Classics Worth Your Time
The word 'classic' hides a lot. It covers the genuinely great and the merely assigned, and this shelf keeps the first kind: the ones readers still return to by choice, decades or centuries on. Widely loved, and worth the reputation. A good place to start if the canon has ever felt like a chore.
How we picked these
A hand-chosen theme and criteria — then every match ranked by our weighted rating, top 24 shown:
- Genres → Classics
- Popularity → 2,000+ ratings
The Return of the King
by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers
by J.R.R. Tolkien
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Watchmen
by Alan Moore
Demon Copperhead
by Barbara Kingsolver
The Fellowship of the Ring
by J.R.R. Tolkien
Stoner
by John Williams
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas
The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini
Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel Keyes
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
Night
by Elie Wiesel
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
The Song of Achilles
by Madeline Miller
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace
Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
1984
by George Orwell
The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo