You could read any number of books, for reasons ranging from guilty pleasure to the fact that your book club meets in two days. You should probably read many classic novels that will expand your literary palate or teach you a thing or two. And then there are the books you must read, the best books of all time we daresay, no matter who you are. There are many reasons books become “must-reads,” and it’s not necessarily just their literary quality. This list of 5 books to read has much to offer anyone who picks them up.
1. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Harper Lee’s classic is one of those rare perfect novels, which by itself makes it a should read. It’s also become a must-read because it’s widely the quintessential 20th-century American novel. It’s further elevated by the evergreen nature of its central conflicts and plot; nearly six decades after publication, the story of a small southern town’s struggle with racism and injustice remains disturbingly current.-
2. The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald. There’s a reason why The Great Gatsby is commonly dubbed one of the greatest novels ever written. Fitzgerald’s depiction of extravagance and greed challenges the idea of the American Dream, exposes the insincerity of the wealthy, and illustrates how social class played a major role in your “success” in the 1920s. With numerous symbols and hidden meanings throughout the book, it’s worth reading a second time (or third, or fourth).
3. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
One of the first African novels to be widely studied and read in the English-speaking world, Achebe’s book remains a must-read for the uniqueness of its literary vision and characters. Focused on a fictional village in Nigeria, the book’s epic scope traces how life changes from pre-colonial times to post-colonial modernity (for the time, the novel was published in 1958).
4. Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
Perhaps the most notorious “eat your vegetables” novel of all time, Moby-Dick, looms on many people’s literary bucket lists like a shadow—too long, too flowery, and much too concerned with 19th-century whaling tactics. But it must-read for the simple reason that understanding much of the literature that followed the novel requires it, so profound was its influence. The fact that it’s also a really great story once you get past all the sailing jargon also helps.
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Brutal, harsh, yet somehow raggedly beautiful, Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a must-read because its subject matter focused on the grim lives of African-American women in 1930s rural Georgia, shouldn’t be turned away from. Exploring the long ragged scars of racism, slavery, and class inequality, it’s one of those novels people are always trying to get banned—and you know what? Any novel certain people don't want you to read is a novel you must read.
6. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
Few novels in any language capture the pure insanity of living within a massive bureaucracy quite as well as this one. Kafka captured much of the nightmarish dream logic of such institutions (and life itself). Still, Heller’s brilliance is how he uses a slippery sense of time and a numbing repetition of the absurd to really make you understand how little you understand about your own existence.
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