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Published in 1862, Les Misérables is considered a classic of world literature. A sprawling epics that focuses on the social outcasts of early 19th century France, it is both an homage to the French culture and a compendium of timeless observations...

The French Lieutenant's Woman was John Fowles' third published novel, and it has achieved enduring commercial and critical success.

The novel attracted the attention of critics soon after it was published, and was better received in literary...

Often compared to John Steibeck's rural American masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, Under the Feet of Jesus tells the story of a young migrant worker and her family. Set in the Western United States and spanning a single summer harvest, the novel...

Unlike many other works of dystopian science fiction, The Circle is set in a very near future, fitting neatly into the early 21st-century United States sociopolitical world of Google, Wikileaks, big data, and personalized advertisement.

The...

Published in 2009, The Help tells the story of three women who work together to challenge the racial status quo of their day. In Jackson Mississippi in the 1960s, aspiring writer Skeeter Phelan gets a dangerous idea: to write a book about what...

The Namesake is the first novel by author Jhumpa Lahiri, who was born in the UK to Bengali parents and then moved to the USA as a small child. Like her collection of short stories published in 1999, Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake focuses on...

Published in 1960, The Cricket in Times Square is a children's book that tells the story of a cricket from Connecticut who accidentally comes to New York City after getting stuck on a commuter train. It was written by George Selden and illustrated...

Around the World in Eighty Days is an adventure novel written by renowned French author Jules Verne, published in 1873. It tells the story of Phileas Fogg, a resident of London, who makes a bet with the members of his club that he can...

Allegiant, published in 2013, is the third book in the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth. The first two books in the series are titled Divergent and Insurgent. The series has been highly acclaimed and is well-regarded in the Young Adult genre. It...

The Blithedale Romance is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s third novel, one that is sometimes overlooked by readers but is nonetheless considered one of his most critically important works. Hawthorne wrote the novel in 1851 while staying at Horace Mann’s...

Paper Towns is John Green's third novel, published in 2008. It deals with similar elements of his previous works, including the presence of a beautiful yet eccentric female and a gawky, uncertain male. It is compared to his 2005 novel Looking for...

The Watsons Go to Birmingham was the first of Curtis's novels, and is arguably the one he is most remembered for. It was published by Yearling in 1995 and was written primarily for middle-grade readers, typically ages 10 to 13. This novel tells...

Comparable to the Odyssey or the Bible, the Ramayana is a classic of world literature. The poem details the adventures of Prince Rama, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, along with his devoted wife Sita and his dear brother Lakshmana. Written in...

How To Read English Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, published by HarperCollins in 2003, was well-received by audiences, and continues to enjoy a place on the New York Times bestseller list for...

Cannery Row (1945) is one of John Steinbeck's most beloved novels. Its mixture of tones and themes, memorable characters, and ability to capture and convey the essence of a place in time has made it a favorite of both readers and critics alike.

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The Way of the World premiered in 1700 at London's theatre in Lincoln's Inn Field, performed by Majesty's Servants, an acting company of the time. Though it is now regarded as one of the best Restoration comedies in existence, it was not well...

Up from Slavery is the autobiography of Booker T. Washington, one of the most prominent black leaders of the post-civil War era. Originally published in Outlook magazine in serial form, it was translated into 18 languages and is one of the...

One of the three novels by Yasunari Kawabata that the Nobel Committee cited in awarding him the Nobel Literature Prize in 1968, Snow Country is one of the famous writer's best and most well known works. Set in a remote hot spring town in the "snow...

Apuleius’s The Golden Ass is famous not just for its amusing, allegorical content, but also because it has the distinction of being the only surviving Roman novel in its entirety. It was published in the 2nd century CE and has endured as a classic...

Described by fans as a cross between Game of Thrones and X-Men, The Young Elites is the first book of author Marie Lu’s latest trilogy. It is an epic fantasy set in an alternate world that has a medieval European feel. Amongst its contemporaries...

Ally Condie primarily drew inspiration for Matched from a conversation she and her husband had over dinner one night in late 2008. He posed the question: what if someone wrote the perfect algorithm for matching people with one another, and the...

The History Boys is one of Alan Bennett’s most celebrated plays. The narrative is heavily inspired by Bennett's own experiences in school and the process through which he gained entrance to Oxford. Bennett says, “[The play draws] on some of the...

The Garden of Forking Paths is a collection of eight short stories by Borges, published in late 1941 by the Argentinian journal Sur. It is the most famous collection of his work, in particular because of its title story, which gained international...

Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 1964. At this point, Dahl had been writing for some time and his timeless work James and the Giant Peach had already been published. This novel, however, is Dahl’s most well known. It is...