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50 classics from (near) everyone'southward high school reading list

Inquiry shows that reading fiction encourages empathy. While more loftier school curriculums should include modern, diverse writers like Amy Tan and Malala Yousafzai, certain classics—similar John Steinbeck'south "The Grapes of Wrath" and Sandra Cisneros's "The House on Mango Street"—endure. George Orwell's "1984," a novel published in 1949 about a dystopian future where the government controls the truth, even surged to the Amazon best-sellers list in 2017, shortly subsequently former President Trump's advisor Kellyanne Conway described falsehoods equally "alternative facts."

Sometimes parents, teachers and school-board officials disagree on what kids should or shouldn't read in high school. In 2018, "To Impale a Mockingbird" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" were dropped in a Minnesota schoolhouse district because they contain racial slurs. Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," a book virtually an American soldier doomed to repeat history, has been controversial for decades. In 2011, a Missouri Loftier Schoolhouse pulled it from library shelves subsequently complaints information technology was anti-American.

Certain books deserve a kickoff, 2nd, or peradventure even a third read. Using data from Goodreads, Stacker compiled a listing of 50 timeless books, plays, and epic poems usually found on high school reading lists. A full of 1,002 voters picked the most essential reading required for students. The final ranking takes into account how many times each book was voted on and how highly voters ranked them. Read on to see which classics made the list.

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#50. Their Eyes Were Watching God

- Author: Zora Neale Hurston
- Score: 3,540
- Average rating: iii.90/5, based on 232,956 ratings

A coming-of-age tome set up in early 1900s Florida, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" tackles a multitude of bug: racism, sexism, segregation, poverty, and gender roles. Initially overlooked upon its release, Hurston'south best-known piece of work is at present considered a modern-American masterpiece, cheers to work done in Black studies programs in the 1970s.

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#49. A Raisin in the Sun

- Writer: Lorraine Hansberry
- Score: 3,550
- Average rating: three.76/5, based on 59,314 ratings

The story follows the Youngers, a working-grade Blackness family living on the Due south Side of Chicago who motion to an all-white neighborhood during a time of desegregation. In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry became the first Black playwright to become a play produced on Broadway. The title of the play comes from "Dream Deferred," a poem by Langston Hughes.

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#48. Moby-Dick; or, the Whale

- Author: Herman Melville
- Score: 3,750
- Average rating: 3.49/5, based on 445,669 ratings

Herman Melville uses the narrative of a sailor, Ishmael. He is on lath with Captain Ahab who is trying to exact revenge confronting Moby Dick, the white whale that bit off his leg at the knee. For those who didn't study the tale in high school—or couldn't get in through the 135 chapters—critics say it really is worth a read. Some refer to it equally the American Bible, meliorate approached after becoming an adult and not as a educatee in high school.

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#47. The Pearl

- Author: John Steinbeck
- Score: three,821
- Boilerplate rating: 3.45/5, based on 171,505 ratings

John Steinbeck's "The Pearl" tells the story of Kino, a poor diver who is trying to back up his family by gathering pearls from gulf beds. He is only barely scraping by until he happens upon a giant pearl. Kino thinks this discovery will finally provide him with the financial comfort and security he has been seeking, simply it ultimately brings disaster. The story addresses the reader's human relationship to nature, the human need for connection, and the consequences of resisting injustice.

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#46. The Importance of Beingness Earnest

- Author: Oscar Wilde
- Score: 3,825
- Average rating: 4.17/5, based on 277,734 ratings

This comedic play by Oscar Wilde takes a satiric look at Victorian social values while post-obit two men—Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff—every bit they tell lies to bring some excitement to their lives. "The Importance of Being Earnest" was Wilde's concluding play, and some consider it his masterpiece.

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#45. The Red Badge of Courage

- Writer: Stephen Crane
- Score: 3,838
- Average rating: 3.23/five, based on 82,944 ratings

In "The Blood-red Badge of Backbone," Henry Fleming enlists in the Union Regular army, enticed by visions of glory. When the reality of war and battle gear up in, Fleming retreats in fear. In the end, he faces his cowardice and rises to leadership. This American war novel was published in 1895 and is and then accurate that it'due south piece of cake to believe the writer—who was born after the Civil War concluded—was himself a veteran.

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#44. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

- Author: Edith Hamilton
- Score: three,902
- Average rating: 3.99/v, based on 40,876 ratings

Author Edith Hamilton takes the reader on a journey through Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology with tales of the Olympus and Norse gods in Valhalla and the Trojan War in Odysseus. For loftier school students, it can serve as an important introduction to classic mythology that can help them better understand the themes backside other works like "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." Hamilton'southward book is considered the standard by which all other books on mythology are measured.

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#43. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

- Writer: Maya Angelou
- Score: 3,971
- Average rating: 4.22/v, based on 351,852 ratings

Maya Angelou, who was raped by her female parent'due south boyfriend when she was 8, writes about her experience with sexual assault and racism while growing upwards in the Jim Crow South in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The autobiography, which Angelou wrote at the urging of her friend and fellow writer James Baldwin, was i of the first written by a Blackness woman to achieve a wide general audience.

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#42. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

- Author: Mark Twain
- Score: iv,073
- Average rating: 3.91/5, based on 686,551 ratings

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" takes place in the fictional town of Leningrad, Missouri, during the 1840s. Tom Sawyer and his friend Huck Finn witness a murder by Joe. Later on the boys stay silent, the wrong human is defendant of the crime. When they abscond, the whole town presumes them dead and the boys end up attending their ain funerals. Mark Twain'south portrayal of Sawyer and Finn challenge the idyllic American view of babyhood, instead showing children as fallible human beings with imperfections like anyone else.

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#41. Slaughterhouse-Five

- Author: Kurt Vonnegut
- Score: 4,357
- Average rating: iv.07/5, based on 1,025,939 ratings

In "Slaughterhouse-Five," Kurt Vonnegut tells the story of Billy Pilgrim—based on a existent American soldier—who is "unstuck in time." He travels throughout the timeline of his life in a nonlinear fashion, forced to relive sure moments. He is get-go pulled out after he is drafted and is captured in Germany during World War Two. The book, which explores how humankind repeats history, has been banned or challenged in classrooms throughout the U.s.a.. It even landed in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982 in Board of Education five. Pico, and the courtroom held that banning the book violated the Beginning Amendment.

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#40. The Taming of the Shrew

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 4,666
- Average rating: 3.lxxx/five, based on 145,421 ratings

This five-act one-act tells the story of the courtship of the headstrong Katharine and the money-grubbing Petruchio, who is determined to subdue Katharine and make her his wife. Afterward the hymeneals, Petruchio drags his new wife through the mud to their new home in the land. He proceeds to starve and deprive her of slumber to brand his new bride submissive. The play, 1 of Shakespeare's most popular, has been both criticized for its abusive and misogynistic attitude toward women, and praised as a challenging view of how women are supposed to behave.

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#39. A Separate Peace

- Writer: John Knowles
- Score: 4,859
- Average rating: 3.57/5, based on 179,467 ratings

In "A Split Peace," John Knowles explores the friendship of ii young men—the tranquility, intellectual Gene Forrester and his extroverted, athletic friend Finny. Gene lives vicariously through Finny, only his jealousy ultimately ends in tragedy after he commits a subtle deed of violence. The book examines themes of green-eyed and the need to achieve.

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#38. The Little Prince

- Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Score: five,234
- Average rating: 4.30/v, based on 1,120,033 ratings

In "The Piffling Prince," a pilot whose aeroplane has crashed in the Sahara desert meets a immature boy from outer infinite. The boy is traveling from planet to planet in search of friendship. On the male child's home—an asteroid—he lived alone, accompanied only past a alone rose. Once on Earth, the boy meets a wise fox who tells him he can only see clearly with his middle. The volume's somber themes of imagination and adulthood have resonated with children and adults alike since information technology published—it is now one of the about-translated books of all time.

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#37. Crime and Penalisation

- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Score: 5,245
- Average rating: 4.20/5, based on 543,309 ratings

This Russian classic, published in 1886, tells the story of a former pupil named Rodion Raskolnikov who is now impoverished and on the verge of mental instability. To go coin—and to demonstrate his exceptionalness to himself—he comes up with a murderous program to kill a pawnbroker. Considered one of the beginning psychological novels, the plot is also a political one that explores the graphic symbol's pull toward liberal views and his rebellion confronting them.

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#36. Expiry of a Salesman

- Author: Arthur Miller
- Score: five,567
- Average rating: 3.l/v, based on 165,933 ratings

Arthur Miller introduces readers to an aging Willy Loman, a traveling salesman nearing the end of his career. Loman decides he's tired of driving for piece of work and asks for an office job in New York City, believing he is vital to the company. His boss ends up firing him. Loman is also faced with the fact that his son, Biff, has not turned into the success Loman had hoped for. In the end, Loman commits suicide so his son can take the insurance money to jumpstart a ameliorate life. After his death, only Loman's family unit attends his funeral. "Death of a Salesman" won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

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#35. The Old Man and the Sea

- Author: Ernest Hemingway
- Score: 5,822
- Average rating: 3.76/5, based on 715,980 ratings

"The Old Human being and the Sea" was Ernest Hemingway's final major work. The story follows an sometime human who catches a big fish, only to take it eaten by sharks before he can get it back to shore. Although many may see symbolism most life and aging in the book, Hemingway said there wasn't a deeper meaning in the prose.

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#34. Flowers for Algernon

- Author: Daniel Keyes
- Score: 5,827
- Average rating: 4.11/5, based on 422,243 ratings

The main character in "Flowers for Algernon" is Charlie Gordon, a man of low intelligence who becomes a genius later undergoing an experimental procedure. The experiment has already been performed on a lab mouse named Algernon. Gordon'due south intelligence opens his eyes to things he's never understood before, but he somewhen loses his newly caused noesis. The mouse, who Gordon remembers fondly, dies. Daniel Keyes wrote the book after realizing that his education was causing a rift between him and his loved ones, making him wonder what information technology would be like if someone'due south intelligence could be increased.

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#33. Othello

- Writer: William Shakespeare
- Score: 5,992
- Average rating: three.89/v, based on 286,333 ratings

Shakespeare wrote "Othello" in the early on 17th century. The play tells the tragic story of Othello—a Moor and general in the Venetian regular army, and Iago—a traitorous low-ranking officer. Shakespeare tackles themes of racism, expose, and jealousy. While he refers to Othello as "Black," Shakespeare most likely meant he was darker-skinned than most Englishmen at the time and not necessarily of African descent.

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#32. The Canterbury Tales

- Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
- Score: six,040
- Average rating: iii.49/5, based on 175,388 ratings

"The Canterbury Tales," written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, was ane of the start major works of English literature. The story follows a group of pilgrims who tell tales during their journey from London to Canterbury Cathedral. The cast of characters—including a carpenter, cook, and knight, among others—pigment a varied picture of 14th-century society. The stories inspired the mod film "A Knight's Tale," starring Heath Ledger as a poor knight, and Paul Bettany as Chaucer.

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#31. Beowulf

- Writer: Unknown
- Score: 6,572
- Average rating: 3.43/v, based on 209,182 ratings

"Beowulf" is an epic verse form—an original manuscript copy is housed in the British Library—of 3,000 lines. It was written in Old English somewhere between 700 and 1000 A.D., and tells the story of Beowulf, a nobleman, and warrior in Sweden who is sent to Kingdom of denmark to fight a swamp monster called Grendel.

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#30. The Hobbit

- Author: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Score: half dozen,701
- Average rating: 4.27/v, based on 2,554,239 ratings

In this prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, readers tag along with Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit who is convinced to go on an adventure by the magician Gandalf. Bilbo finds there is much more to himself than he thought—and he finds a sure ring, besides. "The Hobbit," written in 1932, contains many of the edifice blocks—an epic quest, an unwilling hero, elves, and goblins—that mod fantasy writers all the same reference today.

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#29. A Tale of Two Cities

- Author: Charles Dickens
- Score: 7,077
- Average rating: three.83/5, based on 750,394 ratings

"A Tale of Two Cities," famously starts out: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Set in the late 1700s, Charles Dickens vividly writes virtually the fourth dimension leading upwardly to and during the French Revolution. The historical novel describes death and despair, but likewise touches on themes of redemption.

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#28. Wuthering Heights

- Writer: Emily Brontë
- Score: seven,222
- Average rating: iii.84/5, based on ane,183,188 ratings

"Wuthering Heights," published in 1847, was the kickoff and only novel by Emily Brontë, who died a twelvemonth subsequently at the historic period of xxx. Brontë tells the tragic love story betwixt Heathcliff, an orphan, and Catherine, the girl of his wealthy distributor. Considered a classic in English language literature, the novel shows readers how passionate and subversive love can be.

24 / 50

#27. The Grapes of Wrath

- Author: John Steinbeck
- Score: vii,540
- Average rating: 3.95/v, based on 666,190 ratings

"The Grapes of Wrath" is considered a bully American novel partly because it brought to light the destruction and despair caused by the Dust Basin and the Cracking Depression. The story follows Tom Joad after he is released from prison to find his family'due south Oklahoma farmstead empty and destroyed. Joad and his family later set off for a new life in California, only to face up struggles along the style. The volume, which focuses on the theme of hard work, won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Novel (at present Fiction).

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#26. Frankenstein

- Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- Score: 7,931
- Average rating: 3.78/5, based on i,032,148 ratings

Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein," considered the formative horror text and one of the greatest horror novels of all time, when she was merely 19. The story was published in 1818 and introduced readers to Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who brings to life a animate being he assembled from discarded corpse parts. Although Dr. Frankenstein is horrified past his cosmos and abandons it, the animate being manages to educate itself and so seeks revenge on his creator. The novel explores humanity'southward desire for innovation and the fear of change information technology brings.

26 / 50

#25. A Midsummer Night's Dream

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: seven,999
- Boilerplate rating: iii.94/5, based on 409,141 ratings

Like many of Shakespeare'due south plays, "A Midsummer Dark'southward Dream" explores the theme of love. This comedy shows the events that surround the matrimony of Theseus, the duke of Athens, to Hippolytus, a former Amazon queen. The play as well shares the stories of several other lovers who are influenced by the fairies who live in the woods most the wedding. The play is a favorite for actors and audiences, even today.

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#24. Great Expectations

- Author: Charles Dickens
- Score: 8,479
- Average rating: iii.77/5, based on 590,620 ratings

This Charles Dickens classic tells the story of Pip, an orphan who gets a take a chance at a better life through an bearding benefactor. The plot mostly centers around Pip's regular visits to Miss Havisham, a wealthy recluse, and his beloved for her adopted daughter Estella, who is common cold toward Pip until years later. Many consider the novel a great masterpiece.

28 / 50

#23. The Outsiders

- Author: S.Eastward. Hinton (Goodreads Author)
- Score: 8,480
- Average rating: four.08/5, based on 816,572 ratings

S.East. Hinton introduced readers to 14-year-onetime Ponyboy Curtis in "The Outsiders," a novel she wrote when she was fifteen. The plot centers around two rival gangs: the lower-class Greasers and the well-off Socials. It touches on themes of teen angst, including the frustrations immature people take when they can't rely on adults to change things, while also non knowing how to fix things themselves. Hinton'south publishers encouraged her to publish under her initials because they didn't call back the public would respect a volume about teenage boys past someone with a feminine proper name.

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#22. Dark

- Author: Elie Wiesel
- Score: 9,166
- Average rating: 4.32/5, based on 868,121 ratings

Elie Wiesel gives a commencement-paw account of the atrocities experienced in German language concentration camps during World War Two. Wiesel and his family were deported to Auschwitz. His mother, male parent, and younger sister all died. In "Night," Wiesel's vivid and horrific descriptions of beatings, starving men, and expiry shine a chilling, personal light on the tragedy of the Holocaust.

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#21. Julius Caesar

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 9,413
- Boilerplate rating: 3.67/5, based on 153,978 ratings

Shakespeare takes on history with "Julius Caesar," a tragic story of ability and betrayal. Brutus, who worked closely with Caesar, joined his beau conspirators to electrocute Caesar in gild to save the democracy from a tyrannical leader. The events had the contrary outcome when, only two years after, Caesar'due south m nephew was crowned the first emperor of Rome. The play marked a political shift in Shakespeare's writing.

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#20. Brave New World

- Author: Aldous Huxley
- Score: ix,759
- Average rating: 3.98/v, based on 1,276,116 ratings

In "Brave New Earth," published in 1932, Aldous Huxley paints a pic of a dystopian future where people consume pills called soma to get a sense of instant elation without side furnishings. Emotions, individuality, and lasting relationships aren't allowed. A preordained course organisation is decided at the embryonic phase, with sure people getting hormones for peak mental and athletic fitness. Some historians believe the book's plot could somewhat represent our actual future in the next 100 years.

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#19. The Crucible

- Writer: Arthur Miller
- Score: 9,789
- Average rating: 3.57/5, based on 291,382 ratings

This 1953 play is a dramatized version of the Salem witch trials of the belatedly 1600s. In the novel, a group of young girls are dancing in the wood. When they're caught, they faux disease and shift blame to avoid punishment. Their lies set off witchcraft accusations throughout the town. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" equally a protest to the actions of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who ready up a committee to investigate and prosecute the Communists he idea had infiltrated the U.South. government. It won the 1953 Tony Award for Best Play.

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33 / 50

#18. The Giver

- Writer: Lois Lowry (Goodreads Author)
- Score: 10,075
- Average rating: 4.thirteen/five, based on 1,548,599 ratings

This 1993 young adult dystopian novel tells of a order that values similarity and not individuality. People are discouraged from existence different and are given jobs that will best serve the customs. Those who don't similar their role are "released," which means they are forced to leave society. 1 person is assigned the role of the Giver, and tasked with holding onto memories. Young Jonas becomes the new Giver. With his new memories, his awareness grows and he begins to question life. The movie adaptation of the book was released in 2014.

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#17. Fahrenheit 451

- Author: Ray Bradbury
- Score: x,450
- Average rating: three.98/5, based on 1,437,170 ratings

Ray Bradbury describes a futuristic world where books are banned and burned. Guy Montag, i fire fighter tasked with extinguishing the books, begins to question the practice. When Bradbury wrote the classic in the 1950s, tv sets were becoming ubiquitous in American households. The theme of the book was a warning about how mass media could interfere with people's ability or desire to call up critically, a theme that many think resonates with the social media-obsessed world of today.

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#16. Jane Eyre

- Author: Charlotte Brontë
- Score: 10,629
- Average rating: 4.eleven/five, based on i,455,935 ratings

Charlotte Brontë—sister to Emily—speaks straight to the reader in "Jane Eyre." The Victorian novel follows the headstrong Jane, an orphan who lives with her aunt and cousins, on her quest to find her identity and truthful love. The novel, marketed equally an autobiography and published in 1847 under the pen name Currer Bell, is written in first person and introduced "the concept of the self" in writing.

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#xv. Pride and Prejudice

- Author: Jane Austen
- Score: 11,884
- Average rating: 4.25/5, based on 2,607,645 ratings

Published in 1813, "Pride and Prejudice" was Jane Austen's second novel. The story follows the will-they-won't-they relationship between the wealthy Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, who comes from meager means. Throughout the chapters, both change for the better every bit they autumn in love. The book has inspired at least more than than a dozen movie and telly adaptations.

37 / 50

#fourteen. The Diary of a Immature Girl

- Author: Anne Frank
- Score: 12,962
- Average rating: four.13/5, based on ii,423,799 ratings

In 1944, a young Anne Frank recorded her thoughts and feelings every bit she and other Jewish citizens hid from the German Nazis during Globe War 2. The coming-of-age diary, which chronicles Frank'southward time hiding in the Surreptitious Annex while she became a immature woman, has been translated into 70 languages. While she and most of her family unit were killed, her father survived and helped publish her work, making information technology possible for millions to learn her story.

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#13. The Odyssey

- Author: Homer
- Score: xiii,345
- Average rating: 3.75/v, based on 791,715 ratings

"The Odyssey," a Greek epic poem, follows Odysseus equally he travels dorsum to the island of Ithaca after fighting in the state of war at Troy—something addressed in Homer's verse form, "The Iliad." When he returns home, he and his son, Telemachus, kill all the men who are trying to marry Odysseus'due south wife, Penelope. In the end, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, victory, and war, intervenes. Like many Greek myths, it focuses on themes of dear, backbone, and revenge.

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#12. 1984

- Author: George Orwell
- Score: 13,721
- Average rating: 4.17/five, based on 2,637,484 ratings

George Orwell describes a dystopian futurity rife with war and one where the authorities—led by Big Brother—controls the truth and snuffs out individual idea. The protagonist, Winston Smith, becomes disillusioned with the Political party, and he rebels against it. Although it was published in 1949, the novel had a resurgence in 2017.

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#eleven. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

- Author: Mark Twain
- Score: 14,430
- Average rating: 3.81/v, based on 1,084,798 ratings

Huckleberry Finn is the main character in this follow-up novel to "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." The book explores themes of racism equally Huck Finn floats downwardly the Mississippi River with a man escaping slavery. Similar Huck, Twain changed his childhood views and rejected slavery equally an institution.

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#ten. The Scarlet Letter

- Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Score: xv,426
- Average rating: 3.39/5, based on 642,352 ratings

Nathaniel Hawthorne published "The Scarlet Letter of the alphabet" in 1850. In the novel, which is based on historical events, readers follow the story of Hester Prynne, a adult female who is forced to wear a crimson "A" on her clothes after she conceives a child out of marriage. She bears the penalisation alone when she refuses to name the babe's father. Her character marked ane of the first where a potent woman was the protagonist. Hawthorne also touches on themes of hypocrisy, shame, guilt, and dearest.

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#9. Of Mice and Men

- Author: John Steinbeck
- Score: 17,192
- Boilerplate rating: 3.86/five, based on ane,743,236 ratings

"Of Mice and Men" tells the story of George and his elementary-minded friend, Lennie. The two accept to get new jobs on a ranch because of some trouble in Lennie's past. The novel, fix during the Great Depression, tackles topics of poverty, sexism, and racism.

43 / 50

#8. Hamlet

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 17,276
- Average rating: 4.01/five, based on 657,227 ratings

Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, becomes vengeful afterwards attention his father'south funeral, only to find his mother has remarried his uncle, Claudius. The stepfather crowns himself male monarch, a role that should have gone to Hamlet. The prince finds out his male parent was murdered, afterwards which he kills the new male monarch. Ambivalence runs through the play and the character of Hamlet, with his visions of ghosts upward for interpretation—are they existent, or a figment of the troubled homo'due south imagination? The tragedy, which launched the famous line "to be, or not to exist," shines a lite on some of the worst traits of humanity. Some consider the play Shakespeare's greatest work.

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#seven. The Catcher in the Rye

- Author: J. D. Salinger
- Score: 17,633
- Boilerplate rating: 3.80/5, based on 2,451,530 ratings

J. D. Salinger aptly captures teen angst in "The Catcher in the Rye" when the reader gets a look at three days in the life of its narrator, the 16-year-old Holden Caulfield. The book was an instant success, but some schools accept banned it from their libraries and reading lists, citing vulgarity and sexual content.

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#6. Fauna Farm

- Author: George Orwell
- Score: 18,315
- Boilerplate rating: 3.92/5, based on 2,377,098 ratings

A group of farm animals organizes a revolt after they realize their master, Mr. Jones, is mistreating them and offer them nothing in return for their work. When they challenge the leadership, they are disciplined for speaking out. This classic isn't most animal rights. It is a larger critique on Soviet Communism. Orwell wrote it as an set on confronting Stalinism in Russian federation.

46 / fifty

#5. Macbeth

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 19,153
- Boilerplate rating: 3.89/5, based on 605,131 ratings

Another Shakespeare classic, "Macbeth" portrays the weakness of humanity. The character of Macbeth receives a prophecy that he will one day become male monarch of Scotland. His unchecked appetite ends in murder; Macbeth kills King Duncan to steal the throne for himself. It shows the destructive influence of political ambition and pursuing power for its ain sake.

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#4. Lord of the Flies

- Author: William Golding
- Score: xx,677
- Average rating: 3.67/5, based on 2,002,142 ratings

"Lord of the Flies" tells the alarming story of a group of immature boys who survive a plane crash, but to descend into tribalism on the island where they landed. Two of the boys—Ralph and Jack—clash in their pursuit of leadership. The novel, which has been challenged in schools, shows how struggles for ability based on fear and division can effect in a collapse of social social club, themes that might seem relevant today.

48 / 50

#three. The Great Gatsby

- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Score: 24,750
- Average rating: 3.91/5, based on 3,322,289 ratings

Nick Carraway, a Midwest transplant and Yale graduate, moves to Westward Egg, Long Isle. Carraway enters a world of extravagance when he becomes entangled with millionaire Jay Gatsby and socialite Daisy Buchanan. The novel is viewed as a cautionary tale nearly achieving the American dream of wealth and excess.

49 / 50

#ii. Romeo and Juliet

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: thirty,769
- Boilerplate rating: 3.74/5, based on 1,878,322 ratings

Two star-crossed lovers meet and perish in this tragedy. Juliet, a Capulet, falls in love with Romeo, a Montague. Because their families are rivals, they are forbidden to ally. They secretly wednesday before misfortune leads to their deaths. Losing their children inspires a peace amongst the families. Some critics claim the play'due south childish view of love hasn't stood the exam of time, just others remember the story is multilayered and deserves its classic condition.

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#1. To Kill a Mockingbird

- Author: Harper Lee
- Score: 39,482
- Average rating: 4.27/v, based on 3,977,468 ratings

Harper Lee's first novel, which was published in 1960, tackles issues of racial and social injustice in the South. Set in Alabama, information technology introduces readers to Atticus Finch, a lawyer who defends a Black man accused of raping a white adult female. The signal-of-view comes from Atticcus'south daughter, Sentry, while Boo Radley, their reclusive neighbour, adds another dimension to this archetype story of racism and childhood. Lee'south piece of work won her a Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Considering of some racial linguistic communication, the book has been challenged in many schools throughout America.

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