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10 Must Read Classics

By: Aubrey Moulton

There are a vast number of celebrated books to read. Classics are all over the place. But if you’re not an avid reader, there can be too many books to read. Then it can be hard to decide which ones to pick. These 10 books are superb choices to read for the first or even a fifth time.
1. 1984 - George Orwell
This is a great anti-utopian work for elderly and young alike. Orwell discusses the political future plotted for the world by forces the characters aren’t supposed to know about. This society ultimately goes mad with control. And eventually, "Big Brother," the eye of the government, stops these characters from living normal lives.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
This addresses racial inequality. There are a number of moral heroes throughout the book and the author addresses many topics that were representative of American life in the deep South. It is a choice coming of age book.
3. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
With this novel you become a part of the French Revolution. You learn what troubles faced Parisians an Londoners during this time and what motivated these events. The book distinguishes the two cities and provides rich details of the kinds of characters concerned. Get to know these characters and empathize with the pathos of the period through Dickens' masterful writing.
4. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Set during the Great Depression, this work of fiction details a a poor family of sharecroppers required to move from Oklahoma to California in order to find land and jobs. Middle America was quite literally a dust bowl and this explores the economic hardship families faced, and what these struggles did to them emotionally as well.
5. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
In the English aristocratic society the main character braves the issues of etiquette, moral rectitude, schooling and marriage. Will love be able to develop and overcome the prejudice and pride held by these robust characters and the society in which they exist?
6. Call of the Wild - Jack London
A formerly domesticated sled dog is unwillingly taken to the Yukon during the Gold Rush. You'll find brutality and violence and a look at the primitive nature of both man and beast.
7. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
The themes in the manuscript consist of anticipation, justice, retribution, mercy, forgiveness, and death. The protagonist faces wrongful incarceration but after a sly breakout he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. Will he get his reprisal or let love expand in his heart?
8. A Farwell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
This tale concerns an ambulance driver in the Italian armed forces during World War I. The character falls in love with Catherine Barkley and the yarn looks closely at their relationship and the conflict. If you appreciate succinctness and desolation, you are bound to love this book, and all Hemingway ever wrote.
9. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy saw Anna Karenina as his first real novel and it has been labeled in the Top Ten in 2007 as the “greatest novel ever written.” Russian critics have labeled it as a “trifling romance of high life” but it is so much more. Tolstoy is a master of characterization. You will be deeply moved by his portrait of the agony of the main character.
10. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
This South African author centers the novel on apartheid. It details the struggle for racial justice in South Africa and is one of the saddest and most bitter novels. You will learn a lot by reading this book.
Hopefully, this top 10 list can help you make your mind up which novels to read or reread. They are classics that are much-loved throughout the world and they embrace very different topics. These books will keep you interested with their various plot twists and deeply moving scenes. It is our hope that this list will help you determine the best classics to read.

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