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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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Little Women
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, the second of four daughters of a noted proponent of Transcendentalism, Bronson Alcott. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a friend of the family, as were Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Despite her transcendentalist pedigree, Louisa May Alcott ...show more
Foundation: The Foundation Trilogy, Book 1
Isaac Asimov
As a writer, Isaac Asimov’s reputation rests solidly on his ambitious Foundation Trilogy, which was awarded a special Hugo Award in 1966 as best science fiction series of all time. And although he would bow to fan pressure and resume the franchise nearly thirty years after publishing its initial ins...show more
Foundation and Empire: The Foundation Trilogy, Book 2
Isaac Asimov
While Asimov’s saga nowadays seems less original than when it first appeared, the sweep of its conception maintains a thrilling freshness. Humanity spreads throughout the galaxy (there are, notably, no aliens to contend with) and reaches a developmental peak after 12,000 years, typified by the uber-...show more
Second Foundation: The Foundation Trilogy, Book 3
Isaac Asimov
Asimov’s penchant for discursive logic and brains over brawn does not prevent the Foundation series from being enthralling. Even today, ranked against all that has followed, it glows with quiet majesty.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
L. Frank Baum
There’s no greater tribute to the pleasures of L. Frank Baum’s book than to say that the story is so good that it isn’t overwhelmed by the images from the wonderful Judy Garland movie. The story unfolds with a declarative matter-of-factness that puts no barrier between the real and the imagined; bec...show more
The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown
Some books become popular phenomena of such extraordinary dimensions that it becomes impossible not to pick them up; usually this is because something about them makes them impossible to put down, no matter how hard we try. The Da Vinci Code, which dominated the bestseller list between 2003 and 2006...show more
A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Like most heroes whose trials and triumphs readers have loved to assume as their own through the power of fanciful identification, Sara Crewe possesses a poise that never deserts her, no matter what misfortunes are thrown her way. And make no mistake: A Little Princess is an adventure story as fille...show more
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
The Wiggin children are unusual, even for the unusual world in which Ender’s Game unfolds. There’s the oldest, Peter, a power-mad sociopath; Valentine, the sister who turns her eloquence to Peter’s service; and then there’s Ender, their little brother, who is singled out by the authorities as the mi...show more
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Lewis Carroll
More than the sum of its parts, Lewis Carroll’s Alice oeuvre has taken root in our collective imagination like few other literary creations. Despite—or perhaps because of—its nonsensical pedigree, it has proved to be an addictive pleasure for analysts seduced by its dense mix of childish frivolities...show more
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Michael Chabon
With The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Chabon knocked one out of the park, and won a Pulitzer Prize to boot. The titular heroes are Joe Kavalier and Sammy Klayman (who changes his name to Clay), teenage Jewish cousins who share a love of drawing and a fascination with Harry Houdini. As he n...show more
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes
In the story of Don Quixote, a misguided hero besotted by popular romances of chivalry and steadied only by the hands of a capable and long-suffering companion, Sancho Panza, Cervantes managed to depict—in comedy high and low and in episodes alternately satiric, hilarious, and moving—the battle betw...show more
Alexander Hamilton
Ron Chernow
Early in his fascinating biography of perhaps “the foremost political figure in American history who never attained the presidency,” Ron Chernow writes that Alexander Hamilton’s “life was so tumultuous that only an audacious novelist could have dreamed it up.” Or, as time would tell, an audacious mu...show more
The Hunt for Red October
Tom Clancy
Published by the US Naval Institute Press in 1984, The Hunt for Red October became an unexpected but modest hit for the generally under-the-radar publisher, whose mission is to promote an understanding of sea power and other issues of national defense. But soon, abetted in no small part by President...show more
Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke
The decade of Childhood’s End’s publication was rife with tales of alien invasions and “first contact,” especially in lowbrow cinema, as films like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Invaders from Mars (1953), and This Island Earth (1955) attest. Clarke’s novel fits neatly into that subgenre, but...show more
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
As story and as media phenomenon, Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games is at the top of the pile of wildly popular dystopian teen fiction that has dominated twenty-first-century bestseller lists (in no small part by appealing to readers well beyond their teen years). In the nation of Panem, power and ...show more
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
While the success of the Sherlock Holmes tales can properly be seen as a catalyst for the boom in crime and detective literature that began in the early twentieth century and seems to grow larger every year, the pleasure of Arthur Conan Doyle’s narratives rests only in part on the cleverly contrived...show more
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad
In the course of roughly a hundred pages, Heart of Darkness will journey, with a strangely leisurely intensity, into realms of depravity best encoded in the dying cry of Kurtz, the delusional, despicable character at its enigmatic core: “The horror! The horror!” Although this extraordinarily concent...show more
The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins was only thirty-three in 1976 when he published The Selfish Gene, a landmark of popular science that summarized a genetic view of evolution then gaining currency among biologists. It was such a success that its title has entered the lexicon. But the title, as Dawkins has admitted, is...show more