire   convincingly argues that Black rebellions occur in response to police violence rather than the other way around. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1960s “ War on Crime ,” for example, contributed to the growth of local police forces that “encroach[ed on] all aspects of Black social life, transforming typical youthful transgressions into fodder for police assaults on young Black people,” per the New Yorker .

Published almost exactly a year after George Floyd was killed in police custody, America on Fire deftly draws parallels between the violence that followed the assassinations of civil rights leaders in the 1960s and the 2020 protests. Only “extraordinary” acts of police violence, like the well-documented murder of Floyd, prompt such rebellions today: “[T]he daily violence and indignities that Black people experience in encounters with police go unaddressed,” notes the Washington Post in its review of the book. “In this sense, Hinton argues that the status quo has won. Ordinary police violence has become normalized, run-of-the-mill. We respond to only its most brutal forms.”

America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s

From one of our top historians, a groundbreaking story of policing and “riots” that shatters our understanding of the post–civil rights era

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8 Books For The Literary History Lover

We have a number of writers here at Arcadia Publishing, most of whom have enjoyed the excuse to decline social gatherings to write more. As a homage to the writers of the past, here are eight books that highlight literary history that we think you’ll enjoy. Read on for Hemingway’s history and regional works!

1. Hemingway’s Sun Valley: Local Stories Behind His Code, Characters and Crisis

It was a cold, “windless, blue sky day” in the fall of 1939 near Silver Creek. Ernest Hemingway spent the morning working on his novel  For Whom the Bell Tolls . Local hunting guide Bud Purdy attested, “You could have given him a million dollars and he wouldn’t have been any happier.”  Educator Phil Huss delves into previously unpublished stories about Hemingway’s adventures in Idaho , with each chapter focusing on one principle of the author’s “Heroic Code.” Huss interweaves how both local stories and passages from the luminary’s works embody each principle. Readers will appreciate Hemingway’s affinity for Idaho and his passion for principles that all would do well to follow. You can find this book here !

2. Ernest Hemingway & Gary Cooper In Idaho: An Enduring Friendship

In the autumn of 1940, two icons of American culture met in Sun Valley, Idaho—writer Ernest Hemingway and actor Gary Cooper. Although “Hem” was known as brash, larger-than-life and hard-drinking, and “Coop” as courteous, non-confrontational, and taciturn, the two became good friends. And though they would see each other over the years in Hollywood, Cuba, New York, and Paris, it was to Idaho they always returned. Author Larry Morris celebrates the story of that unforgettable friendship. You can find this book here !

3. Edith Wharton’s Lenox

In 1900, Edith Wharton burst into the settled summer colony of Lenox. An aspiring novelist in her thirties, she was already a ferocious aesthete and intellect. She and her husband, Teddy, planned a defiantly classical villa, and she became a bestselling author with  The House of Mirth  in 1905. As a hostess, designer, gardener, and writer, Wharton set high standards that delighted many, including Ambassador Joseph Choate and sculptor Daniel Chester French. But her perceptive and sometimes indiscreet pen also alienated potent figures like Emily Vanderbilt Sloane and Georgiana Welles Sargent.  Author Cornelia Brooke Gilder gives an insider’s glimpse of the community’s reaction to this disruptive star during her tumultuous Lenox decade. You can find this book here !

4. Monroeville: The Search For Harper Lee’s Maycomb

For 39 years, people from all over the world and all walks of life have come to the small town of Monroeville, Alabama, in search of a place called Maycomb.  Monroeville: The Search for Harper Lee’s Maycomb  explores the relationship between Harper Lee’s hometown and the setting of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel,  To Kill a Mockingbird .  Included are photographs of the Lee family and the author in her early years; the sights of Monroeville that undoubtedly inspired the setting of Maycomb; the cast of the Oscar-winning film adaptation that premiered in 1963; and the Mockingbird Players, a group of Monroeville residents who, each year in May, present an authentic production of the two-act play adapted by Christopher Sergel. You can find the book here !

5. Literary Excursions in the Southern Highlands: Essays on Natural History

Extending from Roanoke to Mount Oglethorpe and bounded by the Appalachian Mountains, the Southern Highlands is one of the most diverse natural areas in North America. From beautiful flora like the Fraser magnolia to rare ecosystems such as the mountain cedar glades, the area has been an inspiration for writers and naturalists since it was first explored by William Bartram in 1775. Essayist, poet, and naturalist  George Ellison explores the abundant wonders of the Southern Highlands in a series of humorous, scientific, and literary essays vividly illustrated by artist Elizabeth Ellison. You can find this book here !

6. Tennessee Literary Luminaries: From Cormac McCarthy to Robert Penn Warren

The Volunteer State has been a pioneer in southern literature for generations, giving us such literary stars as Robert Penn Warren and Cormac McCarthy. But Tennessee’s literary legacy also involves authors such as Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor, who delayed writing his first novel but won the Pulitzer Prize upon completing it.  Join author Sue Freeman Culverhouse as she explores the rich literary heritage of Tennessee through engaging profiles of its most revered citizens of letters. You can find this book here !

7. Michigan Literary Luminaries: From Elmore Leonard To Robert Hayden

From Ernest Hemingway’s rural adventures to the gritty fiction of Joyce Carol Oates, the landscape of the “Third Coast” has inspired generations of the nation’s greatest storytellers. Michigan Literary Luminaries shines a spotlight on this rich heritage of the Great Lakes State.  Discover how Saginaw greenhouses shaped the life of Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Theodore Roethke . Compare the common traits of Detroit crime writers like Elmore Leonard and Donald Goines. Learn how Dudley Randall revolutionized American literature by doing for poets what Motown Records did for musicians.  Join author Anna Clark as she unveils Michigan’s extraordinary written culture with a mixture of history, literary criticism, and original reporting. You can find this book here !

8. Literary Philadelphia: A History Of Poetry & Prose In The City Of Brotherly Love

Since Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin put type to printing press, Philadelphia has been a haven and an inspiration for writers. Local essayist Agnes Repplier once shared a glass of whiskey with Walt Whitman, who frequently strolled Market Street.  Gothic writers like Edgar Allan Poe and George Lippard plumbed the city’s dark streets for material . In the twentieth century, Northern Liberties native John McIntyre found a backdrop for his gritty noir in the working-class neighborhoods, while novelist Pearl S. Buck discovered a creative sanctuary in Center City.  From Quaker novelist Charles Brockden Brown to 1973 U.S. poet laureate Daniel Hoffman, author Thom Nickels explores Philadelphia’s literary landscape. You can find this book here !

10 of the Best Books about Literature

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

What are the best books about there  about literature – whether trivia books, introductions to English literature , or handy guides to some of the most pressing questions about the study of literature? Well, look no further than this list of ten of the best books about English literature – and other literatures, for that matter.

Disclaimer: as an Amazon Associate, we get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

We’ll admit we’re kicking off with a rather partisan choice, since Tearle is the founder-editor of  Interesting Literature . But  The Secret Library  is a treasure-trove of trivia for the literature-lover.

Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories . 

A monumental, weighty tome that shows how all fictional narratives from folk tales to novels and films follow essentially seven basic plot forms, such as ‘overcoming the monster’ ( Beowulf , Jaws ). Riddled with typos, but if you can put up with them, this book is illuminating and entertaining.

Gary Dexter,  Title Deeds: The Hidden Stories Behind 50 Books .

An engaging book full of fascinating information about some of the world’s classic books, and the stories behind how they came to be called what they’re called. (We’d also recommend  Why Not Catch-21?: The Stories Behind the Titles ,  an earlier book on the same theme as  Title Deeds and just as much fun.)

B. Ifor Evans, A Short History Of English Literature .

Now sadly out of print, this delightful little Pelican paperback from 1950 is available via Amazon from second-hand sellers. It runs through poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction prose from the Middle Ages to the present day in chronological chapters. Great if you want to get a brisk overview of English literature in all its many forms. Sadly, owing to its publication date, it stops in the mid-twentieth century; but we can hardly blame Evans for that.

Terry Eagleton,  The English Novel: An Introduction .

If you’re more specifically interested in the history of the novel and how this form has developed in English literature, this is an engagingly written and frequently very witty introduction to the English novel, from Defoe to James Joyce.

Eagleton sticks to the canonical figures of English fiction – Daniel Defoe , Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen , Sir Walter Scott , Charles Dickens , and so on – but has something illuminating to say about each novelist, and does a good job of summarising often very disparate aspects of the novels he discusses. Eagleton also features in our pick of the best books offering an introduction to literary theory .

Michael Schmidt, The Lives Of The Poets .

A vast book, which provides some useful information about most major poets since the Middle Ages. It’s a biography of several hundred individuals, and majestically grand in scale, but very readable. It does have some glaring omissions – no Edward Lear? – and Schmidt is fond of making provocative statements about certain poets, but somehow that makes it all the more fun.

John Sutherland, Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives . 

A huge compendium of miniature biographies about writers of fiction from John Bunyan to the present day,  Lives of the Novelists  is entertaining, surprising, amusing, and often gripping – as when Sutherland is telling us about the curious and rather disgusting origins of the title of Jacqueline Susann’s  Valley of the Dolls , or giving us a whistle-stop tour of Stephen King’s career, or telling us about how prolific (and successful) Edgar Rice Burroughs was.

Packed full of biographical trivia, this book is a very diverting way to spend a week learning about the lives of some of Anglophone fiction’s most famous names. John Sutherland is one of the best authors of books about literature, so he actually features on this list twice…

John Sutherland, The Literary Detective: 100 Puzzles in Classic Fiction (Oxford World’s Classics) . 

This is Sutherland’s trilogy of ‘puzzle’ books, in which he asks interesting questions about the more troubling aspects of the plots of classic novels, and then proceeds to find solutions to them. The titles of the three books in this original trilogy give a sense of the sort of questions Sutherland likes to ask: Is Heathcliff a Murderer?: Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-century Fiction (World’s Classics) , Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?: More Puzzles in Classic Fiction (Oxford World’s Classics) , and   Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet? (Oxford World’s Classics) .

Sutherland has since written several more such books – the one on Shakespeare co-authored with Cedric Watts,  Oxford World’s Classics: Henry V, War Criminal?: and Other Shakespeare Puzzles , is also worth checking out.

Christopher Fowler, The Book of Forgotten Authors . 

This recent book introduces us to a range of authors, including many popular novelists, whose names may once have been well-known to the reading public, but are now largely forgotten. Who knew that Thomas Burke, the British author of the collection of short stories  Limehouse Nights , also published a book called  For Your Convenience  (1937), which included a map of London’s public urinals, ‘noting in particular their sexual possibilities’?

Or that Keith Waterhouse, who is now remembered solely for  Billy Liar , also worked on a doomed musical of  Andy Capp ?  The Book of Forgotten Authors  is a mine of interesting and amusing literary trivia of this sort, as the title implies. You’re likely to finish reading Fowler’s entertaining and enlightening jaunt through the bookshelves of yesteryear with a significantly enlarged ‘to read’ list – if you can still track down any of these out-of-print wonders.

James Wood,  How Fiction Works .

An accessible introduction to key aspects of fiction from one of the most celebrated living critics of the novel. It includes chapters on narrative voice, realism, and character, among others.

Wood is particularly good at saying  why a piece of fiction is good (and why other pieces of fiction aren’t good), and his gentle but informed focus on the technical details of writing prevents his value-judgments from ever reading too much like ‘This is good because I like it.’ Wood is also a mean finger-drummer, as demonstrated in this video .

If you enjoyed this pick of the best books about books and literature, check out our pick of the best books about Shakespeare  and our eight best books about language and words . We’ve also picked our must-have poetry anthologies here.

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15 thoughts on “10 of the Best Books about Literature”

Reblogged this on cjheries .

All wonderful suggestions. Thanks so much for sharing! If you’re ever interested in some great book reviews and musings, be sure to follow! Thanks!!!

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Reblogged this on Kentucky Mountain Girl News and commented: KMGN: This is a very interesting article. I put a link to my Delicious account. Hope it is helpful to you.

Reblogged this on First Draft and commented: I got James Wood, “How Fiction Works” on the way from my public library, because of this article.

I want the second and last ones!

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Ordered the Eagleton book. Thanks for the information! His seems to be quite the prolific polymath.

Great list! I love reading books about books. Foster’s How to Read Novels like a Professor was great as well.

Reblogged this on Zezee with Books .

I haven’t read any of these before, but The Library Detective looks really interesting. I’m going to look into it as soon as possible.

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As a companion of sorts to James Wood’s book, I would recommend Charles Baxter’s “The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot”.

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Blog – Posted on Wednesday, Oct 13

The 100 best classic books to read.

Ever been caught up in a conversation about books and felt yourself cringe over your literary blind spots? Classic literature can be intimidating, but getting acquainted with the canon isn't just a form of torture cooked up by your high school English teacher: instead, an appreciation for the classics will help you see everything that's come since in a different light, and pick up on allusions that you'll begin to notice everywhere. Above all, they're just great reads — they've stood the test of time for a reason!

If you've always wanted to tackle the classics but never knew quite where to begin, we've got you covered. We've hand-selected 100 classic books to read, written by authors spanning continents and millennia. From love stories to murder mysteries, nonfiction to fantasy, there's something for everybody.

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

This milestone Spanish novel may as well be titled 100 Years on Everyone’s Must-Read List — it’s just a titan in the world literature canon. We could go on about its remarkable narrative technique, beguiling voice, and sprawling cast of characters spanning seven generations. Its famous first line may be all that’s needed to win you over: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

2. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Newland Archer, one of 1900s New York’s most eligible bachelors, has been looking for a traditional wife, and May Welland seems just the girl — that is until Newland meets entirely unsuitable Ellen Olenska. He must now choose between the two women — and between old money prestige and a value that runs deeper than social etiquette.

3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

This allegorical tale, often recommended as a self-help book , follows young shepherd Santiago as he journeys to Egypt searching for a hidden treasure. A parable telling readers that the universe can help them realize their dreams if they only focus their energy on them, Coelho’s short novel has endured the test of time and remains a bestseller today.

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4 . All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque’s wartime classic broke ground with its unflinching look at the human cost of war through the eyes of German soldiers in the Great War. With a lauded 1930 film adaptation (only the third to win Best Picture at the Oscars), All Quiet on the Western Front remains as powerful and relevant as ever.

5 . American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings by Zitkála-Šá

Zitkála-Šá’s stories invite readers into the world of Sioux settlement, sharing childhood memories, legends, and folktales, and a memoir account of the Native American author ’s transition into Western culture when she left home. Told in beautiful, fluid language, this is a must-read book.

The World's Bestselling Mystery \'Ten . . .\' Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious \'U.N. Owen.\' \'Nine . . .\' At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead. \'Eight . . .\' Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one . . . one by one they begin to die. \'Seven . . .\' Who among them is the killer and will any of them survive?

6 . And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

First, there were ten who arrived on the island. Strangers to one another, they shared one similarity: they had all murdered in the past. And when people begin dropping like flies, they realize that they are the ones being murdered now. An example of a mystery novel done right, this timeless classic was penned by none other than the Queen of Mystery herself .

7 . Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy’s celebrated novel narrates the whirlwind tale of Anna Karenina. She’s married to dull civil servant Alexei Karenin when she meets Count Vronsky, a man who changes her life forever. But an affair doesn’t come without a moral cost, and Anna’s life is soon anything but blissful.

8 . The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s only novel follows the young, ambitious Esther Greenwood, who falls into a depression after a directionless summer, culminating in a suicide attempt. But even as Esther survives and receives treatment, she continues wondering about her purpose and role in society — leading to much larger questions about existential fulfillment. Poetically written and stunningly authentic, The Bell Jar continues to resonate with countless readers today.

9. Beloved by Toni Morrison

Many books are said to have helped shape the world — but only a few can really stake that claim. Toni Morrison’s Beloved is one of them. One of the great literary luminaries of our time, her best-known novel is the searingly powerful story of Sethe, who was born a slave in Kentucky. Though she’s since escaped to Ohio, she is haunted by her dead baby, whose tombstone is engraved with one word: Beloved .

10 . The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

Before the recent fad of feminist retellings of fairy tales, there was The Bloody Chamber . But Angela Carter’s retold tales, including twisted versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast, are more than just feminist: they’re original, darkly irreverent, and fiercely independent. This classic book is exactly what you’d expect from the author who inspired contemporary masters like Neil Gaiman, Sarah Waters, and Margaret Atwood.

11. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Though the title evokes Audrey Hepburn, this novella came first — and the literary Holly Golightly is a very different creature from the 'good-time girl' who falls for George Peppard. Clever and chameleonic, she crafts her persona to fit others’ expectations, chasing her own American Dream while letting men think they can have it with her… only to slip through their fingers. A fascinating character study and a triumph of Capote’s wit and humanity.

12. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Set in the opulent inter-war era in England, Brideshead Revisited chronicles the increasingly complex relationship between Oxford student Charles Ryder, his university chum Sebastian, whose noble family they visit at their grand seat of Brideshead. A lush, nostalgic, and passionate rendering of a bygone era of English aristocracy.

13. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Welcome to Theoretical Physics 101. If it sounds daunting, you aren’t alone, and Stephen Hawking does a beautiful job guiding layperson readers through complex subjects. If you’re keen to learn more about such enigmas as black holes, relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and time itself, this is a perfect first taste.

14. The Call of the Wild (Reader's Library Classics) by Jack London

London's American classic is the bildungsroman of Buck: a St. Bernard/Scotch Collie mix who must adapt to life as a sled dog after a domesticated upbringing. Thrown into a harsh new reality, he must trust his instincts to survive. When he falls into the hands of a wise, experienced outdoorsman, will he become loyal to his new master or finally answer the call of the wild?

15. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Salinger’s angsty coming-of-age tale is an English class cornerstone for a good reason. The story follows Holden Caulfield, a 17-year-old boy fed up with prep school “phonies.” Escaping to New York in search of authenticity, he soon discovers that the city is a microcosm of the society he hates. Relentlessly cynical yet profoundly moving, The Catcher in the Rye will strike a chord not just with Holden’s fellow teens but with earnest thinkers of all ages.

16. A Christmas Carol (Bantam Classics) by Charles Dickens

If you’re not acquainted with Dickens , then his evergreen Christmastime classic is the perfect introduction. Not only is it one of his best-loved works, but it’s also a slim 104 pages — a true yuletide miracle from an author with a tendency towards the tome! This short length means it’s the perfect book with which to cozy up in winter, just when you want to feel that warm holiday glow.

17. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

En route to his wedding, merchant sailor Edmond Dantès is shockingly accused of treason and thrown in prison without cause. There, he learns the secret location of a great fortune — knowledge that incites him to escape his grim fortress and take revenge on his accusers. With peerlessly propulsive prose, Dumas spins an epic tale of retribution, jealousy, and suffering that deserves every page he gives it.

18. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A masterclass in character development , the very title of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment is essentially an idiom for 'epic literature.' It centers around Raskolnikov, an unremarkable man who randomly murders someone after convincing himself that his motives are lofty enough to justify his actions. It turns out that it’s never that simple, and his conscience begins to call to him more and more.

19. Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

The inspiration for the seminal 90s teen drama Cruel Intentions , Laclos's epistolary classic is a heady pre-revolutionary cocktail of sex and scandal that paints a damning portrait of high society. Laclos expertly plays with form and structure, composing a riveting narrative of letters passed between the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont — aristocratic former lovers who get in over their heads when they start playing with people's hearts. 

20. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes

In this highly atmospheric book, Fuentes draws the reader in with hypnotic, visceral descriptions of the final hours of its title character: a multifaceted tycoon, revolutionary, lover, and politician. As with many classic books, death here symbolizes corruption — yet it’s also impossible to ignore as a physical reality. As well as being a powerful statement on mortality, it's a moving history of the Mexican Revolution and a landmark in Latin-American literature .

21. Diary of a Madman, and other stories by Lu Xun

This collection is a modern Chinese classic containing chilling, satirical stories illustrating a time of great social upheaval. With tales that ask questions about what constitutes an individual's life, ordinary citizens' everyday experiences blend with enduring feudal values, ghosts, death, and even a touch of cannibalism.

22. Samuel Pepys The Diaries by Samuel Pepys

Best known for his recording the Great Fire of London, Samuel Pepys was a man whose writings have provided modern historians with one of the greatest insights into 17th-century living. The greatest hits of his diary include eyewitness accounts of the restoration of the monarchy and the Great Plague. The timelessness of this book, however, is owed to the richness of Pepys's day-to-day drama, which he records in unsparing, lively detail.

23 . A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) by Henrik Ibsen

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a powerful play starring the seemingly frivolous housewife Nora. Her husband, Torvald, considers her to be a silly “bird” of a companion, but in reality, she’s got a much firmer grasp on the hard facts of their domestic life than he does. Readers will celebrate as she finds the voice to speak her true thoughts.

24. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Entranced by tales of chivalry, a minor nobleman reinvents himself as a knight. He travels the land jousting giants and delivering justice — though, in reality, he’s tilting at windmills and fighting friars. And while Don Quixote lives out a fantasy in his head, an imposter puts it to the page, further blurring the line between fiction and reality. Considered by many to be the first modern novel, Don Quixote is undoubtedly the work of a master storyteller.

25. The Dream of The Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

A treasured classic of Chinese literature, Dream of the Red Chamber is a rich, sprawling text that explores the darkest corners of high society during the Qing Dynasty. Focusing on two branches of a fading aristocratic clan, it details the lives of almost forty major characters, including Jia Baoyu, the heir apparent whose romantic notions may threaten the family's future.

26. Dune by Frank Herbert

A dazzling epic science fiction classic, Dune created a now-immortalized interstellar society featuring a conflict between various noble families. On the desert planet of Arrakis, House Atreides controls the production of a high-demand drug known as "the spice". As political conflicts mount and spice-related revelations occur, young heir Paul Atreides must push himself to the absolute limit to save his planet and his loved ones.

27. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy became the blueprint for countless fantasy series , and this first installment is its epic start. In The Fellowship of the Ring, we meet Frodo Baggins and his troupe of loyal friends, all of whom embark on a fateful mission: to destroy the One Ring and its awful powers forever.

28. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan’s disruptive feminist text sheds light on the midcentury dissatisfaction of homemakers across America. Her case studies of unhappy women relegated to the domestic sphere, striving for careers and identities beyond the home, cut deep even now — and in retrospect, were a clear catalyst for second-wave feminism in the United States.

29. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Shelley’s hugely influential classic recounts the tragic tale of Victor Frankenstein: a scientist who mistakenly engineers a violent monster. When Victor abandons his creation, the monster escapes and threatens to kill Victor’s family — unless he’s given a mate. Facing tremendous moral pressure, Victor must choose: foster a new race to possibly destroy humanity, or be responsible for the deaths of everyone he’s ever loved?

30. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

A defining entry in the LGBTQ+ canon , Giovanni’s Room relates one man’s struggle with his sexuality, as well as the broader consequences of the toxic patriarchy. After David, our narrator, has traveled to France to find himself, he begins a relationship with messy, magnetic Giovanni — the perfect foil to David’s safe, dull girlfriend. As more trouble arises, David agonizes over who he is, what he wants, and whether it is even possible to obtain it in this world.

31. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

This inventive meta novel is the first of Lessing’s “inner space” works, dealing with ideas of mental and societal breakdown. It revolves around writer Anna Wulf, who hopes to combine the notebooks about her life into one grand narrative. But despite her creative strides, Anna has irreparably fragmented herself — and working to re-synthesize her different sides eventually drives her mad.

32. Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves

Few people possess enough raw material to pen a memoir at the age of 34. Robert Graves — having already lived through the First World War and the seismic shifts it sparked in English society and sensibilities — peppers his sober account of social and personal turmoil with moments of surprising levity. Graves would later go on to write I, Claudius, a novel of the Roman Empire that is considered one of the greatest books ever written.

33. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Following one Oklahoma family’s journey out of the Dust Bowl in search of a better life in California, Steinbeck’s classic is a vivid snapshot of Depression-era America, and about as devastating as it gets. Both tragic and awe-inspiring, The Grapes of Wrath is widely considered to be Steinbeck's best book and a front-runner for the title of The Great American Novel.

34. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When talking of the Great American Novel, you cannot help but mention this work by F. Scott Fitzgerald. More than just a champagne-soaked story of love, betrayal, and murder, The Great Gatsby has a lot to say about class, identity, and belonging if you scratch its surface. You probably read this classic book in high school, but a return visit to West Egg is more than justified.

35. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Meet John Singer, a deaf and nonverbal man who sits in the same café every day. Here, in the deep American South of the 1930s, John meets an assortment of people and acts as the silent, kind keeper of their stories — right up until an unforgettable ending that will blow you away. It’s hard to believe McCullers was only 23 when she penned this Southern gothic classic.

36. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

An epic work that befits its lengthy title, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire chronicles thirteen centuries of Roman rule. It chronicles its leaders, conflicts, and the events that led to its collapse— an outcome that Gibbon lays at the feet of Christianity. This work is an ambitious feat at over six volumes, though one that Gibbon pulls off with great panache.

37. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Arthur Dent is an Englishman, an enjoyer of tea — and the only person to survive the destruction of the Earth. Accompanied by an alien author, Dent must now venture into the intergalactic bypass to figure out what’s going on. Though by no means the first comedic genre book, Douglas Adams’s masterpiece certainly popularized the idea that science fiction doesn't have to be earnest and straight-faced.

38. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle’s world-famous detective needs no introduction. Mythologized in film and television many times over by now, this mystery of a diabolical hound roaming the moors in Devon is perhaps Sherlock Holmes’s most famous adventure.

39. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Few first-time novelists have had the kind of impact and success enjoyed by Isabel Allende with her triumphant debut. Found at the top of pretty much every list of ‘best sweeping family sagas,’ The House of the Spirits chronicles the tumultuous history of the Trueba family, entwining the personal, the political, and the magical.

40. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

A perennial personal development staple, How to Win Friends and Influence People has been flying off the shelves since its release in 1936. Full of tried-and-true tips for garnering favor in both professional and personal settings, you’ll want to read the classic book that launched the entire self-help industry.

41. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

From a small Southern town to San Francisco, this landmark memoir covers Maya Angelou’s childhood years growing up in the United States, facing daily prejudice, racism, and sexism. Yet what shines the brightest on every page is Maya Angelou’s voice — which made the book an instant classic in 1969 and has endured to this day.

42. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

You don’t have to be a sci-fi buff (or a Will Smith fan) to understand I, Robot’s iconic status. But if you are one, you’ll know the impact Isaac Asimov’s short story collection has had on subsequent generations of writers. Razor-sharp and thought-provoking, these tales of robotic sentience are still deeply relevant today.

43. If This Is a Man by Primo Levi

Spare, unflinching, and horrifying, If This Is a Ma n is Italian-Jewish writer Primo Levi’s autobiographical account of life under fascism and his detention in Auschwitz. It serves as an invaluable historical document and a powerful insight into the atrocities of war, making for a challenging but essential read.

44. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

From Ellison’s exceptional writing to his affecting portrayal of Black existence in America, Invisible Man is a true masterpiece. The book’s unnamed narrator describes experiences ranging from frustrating to nightmarish, reflecting on the “invisibility” of being seen only as one’s racial identity. Weaving in threads of Marxist theory and political unrest, this National Book Award winner remains a radical, brilliant must-read for the 21st century.

45. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Like a dark, sparkling jewel passed down through generations, Charlotte Brontë’s exquisite Gothic romance continues to be revered and reimagined more than 170 years after its publication. Its endurance is largely thanks to the intensely passionate and turbulent relationship between headstrong heroine Jane and the mysterious Mr. Rochester — a romance that is strikingly modern in its sexual politics.

46. The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en

Journey to the West is an episodic Chinese novel published anonymously in the 16th century and attributed to Wu Cheng’en. Today, this beloved text — a rollicking fantasy about a mischievous, shape-shifting monkey god and his fallen immortal friends — is the source text for children’s stories, films, and comics. But this classic book is also an insightful comic satire and a monument of literature comparable to The Canterbury Tales or Don Quixote.

47. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

A science fiction novel by one of the genre's greats, Kindred asks the toughest “what if” question there is: What if a modern black woman was transported back in time to antebellum Maryland? Octavia Butler sugarcoats nothing in this incisive, time-traveling inquisition into race and racism during one of the most horrifying periods in American history.

49. The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon

The Lonely Londoners occupies a unique historical position as one of the earliest accounts of the Black working-class in 20th-century Britain. Selvon delves into the lives of immigrants from the West Indies, most of whom feel disillusioned and listless in London. But with its singular slice-of-life style and humor, The Lonely Londoners is hardly a tragic novel — only an unflinchingly honest one.

50. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Another high school English classic, Lord of the Flies recounts the fate of a group of young British boys stranded on a desert island. Though they initially attempt to band together, rising tensions and paranoia lead to in-fighting and, eventually, terrible violence. The result is a dark cautionary tale against our own primitive brutality — with the haunting implication that it's closer to the surface than we'd like to think.

51. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Flaubert’s heroine Emma Bovary is the young wife of a provincial doctor who escapes her banal existence by devouring romance novels. But when Emma decides she remains unfulfilled, she starts seeking romantic affairs of her own — all of which fail to meet her expectations or rescue her from her mounting debt. Though Flaubert’s novel caused a moral outcry on publication, its portrayal of a married woman’s affair was so realistic, many women believed they were the model for his heroine.

52. The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling

This short novella tells the story of two British men visiting India while the country is a British colony. Swindlers and cheats, the men trick their way to Kafiristan, a remote region where one of them comes to be revered as king. A cautionary tale warning against letting things go to your head, this funny and absurd read has also been made into a classic film starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery.

53. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Subtitled A Study of Provincial Life , this novel concerns itself with the ordinary lives of individuals in the fictional town of Middlemarch in the early 19th century. Hailed for its depiction of a time of significant social change, it also stands out for its gleaming idealism, as well as endless generosity and compassion towards the follies of humanity.

54. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Born in the first hour of India’s independence, Saleem Sinai is gifted with the power of telepathy and an extraordinary sense of smell. He soon discovers that there are 1,001 others with similar abilities — people who can help Saleem build a new India. The winner of the Booker prize in 1981, Salman Rushdie’s groundbreaking novel is a triumphant achievement of magical realism .

55. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Moby-Dick is more than the story of a boy on-board a whaling ship, more than an ode to marine lore and legend, and even more than a metaphysical allegory for the struggle between good and evil. Herman Melville’s “Great American Novel” is a masterful study of faith, obsession, and delusion — and a profound social commentary born from his lifelong meditation on America. The result will fill you with wonder and awe.

56. My Antonia by Willa Cather

Willa Cather’s celebrated classic about life on the prairie, My Ántonia tells the nostalgic story of Jim and Ántonia, childhood friends and neighbors in rural Nebraska. As well as charting the passage of time and the making of America, it’s a book that fills readers with wonder and a warm feeling of familiarity.

57. The Name Of The Rose by Umberto Eco

Originally published in Italian, The Name of the Rose is one of the bestselling books of all time — and for good reason. Umberto Eco plots a wild ride from start to finish: an intelligent murder mystery that combines theology, semiotics, empiricism, biblical analysis, and layers of metanarratives that create a brilliant labyrinth of a book.

58. The Nether World by George Gissing

A masterpiece of realism, The Nether World forces the reader to spend time with the type of marginalized people routinely left out of fiction: the working class of late 19th century London, a group whose many problems are intertwined with money. Idealistic in its pessimism, this fantastic novel insists that life is much more demanding than fiction lets show.

59. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

George Orwell’s story of a heavily surveilled dystopian state was heralded as prescient and left a lasting impact on popular culture and language (“Room 101”, “Big Brother,” and “Doublethink” were all born in its pages, to name a few). Just read it, if only to recognize its references, which you’ll begin to notice everywhere .

60. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Uprooted from the South, a pastor's daughter, Margaret Hale, finds herself living in an industrial town in England's North. She encounters the suffering of the local mill workers and the mill owner John Thornton — and two very different passions ignite. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell fuses personal feeling with social concern, creating in the process a heroine that feels original and strikingly modern.

61. The Odyssey by Homer

This timeless classic has the heart-racing thrills of an adventure story and the psychological drama of an intricate family saga. After ten years fighting in a thankless war, Odysseus begins the long journey home to Ithaca — where his wife Penelope struggles to hold off a horde of suitors. But with men and gods standing in their way, will Odysseus and Penelope ever be reunited?

62. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway ’s career culminated with The Old Man and the Sea, the last book he published in his lifetime. This ocean-deep novella has a deceptively simple premise — an aging fisherman ventures out into the Gulf Stream determined to break his unlucky streak. What follows is a battle that’s small in scale but epic in feeling, rendered in Hemingway’s famously spare prose.

63. On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Questioning the idea of a Creator — and therefore challenging the beliefs of most of the Western world — in The Origin of Species , Darwin explored a theory of evolution based on laws of natural selection. Not only is this text still considered a groundbreaking scientific work, but the ideas it puts forward remain fundamental to modern biology. And it’s totally readable to boot!

64. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The subjective nature of “sanity,” institutional oppression, and rejection of authority are just a few of the issues tackled in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . The rebellious Randle McMurphy is this story’s de facto hero, and his clashes with the notorious Nurse Ratched have not only inspired a host of spin-offs but arguably a whole movement of fiction related to mental health.

65. One Thousand and One Nights by Anonymous

Embittered by his first wife’s infidelity, King Shahryar takes a new bride every night and beheads her in the morning — until Scheherazade, his latest bride, learns to use her imagination to stave off death. In this collection of Arabic folk tales, the quick-witted storyteller Scheherazade demonstrates the power of a good cliffhanger — on both the king and the reader!

66. Orientalism by Edward W. Said

An intelligent critique of the way the Western world perceives the East, Orientalism argues that the West’s racist, oppressive, and backward representation of the Eastern world is tied to imperialism. Published in 1978, Edward Said’s transformative text changed academic discourse forever.

67. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Thanks to the wit and wisdom of Jane Austen, the love story of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy (pioneers of the enemies-to-lovers trope) is not merely a regency romance but a playful commentary on class, wealth, and the search for self-knowledge in a world governed by strict etiquette. Light, bright, and flawlessly crafted, Pride and Prejudice is an Austen classic you’re guaranteed to love.

68. The Princesse de Clèves by Madame de Lafayette

Often called the first modern novel from France, The Princesse de Cleves is an account of love, anguish, and their inherent inseparability: an all-too-familiar story, despite the 16th-century setting. Though the plot is simple — an unrequited love, unspoken until it’s not — Madame de Lafayette pours onto the pages a moving and profound analysis of the fragile human heart.

69. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

The Reader is set in postwar Germany, a society still living in the shadow of the Holocaust. The book begins with an older woman’s relationship with a minor, though it isn’t even the most shocking thing that happens in this novel. Concerned with disconnection and apathy, Schlink’s book grapples with the guilty weight of the past without flinching from the horror of the present.

70. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Du Maurier’s slow-burning mystery has been sending a chill down readers’ spines for decades, earning its place in the horror hall of fame. It’s required reading for any fan of the genre, but reader beware: this gorgeously gothic novel will keep you up at night.

71. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

A mainstay of feminist literature , A Room of One’s Own experimentally blends fiction and fact to drill down into the role of women in literature as both subjects and creatives. Part critical theory, part rallying cry, this slender book still packs a powerful punch.

72. Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Described by Edward Said as one of the great novels in the oeuvre of Arabic books, Season of Migration to the North is the revolutionary narrative of two men struggling to re-discover their Sudanese identities following the impact of British colonialism. Some compare it to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness , but it stands tall in its own right.

73. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

A foundational feminist text , Simone de Beauvoir's treatise The Second Sex marked a watershed moment in feminist history and gender theory. It rewards the efforts of those willing to traverse its nearly 1,000 pages with eye-opening truths about gender, oppression, and otherness.

74. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

How do genes work? And what does that mean for our chances of survival? Often cited as one of the most influential science books of all time, Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene seeks to answer these pressing questions and more. It also touts the dubious glory of introducing the word “meme” into the public consciousness. 

75. The Shining by Stephen King

Jack Torrance is the new off-season caretaker at the Overlook Hotel. Providing his family with a home and him with enough time to write, it’s the perfect job, but for one tiny problem: the hotel may be haunted. And it’s only going to get worse once winter sets in. If you only read one horror book in your lifetime, you could do much worse than Stephen King’s The Shining .

76. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The story of a man casting off his worldly possessions in the pursuit of self-discovery and enlightenment, Siddhartha may seem intimidatingly philosophical at first glance. In reality, though, Herman Hesse’s German-language classic is surprisingly accessible, and as page-turning and readable as it is spiritually enlightening.

77. The Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A defining work in early Romanticism that influenced the likes of Mary Shelley and Thomas Mann, The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary novel that tells of a young writer infatuated with someone else’s betrothed. Drawing heavily on his own experience of ill-fated love, as well as the death of his good friend, Goethe makes the pages hum with angst and repressed desire.

78. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dr. Jekyll’s attempt to indulge in his vices transforms him into the horrific Mr. Hyde. The more Jekyll yields to his urges, the more powerful Hyde becomes until even Jekyll can’t control him. The result is a thrilling story of supernatural horror and a potent allegory that warns against giving in to one’s dark side.

79. The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Stranger opens with Meursault, our hero, learning of the death of his mother. His reaction to the news is put under intense scrutiny from those around him. The reader is led in a strange dance of absurdism and existentialism that sees Meursault confront something even crueler than mortality: society’s expectations.

80. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth by Vikram Seth

Recently adapted into a hit drama by the BBC, A Suitable Boy is one of the newer books on our list but has already landed classic status. At nearly 1,500 pages long, the story of 19-year-old Lata's attempts to resist her family's efforts to marry her off to "a suitable boy" is astonishing in its execution and eye-opening look at class, religion, and gendered expectations in mid-century India.

81. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

The Tale of Genji follows the romantic and political misadventures of a young official born to one of the emperor’s consorts. With no place in the line of succession, Genji makes his way through life using his good looks and charm — but these gifts ultimately bring him more sorrow than joy. Elegant and immersive, this captivating classic is often touted as the first in-depth character study.

82. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Set against sweeping landscapes and wind-torn fields, Tess of the D’Urbervilles focuses on the life of young Tess Durbeyfield, who, by her family’s great poverty, is forced to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urberville family. What follows is a devastating tragedy, as Tess meets harsher and harsher treatment at the hands of men.

83. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

After being caught kissing down-and-out Johnny Taylor, sixteen-year-old Janie is promptly married off to an older man. Following her journey through adolescence, adulthood, and a string of unsatisfying marriages with unblinking honesty, Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the seminal masterpieces of African American literature .

84. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe’s magnum opus follows Okonkwo, an Igbo man whose sole aim is to rise above his father’s weak legacy. Okonkwo is strong and fearless, but his obsession with masculinity leads him to violently dominate others — until he goes too far one day. The following events form an unparalleled tragedy, made all the more gripping by rich details of pre-colonial Igbo culture and timeless questions about tradition and honor.

85. Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata

When a young man meets his late father’s mistress at a tea ceremony, he succumbs to a desire that is both transgressive and overpowering. While the tragic consequences of their love affair unfold, Kawabata delicately guides us through a world of passion, regret, and exquisite beauty. No wonder Thousand Cranes helped him land a Nobel Prize.

86. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This unforgettable classic centers on race relations and justice in the Depression-era South. Narrated by our protagonist as an adult, it looks back to her childhood when her father defended a Black man falsely accused of rape. She muses on what their small town’s reactions to the trial taught her about prejudice and morality. Despite the heavy subject matter, Scout’s warm, insightful voice makes To Kill a Mockingbird a joy to read; no wonder it’s often cited as the Great American Novel.

87. The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Trial begins with a bank cashier, Josef K., accused of an unspecified crime and told to await a court summons. Josef attempts to figure out what he has “done” but is met only with chaos and despair, and his sanity continues to fray as he goes through this maddening ordeal.

88. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Henry James’ brilliance arguably reached a pinnacle with The Turn of the Screw , a Gothic novella about a governess who cares for two children in the estate of Bly. She grows convinced that the grounds are haunted by ghosts — but are they, really?

89. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning adaptation recently drew renewed attention to this vital work by Solomon Northup, a memoir that takes a well-deserved place on every complete list of classic books. As a free and educated man kidnapped and sold into slavery, Northup was able to write an extraordinarily full account of life on a cotton plantation that exposes the brutal truth from the uniquely cutting viewpoint of both an outsider and a victim.

90. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

This classic sci-fi book features the original Nemo — not, regrettably, an adorable clownfish, but the captain of a submarine called Nautilus. Captain Nemo, his crew, and three scientists go on a fantastical journey in the shadowy depths of the sea. From underwater forests to walking the seafloor and finding Atlantis, this is no ordinary adventure.

91. Ulysses by James Joyce

Though it’s a long book, Ulysses traces the progress of a single day in the life of Irishman Leopold Bloom and his acquaintances. A groundbreaking modernist work, this novel is characterized by innovative literary experimentation and a stream-of-consciousness flow that winds elusively along the streets of Dublin.

92. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch’s best-known novel is much like its protagonist: brimming with equal parts charisma and chaos. Down-and-out writer Jake Donaghue is the man of the hour, and the reader charts him all over London as he runs into increasingly odd characters and situations.

93. Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand

Untouchable follows a day in the life of Bakha, a sweeper and toilet cleaner who is rendered “untouchable” under India’s rigid caste system. Only 166 pages long, Anand presents a powerful case study of injustice and the oppressive systems that perpetuate it.

94. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

A commanding manifesto by author-activist Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman birthed the tenets of modern feminist thought. Defying the commonly held notion that women were naturally inferior to men, it argued that a lack of education for women fostered inequality. One to pick up if you want to feel good about how far gender equality has come — or if you want to fuel your fire for the distance yet to be traveled.

95. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

Two worlds must do epic battle: humankind and Martians. And only one can survive. This seminal science fiction work caused widespread panic in 1938 when its radio adaptation—narrated and directed by Orson Welles—made people across the United States think that an actual alien invasion was taking place right outside their front doors.

96. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Are you tired of being told to read Jane Eyre ? Then we suggest you pick up Wide Sargasso Sea : the feminist prequel written by Jean Rhys in 1966. Rhys reshapes the Bronte classic forever by writing from Bertha Mason’s point of view: no longer the madwoman in the attic, but a Jamaican caught in a patriarchal society from which she cannot escape.

97. Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

This book takes its reader to a fictional African nation called the Free Republic of Aburiria and brings a postcolonial edge to folk storytelling. Featuring tricksters, lovers, and magical elements, Wizard of the Crow is a hilarious satire of autocracy and an experimental feat that cleverly incorporates oral traditions into its grand vision.

98. Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis

Women, Race, and Class is a must-read for anyone who wants to know about the intersectionality of the abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements. Civil rights activist Angela Davis unpacks white feminism, sexism, and racism in clear, incisive prose as she makes a resounding call for equality.

99. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Amid a terrible snowstorm, a man takes shelter at Wuthering Heights, where he learns the story of the manor’s former inhabitants: Catherine and Heathcliff. Set against the bleak and feral backdrop of the Yorkshire Moors, it’s a story of impossible desire, cruel betrayal, and bitter vengeance that rages with as much life and power as the fierce winds outside.

100. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

One of the early feminist triumphs, The Yellow Wallpaper is the famous short story chronicling the slow breakdown of a woman imprisoned in a room with (spoiler alert) yellow wallpaper—presumably to cure her “temporary nervous depression.” Highly recommended, especially since it’s only a 10-minute read.

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Claire Messud turns her family’s history into a masterpiece

“This Strange Eventful History” is a novel that’s quilted from scraps of memory treasured in the author’s attic for decades.

Claire Messud opens “ This Strange Eventful History ” with a prologue that announces, “I want to save lives. Or simply: I want to save life.” That may sound pretentious — she’s just a writer, after all — but it’s prophetic, an aspiration wholly borne out by this monumental novel, which is a work of salvage and salvation.

As the title suggests, though, it’s not exactly a novel — or not only a novel. Rather than being cut from whole cloth, “This Strange Eventful History” is quilted from scraps of memory treasured in the author’s attic for decades. To a certain extent, the project began with a 1,500-page memoir written out by Messud’s paternal grandfather, who was born in what was once French Algeria. Now, after a lifetime of reflection, Messud has published a book that imagines how three generations of the Cassar family rode the geopolitical waves from World War II into the 21st century.

Literary spelunkers may expect the voyeuristic thrill of climbing through the life of the author who wrote “ The Emperor’s Children ,” “ The Woman Upstairs ” and other terrific novels, but there are treasures here far beyond the merely autobiographical. The names have been changed, and the copyright page warns nosy readers that “all characters, events, and incidents have been fictionalized.” Isn’t that the case, though, with anyone’s family history? We all live and move and have our being in a discombobulated library of familial tales that get more dubious the further they deviate from what we need to be true.

Halfway through “This Strange Eventful History,” Messud’s avatar, Chloe Cassar, makes her first appearance as an anxious, exceedingly precocious third-grader in Sydney. Though only 7 years old, she already knows “we must all pretend that we aren’t stepping, each day, along a tightrope over a fire-filled gorge that would at any instant swallow us.” Rising in the middle of the night to watch over her family, she says, “I was the storyteller, and made the stories end happily.”

Clearly, Messud clung to her early avocation while abandoning that editorial prescription. These stories rarely end happily — in fact, they rarely end at all. Instead, the peripatetic chapters jump around the world as old assumptions about national identities are challenged and long-held dreams are thwarted. The members of the Cassar family are like magnets separated only by the centrifugal force of history, constantly drawn back together whenever the opportunity arises.

The novel opens in 1940 as the Germans invade Paris. Gaston Cassar is a French naval attaché in Greece. Racing to stay ahead of the approaching horror, he recently sent his family back to Algeria but can’t be certain they’ve made it. Although he writes every night to his beloved wife, Lucienne, he hears nothing in return. “Lucienne was his anchor, but now he had to rely on himself,” the narrator writes. “What am I? he asked the empty sitting room, the dripping night: What am I for? And the litany that he and Lucienne had more than once recited together returned to him: I am Mediterranean, I am Latin, I am Catholic, I am French. These, then, were his anchors; these things, a priori and immutable, defined him.”

Alas, one generation’s anchors will become a new generation’s flotsam. Even as Gaston worries about the safety of his family, his 8-year-old son, François, is struggling to locate his identity on a world map that’s aflame. “This was where his family belonged,” his parents insist. “‘Here’ was France — Algeria of course, but Algeria was France — and this was home, apparently.” How poignant that “apparently” is, how fraught already with colonial presumption and revolutionary portent.

A decade later, young François is at Amherst College on a Fulbright scholarship, feeling alternately thrilled and lonely. His American fraternity brothers are like children, the narrator notes, “good guys, without irony or malice — if also without worldly perspective or understanding.” Their casual racism is passed off as a species of friendship. They regard François — their token “Ay-rab” — as “a (mostly) white colonial African from that mysterious terrain across the Mediterranean. … He was completely indecipherable.”

As the decades pass and the Cassars continue to traverse the planet, their accomplishments and miseries accrue, but each section plunges us into a new setting with a cold-water shock of disorientation. Indeed, this is a novel that feels consciously designed to punish inattention. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and friends are all tangled in a giant game of cat’s cradle played out over several continents.

Committed to an unhappy marriage, François struggles to fulfill his father’s concept of success while repressing his own artistic longings. His brilliant younger sister clings forever to their parents under the guise of caring for them. And all along, Gaston and Lucienne’s marriage — despite the 13-year age difference — is polished by the family to a high sheen, a pearl formed around a grain of scandal. The real tragedy, though, is that their union becomes an unmatchable fantasy — “the masterpiece of our lives” — that casts their offspring’s romantic prospects in a permanent shadow of disappointment.

As Chloe gets older, goes to college and meets a smart young man (with the vague outlines of New Yorker book critic James Wood), she grows more curious about her conflicted parents, her disturbed aunt, her kindly French grandparents and the compromises that accumulate with deadly effect like lead in the kidneys. Every character here is explored with extraordinary skill and sympathy, but François, based on the long, complicated life of Messud’s father, is her most exquisite creation. She has carved him with unsparing insight while cradling him with affection; she acknowledges his unceasing toil without excusing his corrosive self-pity. It’s a portrait on the razor’s edge between bitterness and sentimentality without falling into either. “He wanted to be seen,” the narrator says. Now he is.

Regardless of how much Messud may have drawn from biographical details, though, this novel grips our interest only because of how expertly she shapes these incidents for dramatic effect. She’s been praised for her Jamesian pursuit of psychological realism, but that suggests armchair reflection. Here, Messud sifts through characters’ lives like a squad of police officers with a warrant. She puts such pressure on her sentences that the rules of grammar shatter and concede to her demands. She can capture the panicked mind of a woman realizing that the love of her life was an illusion or a crowd gossiping at a 50th-anniversary party. At its most magnificent, her phrasing isn’t merely long-winded or syntactically complex, it’s tireless, racing to snatch lives from the sands of time.

“This Strange Eventful History” is a novel of such cavernous depth, such relentless exploration, that it can’t help but make one realize how much we know and how little we confess about our own families. I strove to withhold judgment, to exercise a little skeptical decorum, but I couldn’t help finishing each chapter in a flush of awe.

Ron Charles reviews books and writes the Book Club newsletter for The Washington Post. He is the book critic for “ CBS Sunday Morning .”

This Strange Eventful History

By Claire Messud

W.W. Norton. 428 pp. $29.99

More from Book World

Love everything about books? Make sure to subscribe to our Book Club newsletter , where Ron Charles guides you through the literary news of the week.

Check out our coverage of this year’s Pulitzer winners: Jayne Anne Phillips won the fiction prize for her novel “ Night Watch .” The nonfiction prize went to Nathan Thrall, for “ A Day in the Life of Abed Salama .” Cristina Rivera Garza received the memoir prize for “ Liliana’s Invincible Summer .” And Jonathan Eig received the biography prize for his “ King: A Life .”

Best books of 2023: See our picks for the 10 best books of 2023 or dive into the staff picks that Book World writers and editors treasured in 2023. Check out the complete lists of 50 notable works for fiction and the top 50 nonfiction books of last year.

Find your favorite genre: Three new memoirs tell stories of struggle and resilience, while five recent historical novels offer a window into other times. Audiobooks more your thing? We’ve got you covered there, too . If you’re looking for what’s new, we have a list of our most anticipated books of 2024 . And here are 10 noteworthy new titles that you might want to consider picking up this April.

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5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

“can a novel be both blunt and exquisite”.

Our feast of fabulous reviews this week includes Sam Sacks on Colm Tóibín’s Long Island , Maggie Shipstead on Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall , Lara Feigel on Maggie Nelson’s Like Love , Jennifer Wilson on This Strange Eventful History , and Lauren LeBlanc on Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

“The plot may sound like the stuff of soap operas, but Mr. Tóibín is essentially a dramatist of repression. Exposing their feelings, openly acting on their desires, committing their hearts in one direction or another—such decisions are torments to this author’s characters and only come about awkwardly, when their longings or hurts overwhelm them. Irish Enniscorthy, much like Italian Lindenhurst, is an insular, gossipy place where every secret is eventually known by all yet might never be spoken out loud. The exceptionally acute feeling of suspense in Long Island comes not just from waiting to see what will become of Jim, Eilis and Nancy, but from the characters’ struggle to finally express themselves, despite the pain or regret it might bring them. It’s a tricky thing, producing a novel from a style this muted and undemonstrative …

Yet the writing perfectly suits Brooklyn and Long Island , helping to capture the decency and ordinariness of the characters as well as the deep emotional ruptures that drive them toward disorder. The confrontations between these people, so long delayed, feel momentous and hugely affecting. These pendant novels, I think, will be the fiction for which this wonderful writer is best remembered.”

–Sam Sacks on Colm Tóibín’s Long Island ( The Wall Street Journal )

“Can a novel be both blunt and exquisite? I’m not sure I would have known how to imagine such a work before reading Whale Fall , Elizabeth O’Connor’s excellent debut. Brief but complete, the book is an example of precisely observed writing that makes a character’s specific existence glimmer with verisimilitude … the novel does an exceptional job of getting at the tension between the big picture and the small one. To different eyes, the same island might look like a prison or a romantic enclave, but to actually apprehend the truth of a place or person requires patience, nuanced attention and the painstaking accrual of details. Understanding is hard work, O’Connor suggests, especially when we must release our preconceptions. While the researchers fail to grasp this, Manod does not, and her reward by book’s end, painfully earned, is a new and thrilling resolve.”

–Maggie Shipstead on Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall ( The New York Times Book Review )

“A decade after The Argonauts became the bible of English graduates everywhere, the essays in Like Love arrive to help us understand Nelson’s place in a culture where, to her half-delight, she has become such a powerful voice. Spanning two decades, they range from appreciations of influences including Prince and Judith Butler, to wild, freefalling conversations with figures such as Björk, Wayne Koestenbaum and Jacqueline Rose. There is a passionate, wondering account of her formative half-erotic friendship with the singer Lhasa de Sela. The writing isn’t consistent, any more than her books are. But I like to take my thinkers and writers whole, as she does. The essays offer a kind of composite self-portrait, and illustrate how she thinks, sometimes painstakingly, sometimes with casual jubilance, about some of the central dilemmas of our time …

Because Nelson likes writing about her friends, there’s a kind of homogeneity to much of the book that cumulatively left me feeling a little claustrophobic, longing especially for the roominess of time travel…Which is not to say that she’s wrong to write about the people in her circle. The brutality of the present moment may require us precisely to batten down the hatches and commit to extreme solidarity. At a time when institutional life is collapsing, when the pandemic privileged family over friends, when work expands in ways that leave many too exhausted to socialize, Nelson demonstrates what it means to dedicate yourself to a cohort with seriousness and strenuousness … Like Love may be one of the most movingly specific, the most lovingly unruly celebrations of the ethics of friendship we have.”

–Lara Feigel on Maggie Nelson’s Like Love ( The Guardian )

“Messud lets the messiness of reality overflow the neatness of fiction, as if in defiance of this tendency. The novel brims with details, many likely gleaned from a fifteen-hundred-page family history, titled Everything That We Believed In , that her paternal grandfather left behind. Messud has used that document to craft something more interesting than a historical novel: a novel about history and the stories we tell ourselves about the role we play in it …

Some readers will bristle at This Strange Eventful History and the pains it takes to account for the lost sense of belonging felt by the pieds noirs , who treated Algerians like strangers in their own land. One could accuse Messud of treating her family’s history like a family heirloom, which is to say, over-delicately. Messud is fond of quoting a piece of advice from the Russian writer Anton Chekhov. In 2020, she summarized it for the Web site Literary Hub, saying, ‘It’s not my job to tell you that horse thieves are bad people, it’s my job to tell you what this horse thief is like.’ Messud risks the accusations above to do her work well.

In This Strange Eventful History , she unswervingly tells us what the pieds noirs are like—a people too homeless to feel responsible for squatting, too poor to see themselves as colonizers, too in love with their conquest to sense anything wrong with the liaison. The Cassars cling to an idealized memory of Algeria that’s untroubled by reality, the tree of knowledge unshaken, the apple still intact, but Messud trusts her readers to bite down.”

–Jennifer Wilson on This Strange Eventful History ( The New Yorker )

“Of late, many critically acclaimed books embrace mystery and absurdity in a way that both suspends and expands conventionally held notions of time…Their playfulness reveals possibilities and perspectives that might be lost in a novel bound by fact-checked 21st century reality. After all, in a world where nothing feels normal, fiction that embraces a disregard for physics and convention mirrors our new upside-down quotidian lifeTo this end, Kaliane Bradley proves that it’s possible to address imperialism, the scourge of bureaucracy, cross-cultural conflict and the paranoia inherent in a surveillance state through her utterly entertaining novel …

As the story’s momentum builds into that of a spy thriller, Bradley pulls off a rare feat. The Ministry of Time is a novel that doesn’t stoop to easy answers and doesn’t devolve into polemic. It’s a smart, gripping work that’s also a feast for the senses. An assassination, moles, questions of identity and violence wreak havoc on our happy lovers and the bubble they create in London. Yet our affection for them is as fresh and thrilling as theirs is for one another, two explorers of a kind, caught in a brilliant discovery. Bradley’s written an edgy, playful and provocative book that’s likely to be the most thought-provoking romance novel of the summer.”

–Lauren LeBlanc on Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time ( The Los Angeles Times )

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Book Review: A grandfather’s 1,500-page family history undergirds Claire Messud’s latest novel

This cover image released by Norton shows “This Strange Eventful History” by Claire Messud. (Norton via AP)

This cover image released bu Norton shows “This Strange Eventful History” by Claire Messud. (Norton via AP)

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Secrets and shame — every family has its share. When it came time to write her most autobiographical novel, Claire Messud relied on a 1,500-page family history compiled by her paternal grandfather. The result, “This Strange Eventful History,” sprawls over a third as many pages — 423, to be exact — to tell the story of three generations of a French Algerian family displaced from their colonial homeland, who never quite found another place where they felt so completely at home.

The story is told from the point of view of the fiercely French, devout Catholic, patriarch Gaston; his rootless, cosmopolitan son, Francois; and his fearful, deluded, psychologically damaged daughter, Denise. Rounding out the chorus are Barbara, the beautiful, Protestant, Canadian-born wife of Francois, torn between roles as wife, mother and daughter as she struggles to earn a law degree at the peak of 1970s-era “women’s lib” while raising their two daughters and whipping up Julia Child recipes for dinner parties; and finally, Gaston’s granddaughter Chloe, a stand-in for the author, inheritor of this “strange, eventful history” and ultimately, spiller of family secrets and perhaps, exorciser of shame.

Behind the “endless ritual” of their busy lives — from birth to death, grade school to retirement — Messud is keenly aware that a vaster story is unfolding, one that spans epochs and continents, perceived only in glimmers by various members of the clan. For instance, when Francois calls Barbara to tell her about a terrible accident at the site of a mining operation in Australia, where they have been posted for his job, she thinks, “What had been there? Not nothing. It was an Aboriginal tribal homeland: before it had been transformed into a dystopian hellscape, it had been untouched for thousands of years, the people there living as lightly and resourcefully upon the land as the animals and birds.”

For fans of Messud, whose earlier novels include the bestselling 2006 novel “The Emperor’s Children” as well as “The Woman Upstairs,” this latest work will be ambrosial, brimming with long passages that attempt to capture the evanescent sensations of life — touch, taste, sounds, smells, the ever-shifting register of light. Others may get lost in dense, descriptive passages that roll on and on, owing a debt to the English modernist writer Virginia Woolf, one of Messud’s literary heroes. Yet all in all, the book is a masterful achievement, a somber, joyous meditation on the consolations and disappointments of empire, nation, faith and family.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

Book Review: A grandfather’s 1,500-page family history undergirds Claire Messud’s latest novel

Claire Messud, bestselling author of 2006’s “The Emperor’s Children,” has a new novel out this spring called “This Strange Eventful History.”

Secrets and shame — every family has its share. When it came time to write her most autobiographical novel, Claire Messud relied on a 1,500-page family history compiled by her paternal grandfather. The result, “This Strange Eventful History,” sprawls over a third as many pages — 423, to be exact — to tell the story of three generations of a French Algerian family displaced from their colonial homeland, who never quite found another place where they felt so completely at home.

The story is told from the point of view of the fiercely French, devout Catholic, patriarch Gaston; his rootless, cosmopolitan son, Francois; and his fearful, deluded, psychologically damaged daughter, Denise. Rounding out the chorus are Barbara, the beautiful, Protestant, Canadian-born wife of Francois, torn between roles as wife, mother and daughter as she struggles to earn a law degree at the peak of 1970s-era “women’s lib” while raising their two daughters and whipping up Julia Child recipes for dinner parties; and finally, Gaston’s granddaughter Chloe, a stand-in for the author, inheritor of this “strange, eventful history” and ultimately, spiller of family secrets and perhaps, exorciser of shame.

Behind the “endless ritual” of their busy lives — from birth to death, grade school to retirement — Messud is keenly aware that a vaster story is unfolding, one that spans epochs and continents, perceived only in glimmers by various members of the clan. For instance, when Francois calls Barbara to tell her about a terrible accident at the site of a mining operation in Australia, where they have been posted for his job, she thinks, “What had been there? Not nothing. It was an Aboriginal tribal homeland: before it had been transformed into a dystopian hellscape, it had been untouched for thousands of years, the people there living as lightly and resourcefully upon the land as the animals and birds.”

For fans of Messud, whose earlier novels include the bestselling 2006 novel “The Emperor’s Children” as well as “The Woman Upstairs,” this latest work will be ambrosial, brimming with long passages that attempt to capture the evanescent sensations of life — touch, taste, sounds, smells, the ever-shifting register of light. Others may get lost in dense, descriptive passages that roll on and on, owing a debt to the English modernist writer Virginia Woolf, one of Messud’s literary heroes. Yet all in all, the book is a masterful achievement, a somber, joyous meditation on the consolations and disappointments of empire, nation, faith and family.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

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America’s unseen book bans: the long history of censorship in prisons

Tens of thousands of books are banned in US prisons, in an often arbitrary process that limits education opportunities

O n a Monday night, just after six, Alicia Williams waits for the last stragglers to take their seats in her cramped classroom at the Washington corrections center. Her students braved western Washington’s fall weather to get here and they enter the room still ruffled from the wind, their khaki uniforms flecked with rain.

There is no rush. Instead of the lesson she planned to teach, Williams will be relying on hastily adjusted notes and on-the-spot explanations. She’d just heard she wasn’t allowed to teach the book her class was scheduled to discuss that night.

The course is English 233, children’s literature. The offending text? All Boys Aren’t Blue, a book recommended for adolescents ages 16 and up.

For many Americans, the concept of book banning until recently brought up images from earlier, more oppressive societies – grainy black-and-white film of Nazi book burning rallies, photos of McCarthy-era crowds exuberantly hurling books and political pamphlets now considered laughably tame on to bonfires.

But in recent years, books have again become a flashpoint in civic discourse, and book banning and censorship in the education system have made a comeback. Nearly every state has seen conflict over school curricula and public library catalogues.

Groups such as the pressure organization Moms for Liberty have scrutinized school libraries, hunting books that examine race or LGBTQ+ issues and demanding their removal. Conservative commentators have dedicated lengthy segments to the purported dangers of certain books, and have persuaded large swaths of Americans that critical race theory, a graduate-level college course, is being widely taught in US grade schools. Video of fistfights breaking out at PTA meetings and tirades during town halls have racked up millions of internet views. Book banning has entered the talking points of political campaigns, infusing the dynamics of everything from city council elections to gubernatorial and presidential debates. School book bans ballooned 33% between 2022 and 2023, according to the Freedom to Read Foundation, a first amendment defense organization. Authors whose books have been targeted include Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner and James Joyce.

Few people are aware, however, that book banning is a widespread and longstanding practice in US prisons . Carceral facilities scrutinize what books and magazines can be offered in their libraries, can be taught in their classes or can be mailed to people on the inside.

In many states, the list of banned publications is long. The Florida department of corrections alone has 22,825 books banned from its libraries, according to an October 2023 report by the non-profit PEN America. The Texas department of corrections is second to Florida with 10,265 bans. The Kansas DOC has banned 7,669 books. Virginia DOC, 7,204. By comparison, in the first eight months of 2023, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom received reports of 1,915 attempts to remove books from public, school and academic libraries.

“Even if you accept the premise that there are dangerous books out there, it strains credulity to suggest there are 10 times as many books that are dangerous for adults than there are books that are dangerous for children,” says Anthony Blankenship, an expert on prison policy at the Washington non-profit Civil Survival. “Florida is the worst when it comes to book banning, but every department of corrections is engaged in it. It’s something educators and incarcerated students have to deal with in every state,” he says.

Particularly troubling, according to PEN America, is the arbitrary way book bans are decided upon by some prison authorities, and the lack of clarity about the qualifications of the people imposing these bans. In a statement, the organization noted that employment at correctional facilities requires only a GED or high school diploma, “which means staff empowered to censor books may have only basic literacy themselves”.

A Washington department of corrections spokesperson said that the agency maintained a publication review committee that approves or restricts books. The spokesperson said that the department created a public list of its banned books, and provided reasons for each ban.

All Boys Aren’t Blue is not on this list.

Additionally, the spokesperson said that restricting All Boys Aren’t Blue from use in classrooms was “a joint decision” made by the department of corrections and Centralia College – the college contracted to teach English 233 – “due to the sexually explicit content in this book”. Williams, the Centralia College instructor, disputes this. She also disputes DOC’s claim that the ban could have been appealed.

“In corrections educations,” she says, “there is no appeal process. I don’t even know who is rejecting content or why.”

Williams says she was told by a department administrator that the book had been banned because the department considers any material relating to homosexuality to be problematic.

Curiously, the reason the administrator cites, Williams says, was that some students may be gay themselves, and that the book could create conflict between straight and gay students. She rejects that rationale.

“If we can’t trust that incarcerated students won’t beat each other up over the identity of book characters, what hope is there for rehabilitation and re-entry into society?”

Williams’s English 233 class guides students in a literary analysis of children’s books across a span of several centuries. The course ordinarily opens with a review of the original Grimm fairytales and works its way through contemporary children’s fiction, including a segment on children’s books that some school districts have recently banned.

“One of the biggest topics in children’s literacy is censorship and book-banning,” says Williams. “Part of the class curriculum is developing a sense of one’s own approach to content selection and censorship.”

Williams, an instructor since 2015, says many students “have never seen or read content that has been banned”, and before taking her class assume books are banned only when they contain extraordinarily explicit sexual content or promote racial conflict. After exposure to banned material, students often come to view the bans as absurd.

“The real growth happens when students have to confront material that is likely to cause discomfort and material from voices that significantly differ from the reader’s,” says Williams.

“Talking about censorship without viewing what has been censored is like going to culinary school without ever tasting the food.”

Education opportunities in prison are a key tool in reducing recidivism, says Blankenship, the prison policy expert. “The more [schooling] you have, the more your recidivism drops. By the time you get to a bachelor’s degree the chances of you going back to prison are basically zero. The department of corrections should be bending over backwards to make education accessible and to avoid interfering with it,” he said.

Not only are books critical to prisoners’ education, they can help many incarcerated people heal from the intense childhood trauma that put them on the path toward prison. Introducing prisoners with histories of adverse childhood experiences to trauma-related literature “helps them look within themselves, and gives them a baseline for how to deal with their trauma”, says Rion Tisino, an ethnic minority mental health specialist at the Washington department of social and health services. “It’s almost like a recipe for dealing with trauma.”

Devonte Crawford, a student in Williams’s children’s literature course, spent much of his life in need of such a recipe. At the age of 10, he was sexually assaulted by an older family member, he says, and the abuse went on for several years. It engendered in him what he describes as “a consuming darkness”. “I started to become a very troubled kid,” says Crawford. As a teen he was drinking and taking drugs “to cover the pain and hatred”. He recalls moving to the west coast for a fresh start, only for his destructive behavior to escalate once he arrived. He was soon serving a 30-year sentence for armed robbery.

It wasn’t until he was 26 and in prison that Crawford discovered a trauma-centered program – created and facilitated by other prisoners – and came to see that his trauma was the primary force driving his self-loathing and aggressiveness. Slowly, he began to heal. He wishes he had encountered a class like that sooner.

“I truly believe that had I been able to see or read about someone going through very similar situations then things would be much different today. It would have been incredible to know that I was not alone.”

For people like Crawford, banning books from prison education “stunts the rehabilitative process”, Tisino says. Trauma-centered literature and programs “help you see the root causes of your negative behaviors and … understand how they perpetuate harm. This is the beginning stage of accountability. But when DOC bans literature that contains traumatic experiences, accountability can be difficult for a person to arrive at.”

Alicia Williams wants prison administrators to weigh education outcomes and the potential for emotional growth when determining which books to permit incarcerated students to study. The point of education, she says, isn’t just to increase knowledge. It also builds a student’s ability to see things from the perspectives of others – a skill that books like All Boys Aren’t Blue are designed to develop.

“What’s likely to happen if someone is exposed to this material? I would say the most likely answer is empathy.”

Sam Levin contributed reporting

• US book bans
• US education
• Washington state

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