If you are like me, then you are always reading books you haven’t read before. With so many amazing books out there, it is impossible to know which ones to read or not to read. That is why we made this list of 52 books that everyone should read at least once in their lives. Keep reading to find out which books made our list!
We made this list because there are some novels that deserve to be read over other novels. There isn’t enough time to read every book you come across that catches your eye. Or you end up forcing yourself to read a book because it has been deemed a worth reading. This list will help you choose the best of the best books.
52 Books That Everyone Should Read At Least Once in Their Lives
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- Gulliver’s Travel by Jonathan Swift
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
- The Odyssey by Homer
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- Ulysses by James Joyce
Books That You Must Read
Not every book is going to have a big impact on your life. But all these novels contain stories that may do that. For example, a novel like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest novels ever written. Some people may end up hating this sense of humor but many have loved it as well as the fun plot of the novel.
Novels are powerful and that is something that many people realize when they read an amazing book for the first time. For me, that novel was To Kill a Mockingbird and I am grateful I did read it. It started my love for books and that has continued with amazing novels such as The Book Thief and The Kite Runner.
Conclusion
That is all for our list of 52 books that everyone should read at least once in their lives. There is something for everybody. What novels would you have included in your list? What novels should we include in our future list? Let us know in the comments below!
Should have included Moby Dick and I would substitute Hamlet for Romeo and Juliet and Go Down Moses for the Sound and the Fury. Probably should also have Fahrenheit 451 given today’s politics.
Most of these are outdated boring classics. These are the reason many young people hate reading, after being forced to read these in high school
Sorry mate, well intended, but this list is full of things that should be forgotten. Dracula? Frankenstein? The Count of Monte Cristo? Treasure Island? I mean, the last one is really entertaining, but why should everyone read it? Everyone? Like your grandma and my daughter and the parish priest and the president?
Really? Like having a common cultural base for.. whom? The prime minister of Japan and a shepherd from Uzbekistan? A police officer from Uganda and a russian scientist from the north pole?
What are you meaning by “everyone”?
Is it rather a list of “books I wish everybody read”?
I have read all of them but for a handful. The few i haven’t are mostly because I have or had been already been exposed to in some other form. And yes, I really did plow through most of Doestoevski’s novels as pleasure reading in my early 20’s. Thank God I have lightened up with age.
What about Gibran Kahlil Gibran book “The Prophet” the most read book worldwide, translated into 22 languages…
This list would make anyone hate reading.
The Bible
I’m happy to see so many that I’ve read! I’ll make a list of the ones I haven’t yet read and see if they peak my interest!
Gone with Wind doesn’t belong on any must read list. It’s racist and revisionist and not that well written.