Next Read Club25 Books Everyone Should Read at Least Once
There's no universal list of books everyone "must" read. Still, these twenty-five have earned their lasting reputation.
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There is no universal list of books that everyone "must" read.
Reading isn't homework.
Still, there are certain books that have had such a lasting impact on literature and culture that they're worth experiencing at least once.
Here are twenty-five.
Classics
1.
George Orwell
The template for the surveillance-state novel. Terms like Big Brother and doublethink come from this book.
2.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Short, glittering and quietly tragic. It rewards a second read once you know how it ends.
3.
Harper Lee
A childhood story that doubles as a lesson in courage and injustice, told with real warmth.
4.
Jane Austen
Still one of the sharpest, funniest romances in the canon, and an ancestor of many modern rom-com tropes.
5.
Charlotte Brontë
A governess with a spine of steel and a very gothic house. Slower than Austen, and more intense.
6.
J.D. Salinger
Holden Caulfield's voice is the whole book. You'll be charmed or exasperated, and both reactions are the point.
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott
7.
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott
A warm, episodic family story about growing up and choosing your own path.
8.
J.R.R. Tolkien
The friendliest way into fantasy: real humor, an adventure, and a hero who'd rather be at home.
Animal Farm
George Orwell
9.
Animal Farm
George Orwell
A short political fable you can finish in an afternoon. It explains a lot about how power works.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
10.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
Wit, vanity and a portrait that ages instead of its owner. A slim, sharp gothic novel.
Modern classics and contemporary fiction
11.
Markus Zusak
A WWII story narrated by Death, unexpectedly tender and often funny.
12.
Kazuo Ishiguro
A quiet dystopia that sneaks up on you. Best read knowing as little as possible.
13.
Toni Morrison
Dense, haunting and worth the effort: one of the great American novels about memory and slavery.
14.
Khaled Hosseini
A story of friendship and betrayal that's hard to put down and harder to forget.
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
15.
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
Bleak and spare: a father and son walking through a ruined world. Short, but heavy.
16.
Margaret Atwood
A dystopia that feels uncomfortably plausible, told in a sharply controlled voice.
17.
Matt Haig
An accessible, hopeful novel about regret. A good modern pick if you don't usually read classics.
18.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Old Hollywood glamour with a real emotional core, and very easy to binge.
Science fiction and fantasy
19.
Frank Herbert
A big commitment and a bigger world, and the book that shaped modern science fiction.
The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman
20.
The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman
A young-adult fantasy with adult ideas about authority and free will.
21.
Ray Bradbury
Short and urgent: a fireman who burns books starts to wonder what's inside them.
Nonfiction and ideas
22.
Viktor E. Frankl
A short, serious book about finding purpose under the worst conditions.
23.
Yuval Noah Harari
A sweeping, readable history of our species that will give you a dozen dinner-party arguments.
24.
Daniel Kahneman
A guide to the mental shortcuts that steer your decisions. Dense, but it changes how you notice your own thinking.
25.
Marcus Aurelius
A Roman emperor's private notes to himself, surprisingly practical about staying calm and doing your work.
Where to begin with a list like this
Start with the shortest and most readable: The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm are all quick, and each is easy to finish in a weekend. Save the big ones — Dune, Beloved, Sapiens — for when you have the time and patience to enjoy them properly. Reading order matters less than reading something you actually want to pick up.
If you'd rather skip the obvious picks, try our hidden gems collection, or the popular books everyone keeps recommending.
But don't read them because you "have to"
If a book doesn't work for you, that's okay.
A list like this is a map, not a checklist.
The best book for you isn't necessarily the most famous book. It's the one you actually want to read.
Don't know what to read next?
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