The 25 best classic books

The 25 highest-ranked books published before 1990 in our ranking of 2,816, scored on how much readers love them, their prize, best-list and bestseller record, and current buzz. We rank 762 classic books in all. How we rank

1
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell · 1936
It's 1861 in north Georgia, and sixteen-year-old Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled, scheming belle of the plantation Tara, cares about nothing but the man she can't have, Ashley Wilkes.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1937)One of the best-selling books ever (about 30 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (33 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
94.6Must-Read Score
2
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee · 1960
In the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s, six-year-old Scout Finch spends her summers with her brother Jem and their friend Dill, daring each other to approach the house of their mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1961)One of the best-selling books ever (about 40 million copies)One of the ten best-selling books of 1961, 2015 and 2016 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
94.3Must-Read Score
3
Ender's Game
Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card · 1985
To survive the next attack by a hostile alien race, Earth's government breeds child geniuses and trains them as soldiers.
Why it made the list
Hugo Award winner (1986)Nebula Award winner (1985)Hugo Award winner (1987, for Speaker for the Dead)33 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2013
94.2Must-Read Score
4
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
by Robert Caro · 1974
Robert Moses never won an election, yet for forty years he was the most powerful man in New York.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1975)Modern Library 100 Best NonfictionTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction
91.2Must-Read Score
5
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
by Richard Rhodes · 1985
The full story of how the atomic bomb came to be, from the discovery around 1900 that atoms held unimaginable energy, through the physicists who raced to understand it, often fleeing Nazi Europe as they did, to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, the first test at Trinity, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1988)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction
91.1Must-Read Score
6
Dune
Dune
by Frank Herbert · 1965
On the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the spice melange, the most valuable substance in the universe, young Paul Atreides arrives with his noble family to take over the planet's rule, knowing it may be a trap.
Why it made the list
Hugo Award winner (1966)One of the best-selling books ever (about 20 million copies)51 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2020PBS Great American Read
90.9Must-Read Score
7
The Color Purple
The Color Purple
by Alice Walker · 1982
Rural Georgia, early 1900s.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1983)National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1983)NBCC Award (Fiction) finalist (1982)PBS Great American Read
90.9Must-Read Score
8
1984
1984
by George Orwell · 1949
In the superstate of Oceania, where Big Brother is always watching, Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth rewriting history to match the Party's ever-changing version of events.
Why it made the list
TIME All-TIME 100 NovelsModern Library 100 Best NovelsBokklubben World Library (100 greatest books)
90.6Must-Read Score
9
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien · 1954
In the quiet Shire, the hobbit Frodo Baggins inherits a plain gold ring from his uncle Bilbo, and learns it's the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron to rule all the others.
Why it made the list
TIME All-TIME 100 NovelsPBS Great American ReadBBC's The Big Read
89.9Must-Read Score
10
How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Win Friends and Influence People
by Dale Carnegie · 1936
Dale Carnegie's 1936 guide to getting along with people is built on a few simple, practical principles: show genuine interest in others, remember their names, listen more than you talk, let people save face, and never criticize when you can encourage instead.
Why it made the list
One of the best-selling books ever (about 37 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (32 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time
89.7Must-Read Score
11
A Brief History of Time
A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking · 1988
Stephen Hawking's attempt to explain the biggest questions in physics to ordinary readers: where the universe came from, how it might end, what black holes are, why time only moves forward, and whether physics can ever find a single theory of everything.
Why it made the list
One of the best-selling books ever (about 25 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (19 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time
89.6Must-Read Score
12
Lonesome Dove
Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry · 1985
In the dusty Texas border town of Lonesome Dove, two retired Texas Rangers, the talkative, easygoing Gus McCrae and the hard, silent Woodrow Call, run a small cattle business and have settled into old age.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1986)NBCC Award (Fiction) finalist (1985)PBS Great American Read
89.6Must-Read Score
13
Maus
Maus
by Art Spiegelman · 1986
Art Spiegelman tells the story of his father, Vladek, a Polish Jew who survived Hitler's Europe and Auschwitz, in comic form, with Jews drawn as mice and Nazis as cats.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Special Citation) winner (1992)TIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction
89.6Must-Read Score
14
Roots
Roots
by Alex Haley · 1976
In 1767, Kunta Kinte, a young man in the Gambia, is captured while searching for wood to make a drum, survives the Middle Passage and is sold into slavery in Virginia, where he never stops trying to keep his name and his memory of Africa alive.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Special Citation) winner (1977)#1 New York Times bestseller (22 weeks at #1)
89.5Must-Read Score
15
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
by William L. Shirer · 1960
William Shirer was an American journalist who reported from Berlin in the 1930s, and after the war he gained access to the captured archives of the Nazi government.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1961)#1 New York Times bestseller (39 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction
89.2Must-Read Score
16
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by Douglas Hofstadter · 1979
What does a mathematician's proof, a printmaker's impossible staircases and a composer's endlessly rising canons have in common?
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1980)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1980)TIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction
88.9Must-Read Score
17
Notes of a Native Son
Notes of a Native Son
by James Baldwin · 1955
James Baldwin's first collection of essays, written when he was in his twenties, covers his childhood in Harlem, his complicated relationship with his stern preacher father, the experience of being Black in America and in Paris, and the art and protest novels of his time.
Why it made the list
Modern Library 100 Best NonfictionTIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time
88.6Must-Read Score
18
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
by James M. McPherson · 1988
The single best history of the American Civil War, covering the whole era from the Mexican War in 1846 through Lincoln's assassination in 1865.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (History) winner (1989)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (1988)Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction
88.6Must-Read Score
19
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood · 1985
In the Republic of Gilead, a theocracy that has overthrown the United States government, women have been stripped of their rights, and a falling birth rate has led the regime to assign fertile women to powerful men as handmaids, whose only purpose is to bear children.
Why it made the list
Booker Prize winner (2019, for The Testaments)144 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2017Booker Prize finalist (1986)Nebula Award finalist (1986)
88.6Must-Read Score
20
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen · 1813
In early-1800s England, the Bennet family has five unmarried daughters and no son to inherit their home, so their mother is desperate to see them married well.
Why it made the list
One of the best-selling books ever (about 20 million copies)Bokklubben World Library (100 greatest books)PBS Great American ReadBBC's The Big Read
88.4Must-Read Score
21
Cosmos
Cosmos
by Carl Sagan · 1980
Written alongside his landmark TV series, Carl Sagan's tour of the universe covers fifteen billion years of cosmic history: how stars are born and die, how life might have begun, what we've learned from planets and comets, and the long human story of how science pieced it all together, from ancient Greek astronomers to the Voyager spacecraft.
Why it made the list
One of the best-selling books ever (about 40 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (16 weeks at #1)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (1981)
87.7Must-Read Score
22
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis · 1950
Sent to a professor's country house to escape the bombing of London, four siblings, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, discover a wardrobe that leads to Narnia, a magical land frozen in endless winter by the White Witch.
Why it made the list
TIME All-TIME 100 NovelsPBS Great American ReadBBC's The Big Read
87.6Must-Read Score
23
Hyperion
Hyperion
by Dan Simmons · 1989
On the eve of an interstellar war, seven pilgrims set out for the planet Hyperion, home to the Time Tombs, mysterious structures that move backward through time, and the Shrike, a terrifying creature of blades worshipped by a strange church.
Why it made the list
Hugo Award winner (1990)Hugo Award finalist (1998, for The Rise of Endymion)Hugo Award finalist (1991, for The Fall of Hyperion)
87.0Must-Read Score
24
The Godfather
The Godfather
by Mario Puzo · 1969
Don Vito Corleone is the most powerful Mafia boss in New York: a man who grants favors, demands loyalty and settles disputes with offers no one can refuse.
Why it made the list
One of the best-selling books ever (about 21 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (21 weeks at #1)PBS Great American ReadBBC's The Big Read
86.7Must-Read Score
25
Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63
Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63
by Taylor Branch · 1988
The first volume of Taylor Branch's monumental history of the civil rights movement, covering 1954 to 1963: from the Montgomery bus boycott that made a young Martin Luther King Jr.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (History) winner (1989)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1988)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (1989)
86.6Must-Read Score