15 Best Books Of All Time That Everyone Should Read
These books represent the high highs of literary fiction, from timeless masterpieces to contemporary classics. From fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings to the magical realism of One Hundred Years of Solitude, each of the books here defined their respective genres, or stand as the essential works of their eras. This list attempts to distill the literary canon into a batch of must-read books for people who want to engage with the greats. Now, there are some caveats to keep in mind when approaching that project.
This list focuses on fiction, specifically novels. So, Shakespeare didn’t make the cut, nor did brilliant works of memoir like Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, or other nonfiction masterpieces like Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. Each of the books here holds up as a gripping read today. The kind of books readers shouldn’t go back to just because they feel they have to, but because they are looking to encounter a gamechanging work of fiction.
Persuasion
Written By Jane Austen
Jane Austen book cover, portrait of a 19th century woman
Jane Austen’s Persuasion is over 200 years old, but it doesn’t read like it. Austin’s prose in Persuasion crackles with contemporary energy; the book was ahead of its time in 1817, and, in some ways, even in 1917. Today, it’s up there as one of the monumental, must-read works of English literature. And it’s one of those books that people are often made to read before they’re ready. For anyone who might have been turned off of Austen in a high school or college Lit class, it’s time to try her work again, starting with Persuasion. Persuasion is a romance with a punch, but spiked with melancholy. It is funny and heartbreaking, and most of all, remarkably relatable for modern readers. If literature is about bridging the divide between people, and cultures, and points in time, Persuasion succeeds on all fronts as Jane Austen’s masterpiece.
Ulysses
Written By James Joyce
Ulysses James Joyce special cover
Ulysses is a wild ride. Like many novels often cited as GOAT-contenders, it has an intimidating reputation. (Perhaps because it is, in some peoples’ minds, conflated with Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, which is also lauded as a masterpiece, but is nigh unreadable for all but the most dedicated readers.) Ulysses is big, dense, and challenging, but it’s also fun. Joyce was a pioneer of the madcap style of torrential prose that would characterize subsequent generations of American postmodern literature, from Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, to William Gaddis’ The Recognitions, to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. All those books share literary DNA with Ulysses.
Honorable mentions in the Modernist category include: William Faulker’s The Sound and the Fury and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Joyce’s novel is partly a contemporary retelling of The Odyssey. Despite its scope, Ulysses packs all its action into a single day. 104 years after its publication, it remains a monumental book that every has to at least try to read.
Orlando: A Biography
Written By Virginia Woolf
Orlando Viriginia Woolf book cover, portrait of an androgynous person
Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando is subtitled A Biography, but it is really a marvel of early 20th century fiction. Woolf’s fantastical novel draws as much on Ovid’s Metamorphosis and other mythological cues as it does on recent (from Woolf’s perspective) history. Orlando is a whirlwind, both in terms of plot and prose. The eponymous character starts the novel as a man, before spontaneously becoming a woman midway through. At 30, Orlando stops aging, and is possibly immortal. These speculative fiction elements are deftly balanced with a fictional retelling of hundreds of years of literary history, through the protagonist’s POV. Orlando is one of those novels that helped awaken contemporary literature to the full extent of its possibilities. It’s a genre-defying, inventive book with a quick pace that readers today will appreciate even more than Woolf’s contemporaries did.
The Return Of The King
Written By J.R.R. Tolkien
Return of the King paperback cover, illustration of Mordor
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings are among the most consequential books of the 20th century; The Return of the King is the culmination of the trilogy. If Tolkein is going to be represented by just one volume of his saga, Return deserves to be it. Because it is incredible enough for Tolkien to have created the most expansive and fully-realized fantasy realm of all time, but with Return of the King, he finished the story in epic, satisfying fashion. All the Rings novels are joys to read, but Return of the King is a truly astonishing literary accomplishment.
All subsequent epic fantasy novels of the 20th and 21st centuries are in conversation with Tolkien’s work; heirs to it, rivals to it, imitators and challengers alike. But few, if any, have even approached Lord of the Rings in terms of equaling its successful ending.
Dune
Written By Frank Herbert
Dune modern paperback book cover
In many ways, Frank Herbert’s Dune is for science fiction what Lord of the Rings is for fantasy. A totemic work that looms over the rest of the genre. There is a whole pantheon of legendary 20th century sci-fi writers, from Isaac Asimov to Arthur C. Clarke, from Philip K. Dick to Ursula K. Le Guin, just to name a few. But none produced a single volume as flawless as the original Dune.
Dune is expertly plotted and moves patiently, but never sluggishly. It’s a highbrow pageturner, stuffed with lore but also never too detached from its characters and their central struggles that dominate the book. Herbert’s novel draws on a variety of cultural influences to craft his future history, and Dune is famous for having been motivated by the author’s ecological concerns. Dune is popular now thanks to its successful modern film adaptations, but it has been recognized as a pivotal work in pop culture since it came out. Everything from Star Wars to Game of Thrones can claim some level of influence from Dune.
One Hundred Years Of Solitude
Written By Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude book cover
Gabriel García Márquez is the literary father of magical realism, and One Hundred Years of Solitude is its foundational text. Márquez’s novel is a generational tragicomedy, set in the remote village of Macondo over the course of a full century. Through the setting, and the rise and fall of its founding family, the Buendías, One Hundred Years of Solitude offers an expansive retelling of Latin American history. How characters and stories effortlessly weave in and out of One Hundred Years is simply stunning. The ways in which Márquez departs from reality (ghosts walking the Earth, characters ascending into heaven, that sort of thing) are the book’s most memorable aspects, but the ways the novel captures the personal realities of its characters is its greatest feat. One Hundred Years of Solitude is an emotionally exhaustive book. Readers come to love the Buendía family, and Macondo; as each generation of the family passes the torch to the next, and Macondo changes like any town, readers will be hit with a feeling of profound loss, and a nostalgic desire to go back.
The Stand
Written By Stephen King
The Stand book cover, characters in white and black swordfighting
Stephen King’s 1978 novel The Stand is often cited as his best. It has competition of course; The Shining, IT, the Dark Tower books, all could make a claim to inclusion on this list in the “King spot.” But one way or another, King had to be included. He’s high on the list of the 20th century’s most influential authors, and The Stand is arguably peak King. The Stand is an epic post-apocalyptic fantasy. After most of humanity is wiped out by the deadly Captain Trips virus, the survivors must face the forces of evil gathering under the demonic Randall Flagg. It’s one of those heirs to Lord of the Rings mentioned earlier, and King’s novel lives up to its lineage.
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While some of Stephen King’s best-known books are also his longest, it’s hard to know if they’re actually worth the time it takes to read them.
The Shining and IT are long novels, but The Stand justifies its length better than either of those books. It’s huge in scope, full of ideas, and represents Stephen King firing on all cylinders. Nearly 50 years later, The Stand holds up as a masterpiece of American popular fiction.
Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Written By Douglas Adams
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy paperback cover, a thumbs up against a backdrop of stars
Most of the books listed here are funnier than their serious literary reputations might suggest. But The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the only full-on comedy to make the final cut. Why? Because it’s more than just silly sci-fi. It’s one of the most out of this world satires of the 20th century.
No matter how far in space and time Hitchhiker’s Guide and its sequels got from Earth, author Douglas Adams’ priority was always roasting humanity. Hitchhiker’s Guide reveals how inconsequential humanity is in the grand scheme of the universe, but they’re ultimately still the target of Adams’ sharp wit at every turn. Hitchhiker’s Guide is laugh out loud funny, but also sneakily profound. It’s like a more cartoonish take on Kurt Vonnegut; where Vonnegut was wry, Adams goes full-on zany, and the result is still endlessly entertaining to this day.
Beloved
Written By Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison cover, with just the title and author’s name
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is widely recognized as one of the GOATs of American literature; Morrison herself routinely tops lists of best American authors, and rightfully so. Morrison’s work is transformative; readers aren’t the same after finishing her books. Beloved is the greatest example of that. Beloved has elements of magical realism and surrealism, but in other senses it is a deeply grounded work of fiction. The story of formerly enslaved characters grappling with literal and metaphorical ghosts is one of the essential novels through which readers can gain a deeper understanding of American history. Morrison’s novel is stylistically challenging, and contains difficult content, but it rewards readers for sticking with it. If readers are going to check out one Toni Morrison book and one only, the consensus pick should be to go with Beloved.
Underworld
Written By Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo’s Underworld book cover, a church in front of the Twin Towers
Don DeLillo is one of the postmodern greats of American fiction. White Noise, Mao II, or even Libra could have made this list. But Underworld is on another level. It is DeLillo’s most audacious novel, his biggest swing. And it begins with debatably the single best thing he ever wrote. Underworld’s prologue, published several years before the full book as “Pafko at the Wall,” is a monolithic piece of American prose. It is set at the famous 1951 pennant game between New York Giants vs. Brooklyn Dodgers, and told from a myriad of perspectives, including J. Edgar Hoover, and at one point, DeLillo’s own.
Honorable mentions in the postmodern fiction category: Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Paul Auster’s City of Glass, John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse.
The rest of the novel focuses on Nick Shay, a character obsessed with the game-winning home run ball from that game. Underworld is notably told in reverse chronological order. It’s a big swing of a book, and probably should’ve won Don DeLillo the Pulitzer Prize, though he lost to another lauded U.S. writer, Phillip Roth.
Diterbitkan : 2026-07-10 16:17:00
sumber : screenrant.com
