The Must-Read 50
The 50 best books to read right now, new and classic. We analyzed 8,632 books from more than a century of prizes, critics' lists, bestseller lists and reader data; 2,816 made the ranking, and these are the top 50. How we rank
- 1
James99.0Must-Read ScoreJames
Huckleberry Finn, retold by the man on the raft.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2025)National Book Award (Fiction) winner (2024)#1 New York Times bestseller (4 weeks at #1)52 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2024 - 2
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone96.8Must-Read ScoreHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter has spent ten years sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs of his cruel aunt and uncle's house when a letter arrives that changes everything: he's a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Why it made the listHugo Award winner (2001, for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)One of the best-selling books ever (about 120 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)Hugo Award finalist (2000, for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) - 3
Demon Copperhead96.3Must-Read ScoreDemon Copperhead
Dickens's David Copperfield, moved to the mountains of Lee County, Virginia, in the 1990s and 2000s.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2023)Women's Prize for Fiction winner (2023)81 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2022Goodreads Choice (fiction) finalist (2022) - 4
A Game of Thrones96.2Must-Read ScoreA Game of Thrones
Lord Eddard Stark rules the cold North and wants nothing to do with the royal court.
Why it made the list150 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2011Nebula Award finalist (1997)Hugo Award finalist (2012, for A Dance with Dragons)PBS Great American Read - 5
Between the World and Me95.3Must-Read ScoreBetween the World and Me
Written as a letter to his 15-year-old son, this is Ta-Nehisi Coates explaining what it means to live in a Black body in America.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2015)#1 New York Times bestseller (4 weeks at #1)107 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2015Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) finalist (2016) - 6
Project Hail Mary95.2Must-Read ScoreProject Hail Mary
A man wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of who he is or why he's there, and two dead crewmates beside him.
Why it made the listGoodreads Choice (science fiction) winner (2021)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)157 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2021Hugo Award finalist (2022) - 7
The Correspondent94.9Must-Read ScoreThe Correspondent
Sybil Van Antwerp is a sharp, private woman in her seventies who has written letters nearly every day of her life: to her brother, to old friends, to her children, to authors she admires and to people who have annoyed her.
Why it made the listWomen's Prize for Fiction winner (2026)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)50 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2025Goodreads Choice (fiction) finalist (2025) - 8
Gone with the Wind94.6Must-Read ScoreGone with the Wind
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 listPulitzer 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 - 9
To Kill a Mockingbird94.3Must-Read ScoreTo Kill a Mockingbird
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 listPulitzer 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 - 10
Ender's Game94.2Must-Read ScoreEnder's Game
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 listHugo 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 - 11
Fourth Wing93.8Must-Read ScoreFourth Wing
Violet Sorrengail was meant for the quiet life of a scribe, until her mother, the commanding general, orders her into Basgiath War College to train as a dragon rider.
Why it made the listGoodreads Choice (romantasy) winner (2025, for Onyx Storm)#1 New York Times bestseller (14 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2023, 2024 and 2025 (Publishers Weekly) - 12
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City93.3Must-Read ScoreEvicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
In 2008 and 2009, sociologist Matthew Desmond moved into a trailer park on Milwaukee's south side, and then an inner-city rooming house, to live alongside the people he was studying.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2017)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2016)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 13
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer93.3Must-Read ScoreThe Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist, set out to answer a patient's question: what exactly is she fighting?
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2011)33 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2010NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 14
Educated: A Memoir93.1Must-Read ScoreEducated: A Memoir
Tara Westover grew up on a mountain in Idaho with survivalist parents who didn't believe in schools, doctors or the government.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (19 weeks at #1)184 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2018NBCC Award (Memoir) finalist (2018) - 15
All the Light We Cannot See92.9Must-Read ScoreAll the Light We Cannot See
Marie-Laure, blind since six, lives in Paris with her father, who builds her a miniature of their neighborhood so she can learn its streets by touch.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2015)#1 New York Times bestseller (3 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2015 and 2016 (Publishers Weekly)National Book Award (Fiction) finalist (2014) - 16
The Book Thief92.3Must-Read ScoreThe Book Thief
Germany, 1939.
Why it made the list281 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2020PBS Great American Read - 17
The Body Keeps the Score92.1Must-Read ScoreThe Body Keeps the Score
Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk spent more than thirty years working with survivors of war, abuse and disaster, and this is what he learned: trauma isn't only a memory, it reshapes the brain and the body, leaving people stuck in fear long after the danger has passed.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (16 weeks at #1)323 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2019 - 18
Americanah91.9Must-Read ScoreAmericanah
Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love as teenagers in military-ruled Nigeria.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Fiction) winner (2013)79 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2013Women's Prize for Fiction finalist (2014)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 19
The Fifth Season91.9Must-Read ScoreThe Fifth Season
The Stillness is a supercontinent wracked by earthquakes, and every few centuries a catastrophic Season of ash, darkness and famine nearly ends civilization.
Why it made the listHugo Award winner (2016)Hugo Award winner (2018, for The Stone Sky)Hugo Award winner (2017, for The Obelisk Gate)Nebula Award finalist (2015) - 20
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland91.9Must-Read ScoreSay Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
In 1972, Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked members of the IRA and never seen again.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2019)17 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2019NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 21
Dungeon Crawler Carl91.8Must-Read ScoreDungeon Crawler Carl
One night, aliens destroy every building on Earth and turn the survivors into contestants on an intergalactic game show: a vast, deadly dungeon where every fight is broadcast to the galaxy.
Why it made the list72 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2025 - 22
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration91.5Must-Read ScoreThe Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Between World War I and 1970, about six million Black Americans left the South for the cities of the North and West, one of the largest migrations in American history.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2010)39 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2010NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 23
When Breath Becomes Air91.4Must-Read ScoreWhen Breath Becomes Air
At thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi was about to finish a decade of training as a neurosurgeon at Stanford when he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (13 weeks at #1)92 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2016Pulitzer Prize (Biography) finalist (2017) - 24
I'm Glad My Mom Died91.3Must-Read ScoreI'm Glad My Mom Died
Jennette McCurdy was six when her mother put her in her first audition, and she spent the next decade as a child actor, eventually starring on Nickelodeon's iCarly, all to make her mother happy.
Why it made the listGoodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) winner (2022)#1 New York Times bestseller (8 weeks at #1)151 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2022 - 25
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York91.2Must-Read ScoreThe Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Robert Moses never won an election, yet for forty years he was the most powerful man in New York.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1975)Modern Library 100 Best NonfictionTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 26
The Making of the Atomic Bomb91.1Must-Read ScoreThe Making of the Atomic Bomb
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 listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1988)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction - 27
Atomic Habits91.0Must-Read ScoreAtomic Habits
James Clear's argument is that if you're struggling to change, the problem isn't you, it's your system.
Why it made the listOne of the ten best-selling books of 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 (Publishers Weekly)416 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2018 - 28
The Women91.0Must-Read ScoreThe Women
In 1965, Frankie McGrath is a sheltered twenty-year-old nursing student in Southern California when she hears that women can be heroes too.
Why it made the listGoodreads Choice (historical fiction) winner (2024)#1 New York Times bestseller (10 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2024 (Publishers Weekly) - 29
Dune90.9Must-Read ScoreDune
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 listHugo 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 - 30
The Color Purple90.9Must-Read ScoreThe Color Purple
Rural Georgia, early 1900s.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1983)National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1983)NBCC Award (Fiction) finalist (1982)PBS Great American Read - 31
198490.6Must-Read Score1984
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 listTIME All-TIME 100 NovelsModern Library 100 Best NovelsBokklubben World Library (100 greatest books) - 32
The Passage of Power90.5Must-Read ScoreThe Passage of Power
The fourth volume of Robert Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson covers 1958 to 1964.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Biography) winner (2012)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2012)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 33
King: A Life90.2Must-Read ScoreKing: A Life
The first major biography of Martin Luther King Jr.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2024)NBCC Award (Biography) finalist (2023)Goodreads Choice (history biography) finalist (2023) - 34
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer90.1Must-Read ScoreAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
The definitive biography of J.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2006)NBCC Award (Biography) winner (2005)#1 New York Times bestseller (5 weeks at #1) - 35
The Nightingale90.0Must-Read ScoreThe Nightingale
France, 1939.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2015 (Publishers Weekly) - 36
The Lord of the Rings89.9Must-Read ScoreThe Lord of the Rings
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 listTIME All-TIME 100 NovelsPBS Great American ReadBBC's The Big Read - 37
A Little Life89.9Must-Read ScoreA Little Life
Four friends move to New York after college: Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a painter; Malcolm, an architect; and Jude, a brilliant, private lawyer whose past is a mystery.
Why it made the list43 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2016Booker Prize finalist (2015)National Book Award (Fiction) finalist (2015)Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 38
How to Win Friends and Influence People89.7Must-Read ScoreHow to Win Friends and Influence People
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 listOne 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 - 39
A Brief History of Time89.6Must-Read ScoreA Brief History of Time
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 listOne 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 - 40
Lonesome Dove89.6Must-Read ScoreLonesome Dove
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 listPulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1986)NBCC Award (Fiction) finalist (1985)PBS Great American Read - 41
Maus89.6Must-Read ScoreMaus
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 listPulitzer Prize (Special Citation) winner (1992)TIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 42
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/1189.6Must-Read ScoreThe Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
How did 9/11 happen?
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2007)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2006)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 43
The Housemaid89.3Must-Read ScoreThe Housemaid
Millie is out of prison, out of options and living in her car when she's offered a live-in job as a housemaid for the wealthy Winchester family.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (3 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2024 and 2025 (Publishers Weekly)Goodreads Choice (mystery thriller) finalist (2022) - 44
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty89.2Must-Read ScoreEmpire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
The Sackler family's name was once on museum wings and university buildings around the world.
Why it made the listBaillie Gifford Prize winner (2021)Goodreads Choice (history biography) winner (2021)40 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2021NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2021) - 45
The Help89.0Must-Read ScoreThe Help
Jackson, Mississippi, 1962.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (21 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2009 and 2010 (Publishers Weekly)PBS Great American Read - 46
Pachinko89.0Must-Read ScorePachinko
In 1910s Korea, under Japanese occupation, a fisherman's daughter named Sunja falls for a wealthy stranger and becomes pregnant, then learns he's married.
Why it made the list49 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2017National Book Award (Fiction) finalist (2017)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 47
The Handmaid’s Tale88.6Must-Read ScoreThe Handmaid’s Tale
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 listBooker Prize winner (2019, for The Testaments)144 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2017Booker Prize finalist (1986)Nebula Award finalist (1986) - 48
Shuggie Bain88.4Must-Read ScoreShuggie Bain
Glasgow in the 1980s, as Thatcher's policies close the mines and factories and the city sinks into poverty.
Why it made the listBooker Prize winner (2020)National Book Award (Fiction) finalist (2020) - 49
Pride and Prejudice88.4Must-Read ScorePride and Prejudice
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 listOne of the best-selling books ever (about 20 million copies)Bokklubben World Library (100 greatest books)PBS Great American ReadBBC's The Big Read - 50
Verity88.1Must-Read ScoreVerity
Struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh is offered the job of a lifetime: finishing the bestselling series of Verity Crawford, a famous author left unable to work after a car accident.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2022 and 2023 (Publishers Weekly)