It’s hard enough to read college books in literature class without thinking about reading them once you exit the classroom. However, there are a few books that are so great that you don’t want to put them down! If you want to know what books you’re likely to enjoy both in and out of the classroom, take a look at the following 10 best reads.
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This novel has made tons of “top 10 lists” for many decades and was even ranked second in the Modern Library’s list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. Always found on college literature reading lists, the story of Nick Carraway, a young bachelor who makes his way east and meets the great Jay Gatsby is an interesting one that leaves readers captivated year after year.
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
This very popular college read very often finds itself on bookshelves across America long after graduation. Why? Because no one can resist the story of Holden Caulfied, the 16 year old who was expelled from prep school due to his reaction to the common alienation experiences by teens. It’s definitely a hard one to resist.
3. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The story of George and Lenny is one of two great friends who play very significant roles in each other’s lives. It tells a tale that plays out somewhat tragically in the end; however, the ride along the way is one that students who read it in class and seem to pick up again and again, long after they’re required to.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Scout and Jem’s childhood in Alabama is chronicled as we have the opportunity to be flies on the wall of their lives. We see their innocence shook and their characters shaped while they learn the reality of human nature in their time period. It’s a true page-turner, indeed.
5. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
This classic tale tells the story of a group of English schoolboys who find themselves on a deserted island after a plane crash. Though published in 1954, the story is still just as moving and relevant today as it was then, making it a top read inside and outside the classroom.
6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Virtually everyone has read this Mark Twain classic about Huck and Jim as they travel on a riveting journey. Though they meet menacing and often comedic characters along the way, a major part of what makes this a classic is Huck’s view of the world at his impressionable age.
7. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
This controversial novel set during the Great Depression still moves readers today as it questions justice, the role of government, power and capitalism. Taking an uninhibited look at the injustices of migration from the perspective Joad family that moved from Oklahoma to California, this book leaves readers unable to put down their books. It’s no wonder it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1940.
8. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
This book offers the same level of gossip inherent in today’s reality shows, which is why it’s still so popular. Garnering a bird’s eye view of a pregnant Puritan woman in the 19th century whose husband disappears, we are endlessly entertained by this magnificent tale of adultery.
This story looks at the dark side of humanity by showing the possibilities of brainwashing through government control. It’s a bit disturbing at points, but what an interesting read it is! It’s definitely a college book that you will find yourself still reading as you walk out the classroom door.
10. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
You may have already seen the movie but this won’t stop you from enjoying the novel time and time again. This humble story of the orphan Pip who dares to dream big can bring out the dreamer in anyone – especially after his dreams come true. After reading it, there’s no doubt that this story will meet your greatest expectations.
{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
Why is it these college books were on our required reading lists all through high school? I’ve read most of these, and my high school friends collectively have read all of these . . . for class.
I would hope that everyone has read at least most of these books BEFORE college! These were all required reading during middle school and high school.
Nice list, although I would add one of my own personal favorites: “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”
Yep, adding to the chorus that I’ve definitely read these in middle and high school. I would think they were basic, required reading anyway.
Agreed, this is a high school reading list, albeit a good one not filled with fashionable ephemera. A college reading list is more like these University of Chicago selections: Austen/Pride and Prejudice, Chaucer/Canterbury Tales, Dostoevsky/Crime and Punishment, Swift/Gulliver’s Travels, Shakespeare/Antony and Cleopatra, Homer/Iliad, etc. In other words, you should be ready to read some of the harder stuff because it makes you mentally tough…
Not that I disagree that those are great reads, but I read those in high school as well. I went nuts for Austen in junior high though so I may just be odd.
i’ve read the canterbury tales, swift/gulliver’s travels, lots of shakespeare/antony/illiad/homer all in high school, including the books listed. however, i read huck finn during my freshman year at k-state.
Going to have to agree with everyone that this isn’t a representative college reading list. But instead of just putting up more names, I’m going to suggest that perhaps there IS no representative reading list. After all, isn’t college a time to explore and discover your own interests?
My favorite books in college thus far have been Night, Horses, and the Desert (anthology of classical Arabic writing), Zhuangzi’s collected works, Ulysses, Thucydides. Your preference may vary.
*and that Ulysses is Joyce, not Homer. See, I do read more recent works sometimes!
@Rich
I don’t know what kinda high school you went to but I read all of your list in high school.
They’re all great books, but definitely more at secondary/high school level!
how are these college books? i had to read these in high school
Yes, it is a high school list, although I’ve read only about half of them. And if Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and 1984 are representative of the list as a whole, I shall have no interest completing this list.
This list should be titled “How to think you are being deep while being pretentious” Or, “Your junior year summer reading list”
haha, dang, this list would be good if I was a 10th grader. VERRYYY unenlightening list.
I’ve read half of these and I’m only 15.
I guess they’re not asking about these titles on the college entrance exams any longer? What are they asking about? Comic books? Oh, excuse me, graphic novels?
How are these outside of class when they should be REQUIRED HIGH SCHOOL READINGS. I would suggest a new list that is more obscure and less juvenile. Also, if I were you I would read more books.
7 of these books suck, 2 are ok, and only Huck Finn is good. Absolutely none of them is a college book. Lord of the Flies (one of the two OK ones) is for 6th graders. Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, Mice and Men… all that stuff is worthless drivel. If these are your 10 best college books, you either haven’t read 11 books or haven’t been to college.
It took me over 40 years, but I finally got around to reading “The Count of Monte Cristo.” What an outstanding tale of revenge. I wish I had read it back in high school when it was assigned to us. It’s now one of my favorite books.
in highschool, have been assigned 7 of these (didnt really read most of them…)
fuck huck finn, great expectations, and scarlet letter. the rest are great.
I have to agree. I’d read every single one of these books by the time I was a senior in High School. On the other hand, the junior college I went to did require us to re-read three or four of these novels in our Literature classes, namely The Great Gatsby, Huck Finn, Of Mice and Men, and The Scarlett Letter.
Really? The 10 best? I agree with others, these are middle and high school books, not college. I suspect people “like” these simply because they’re told that they are good books. On this list, the following are decent: To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Huck Finn, and 1984. The rest aren’t good, and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is much better than Great Expectations.
Really, there’s no such thing as a “college book” that is standard literature. Textbooks, meant for learning something specific in a structured manner (such as math, grammar, or a science), are the closest you can get to something called “a college book”. Fiction is fiction and applies to any age, and none of these books compares to Lord of the Rings in literature quality and storytelling, and I’d go so far to say that none match the Harry Potter series in terms of storytelling (though perhaps some such as 1984 or Mockingbird excel in terms of meaning and engaging the reader in thought). Permutation City by Greg Egan bests all of these on story telling and thinking, plus it’s sci-fi.
I can spew off a huge list of books far superior to all on this list. If you think these are some of the best books humanity has produced, you haven’t read enough books.
Again with the Huck Finn. The worst book ever written! It is held as an American classic and to this day I do not understand why.
They go up the river, they come down the river, they learn of a feud, they find morons, they get lost on the river…
Then the whole point of the book is that Huck realized that Jim is a “real man with real feelings” but at the end of the book instead of just letting Jim out he lets Tom torture him. This is not a satire it is a failed attempt at a satire.
While I only like three of the books on the list (Gatsby, 1984, Lord of..) I will recognize the legitimacy of them but HUCK FINN!
Also, this is a high school literature list.
I find this a fairly boring list, although I have read 8 out of ten when a teenager but I would probably not re-read any of them.
blah blah blah. Read these in middle and high school, also read most of the books mentioned in the comments (not that it matters) but I think this is a great list of books that people DIDN’T actually read in middle/high school or books that deserve another read on your own time, to explore the depth of the actual story.
ive read more than half of these in high school
I read every single one of these books during high school, but I loved them. Why isn’t brave new world on this list of amazing books?
Where is the diversity here?
samian: Were you looking for Twilight?
this is a terrible post.
i read all of these in high school.
they were all required.
that is… in class.
some of them were good; however, the scarlet letter was undoubtedly not.
Definitely a Midschool / HS list, but good nevertheless. I recently began rereading some of these just for fun. One book I believe should be added to your list is Catch 22, another book I had to read freshman year of HS and reread recently, great book.
All the people saying that these books are “middle school or high school level” clearly have no idea how book levelling or the school system work. English education in America is very much rooted in perennialism- that is, studying of knowledge and wisdom that has been deemed true and valuable over a long period of time. It’s the reason that high schools continue to read such literature as Shakespeare even though the majority of kids reading it don’t understand.
Just because someone “read” a book in high school does not make something “a high school level book.” Shakespeare was never written for high school students; it was written for adults. Go back and read any of the novels listed above as an adult and I can guarantee that you will get a lot more from it than you did as an adolescent because adults are audience for which they were written.
I read all of these by the time I was 15, but I adored them all.
Really? I have a degree in English. These are all highly accepted canon and are rarely studied in general survey college courses, let alone specific research.
I love a lot of the books there (Catcher in the Rye withstanding- what a POS!) HOWEVER, the newest there is over 50 years old. Are you suggesting there’s nothing written in the past fifty years worthy of inclusion? REALLY? Nothing worse than passing archaic often irrelevant knowledge from generation to generation without letting it pass through your brain.
didnt most people read these by 14!
I would also add ‘The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway and “The Rum Diary” by Hunter S. Thompson to this list.