31 books
—
11 voters
Essential Reading Books
Showing 1-50 of 4,049
1984 (Paperback)
by (shelved 19 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.20 — 5,572,479 ratings — published 1948
Animal Farm (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 18 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.02 — 4,643,351 ratings — published 1945
Pride and Prejudice (Hardcover)
by (shelved 15 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.30 — 4,881,036 ratings — published 1813
To Kill a Mockingbird (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.26 — 6,970,203 ratings — published 1960
Man's Search for Meaning (Paperback)
by (shelved 13 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.37 — 899,627 ratings — published 1946
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (Paperback)
by (shelved 12 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.30 — 4,514,231 ratings — published 1937
Frankenstein: The 1818 Text (Paperback)
by (shelved 11 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.91 — 1,936,251 ratings — published 1818
Brave New World (Paperback)
by (shelved 10 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.98 — 2,104,509 ratings — published 1932
Meditations (Hardcover)
by (shelved 10 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.28 — 360,764 ratings — published 180
The Handmaid's Tale (Hardcover)
by (shelved 10 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.15 — 2,473,697 ratings — published 1985
Fahrenheit 451 (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 10 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.97 — 2,892,473 ratings — published 1953
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Paperback)
by (shelved 9 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.33 — 1,285,580 ratings — published 2011
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 9 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.37 — 294,346 ratings — published 1965
Crime and Punishment (Paperback)
by (shelved 9 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.29 — 1,107,433 ratings — published 1866
Dune (Dune, #1)
by (shelved 9 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.29 — 1,654,417 ratings — published 1965
Dracula (Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.02 — 1,500,593 ratings — published 1897
The Republic (Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.97 — 228,584 ratings — published -400
The Stranger (Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.03 — 1,443,309 ratings — published 1942
The Great Gatsby (Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.93 — 5,997,350 ratings — published 1925
Women, Race & Class (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.59 — 35,312 ratings — published 1981
Know My Name (ebook)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.68 — 264,102 ratings — published 2019
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Hardcover)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.50 — 178,876 ratings — published 2013
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Hardcover)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.33 — 173,766 ratings — published 2019
Are Prisons Obsolete? (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.51 — 30,811 ratings — published 2003
Night (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.38 — 1,379,080 ratings — published 1956
Moby-Dick or, The Whale (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.57 — 622,322 ratings — published 1851
The Communist Manifesto (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.69 — 202,414 ratings — published 1848
The Odyssey (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.84 — 1,211,973 ratings — published -800
Beloved (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.98 — 498,572 ratings — published 1987
The Catcher in the Rye (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 3.80 — 3,933,866 ratings — published 1951
The Brothers Karamazov (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.39 — 396,561 ratings — published 1880
The Bell Jar (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.04 — 1,254,563 ratings — published 1963
Jane Eyre (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.16 — 2,356,005 ratings — published 1847
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.11 — 1,398,455 ratings — published 2022
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.61 — 18,474 ratings — published 2020
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.41 — 8,700 ratings — published 1971
The Wretched of the Earth (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.35 — 33,291 ratings — published 1961
Stone Butch Blues (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.55 — 37,690 ratings — published 1993
Educated (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.46 — 1,900,298 ratings — published 2018
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.52 — 118,623 ratings — published 2010
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.21 — 88,569 ratings — published 1992
The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.58 — 1,058,878 ratings — published 1955
East of Eden (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.44 — 660,355 ratings — published 1952
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.29 — 112,473 ratings — published 2017
The Diary of a Young Girl (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.20 — 4,241,026 ratings — published 1947
The Selfish Gene (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.16 — 194,579 ratings — published 1976
Watership Down (Watership Down, #1)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.09 — 508,896 ratings — published 1972
The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.50 — 1,145,775 ratings — published 1954
The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.41 — 3,187,323 ratings — published 1954
The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as essential-reading)
avg rating 4.09 — 175,034 ratings — published 1320





