If you are a real bookworm, then you should know the books we are about to mention on our list of the books you should have read by now. Whether you’ve encountered other work by authors like Marilynne Robinson or Margaret Atwood before or have read some of these titles in school decades ago, whether you gravitate toward fiction or nonfiction, the titles on this list are complex, thoughtful, and rich enough to be considered the best classic books.
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Jamaica Kincaid’s coming of age novella, Annie John, is set in mid-20th century Antigua. Told through evocative, connected vignettes, we see Annie grapple with her sexuality; her relationship with her parents; the expectations of both British colonial and Antiguan society; spirituality; and, finally, whether to leave home without any of these issues neatly resolved.
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In the years after the end of apartheid, South Africa underwent both formal and informal processes for reconciliation. J.M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace is fundamentally concerned with those questions: What can forgiveness or grace (or disgrace) mean in a country that’s implicated in some of the worst human rights abuses in history?
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The scenes evoking slavery and its aftermath in Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved are so gut-wrenching that it is hard to imagine how the same novel contains such astounding moments of beauty, grace, and love. Morrison’s brilliant prose is what allows for that emotional range.
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When Margaret Atwood was asked how she conceived of the plot for her dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, the answer was that every detail about Gilead was borrowed from real events somewhere in the world. The novel is more complex and nuanced than the recent television show but just as timely as it was when it was published in 1985.
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson became a revered name in American literature after winning the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Gilead. But try her more Gothic novel, Housekeeping, published in 1980. Narrated by Ruth, Housekeeping is the story of two orphaned sisters in a town haunted by a catastrophic train derailment in rural Idaho. The landscape of the Pacific Northwest, Robinson’s subtle allusions and Ruth’s haunting narrative voice make the novel both strange and beautiful.
The Great Gastby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Anyone who went to high school in the United States has probably read The Great Gatsby and had the requisite conversations about the American Dream. But the questions Fitzgerald is asking about memory and youth and loyalty are more subtle and complex. And, the language itself is still beautiful—who can forget that closing image of boats against the current borne ceaselessly back into the past?
