Classic novels are timeless novels that many readers avoid until they can’t anymore. And Forbes decided to encourage readers with their latest listicle. Keep reading to see Forbes 30 best classics that everyone should read!
We all can agree that Forbes shouldn’t be making a must read list for classic novels. But there list is pretty solid and I have to give them credit. They even included The Hobbit which is a classic but does stand out on a list like this.
Most of their picks are novels most people have heard of and worth reading. But I don’t think you need to include children’s literature on this list. Charlotte’s Web and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are great books but I can choose dozens of other classics over them. You can see the full list below!
Forbes 30 Best Classics
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
- Native Son by Richard Wright
- Roots by Alex Haley
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
- The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
- My Antonia by Willa Cather
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Frankenstein
If you like horror novels, then you will love Frankenstein. It is a classic that has aged well over the past two centuries. Read the novel that many consider the first sci-fi novel and a novel that asks philosophical questions that readers are still thinking about.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Like many readers, I first readTo Kill a Mockingbird in school and couldn’t put the novel down. The story is told by the viewpoint of Jean Louise Finch and tells the story of Atticus Finch defending Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a white woman in Maycomb, Alabama.
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is an interesting pick because it is a novel that readers either love or hate. There is no in between. After revisiting this novel, I do believe it deserves the recognition it has gotten over the decades. There is a lot to take away and the novel is even more relevant in this day and age.
Conclusion
That is all for Forbes 30 best classics that everyone should read. How many of these classics have you read? What other classics should have made the list? Let us know in the comments below!
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I agree that the YA and children’s books shouldn’t be on this list. Substitute something by Dickens–Great Expectations, Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend. Also Faulkner’s The Sound & the Fury. No Tolstoy? Flaubert? (Are you not listing novels in translation?) Maybe Gatsby doesn’t need to be on the list since most high school students have read it. Beloved instead of The Bluest Eye. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Joyce’s Ulysses, so many classics.