The Best First Step Into Serious Reading
The greatest barrier to reading more is choosing where to start. The literary canon can seem intimidating — a mountain of dense, difficult books written in a previous century for readers with very different assumptions. The truth is that many of the most critically acclaimed books in our database are also deeply readable, propulsive, and emotionally engaging.
This list prioritises books that score highly in our editorial rankings but are explicitly accessible to readers who are coming to literature for the first time or returning after a long gap.
Fiction — 10 Accessible Classics
1. The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho (1988)
The most-translated Portuguese-language novel in history, Coelho's fable of a shepherd boy searching for treasure is a short, luminous read that distils the wisdom of several literary and spiritual traditions into a story you can finish in an afternoon. Over 150 million copies sold globally.
2. Of Mice and Men — John Steinbeck (1937)
At 107 pages, Steinbeck's novella about two itinerant farm workers in Depression-era California is one of the most emotionally precise short works in American literature. A Pulitzer Prize winner, it is taught in schools worldwide because it is both powerful and accessible.
3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time — Mark Haddon (2003)
Narrated by Christopher, a 15-year-old with a form of autism, Haddon's novel — winner of the Whitbread Prize — is compulsively readable, funny, and deeply moving. The narrative voice is unlike anything else in English fiction.
4. A Man Called Ove — Fredrik Backman (2012)
The Swedish novelist's debut is a warm, witty, and quietly devastating novel about a curmudgeonly widower whose plans for suicide are repeatedly interrupted by his new neighbours. One of the bestselling Scandinavian novels in the English-speaking world and an ideal gateway into Nordic fiction.
5. The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini (2003)
Set in Afghanistan from the 1970s through the Taliban era, Hosseini's debut is a story of friendship, betrayal, and redemption that introduced millions of readers to Afghan culture and history. Propulsive and emotionally direct, it demonstrates that serious literary fiction can be as gripping as any thriller.
6. To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee (1960)
The Pulitzer Prize winner narrated by Scout Finch remains one of the most beloved novels in American literature. Set in the American South during the 1930s, it tackles racial injustice through the eyes of a child — a perspective that makes the moral stakes both clear and heartbreaking.
7. The Little Prince — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)
Saint-Exupéry's illustrated novella is a masterpiece of deceptive simplicity — a children's story that is also a meditation on love, loss, and the particular blindness of adults. One of the most-translated works in world literature, it reads in a single sitting and stays for life.
8. Life of Pi — Yann Martel (2002)
The Booker Prize winner pits a 16-year-old Indian boy and a Bengal tiger against the Pacific Ocean for 227 days. The premise sounds implausible; the execution is masterly. Martel balances adventure, philosophy, and theological inquiry with extraordinary lightness.
9. Station Eleven — Emily St. John Mandel (2014)
A post-pandemic novel (written before 2020) that follows a travelling Shakespeare company through a collapsed civilisation. Elegantly structured, humane, and un-apocalyptically optimistic about the value of art. One of the most readable literary novels of the 2010s.
10. The Remains of the Day — Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
The Booker Prize winner is perfect for readers who want the experience of great literature without difficulty. Ishiguro's butler Stevens narrates a road trip through England while slowly revealing the emotional devastation of a life lived in service to false dignity. The restraint is everything.
Non-Fiction — 10 Essential Reads
11. Sapiens — Yuval Noah Harari (2011)
A brief history of humankind from the first Homo sapiens to the present day, Harari's bestseller makes grand historical claims with the confidence of a gifted storyteller. Accessible, provocative, and endlessly quotable.
12. Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl (1946)
A 160-page account of Frankl's experiences in Nazi concentration camps and the psychological framework — logotherapy — he developed from them. Among the most-assigned books in university psychology curricula, it is also among the most personally transformative reads available.
13. Educated — Tara Westover (2018)
Westover's memoir of growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho — without birth certificate, school, or medical care — before earning a PhD from Cambridge is the decade's most compelling American memoir. A story about the liberating power of education and the cost of leaving the world you were born into.
14. The Diary of a Young Girl — Anne Frank (1947)
Perhaps the most widely read document of the Holocaust, Anne Frank's diary is also simply a remarkable piece of writing by a 13-to-15-year-old girl of exceptional intelligence and warmth. Required reading for anyone seeking to understand the twentieth century.
15. When Breath Becomes Air — Paul Kalanithi (2016)
A neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at 36 writes about mortality, medicine, and the question of what makes a life worth living. One of the most moving memoirs of the decade, completed posthumously by his wife Lucy.
16. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman (2011)
Nobel laureate Kahneman's summary of a lifetime of research into cognitive biases and dual-process theory is among the most practically useful books in our non-fiction rankings. Genuinely life-changing in its revelation of how unreliable our own minds are.
17. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Rebecca Skloot (2010)
The true story of the Black woman whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951 and became the most important cell line in medical history. Skloot weaves science journalism with biography and family history to produce one of the finest pieces of American non-fiction in decades.
18. Into the Wild — Jon Krakauer (1996)
The story of Christopher McCandless, who abandoned his possessions and walked into the Alaskan wilderness, reads like literary fiction but is entirely true. Krakauer's narrative journalism is as gripping as any adventure novel.
19. The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk (2014)
The psychiatrist's exploration of how trauma reshapes both mind and body has helped millions of readers understand their own experiences and those of people they love. One of the most-read non-fiction books of the 2010s and 2020s.
20. Born a Crime — Trevor Noah (2016)
The Daily Show host's memoir of growing up mixed-race in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa is both a work of history and a collection of hilarious, heartbreaking stories about a remarkable mother and son. The most readable memoir in our top 100.
