Hello, friends! Welcome, or Welcome back! My name is Amanda, and this is where I share spoiler-free book reviews and other bookish things. Thanks for visiting. Join the conversation and share your thoughts. Let’s get Smitten for Fiction!

I think reading classics is a great way to develop a stronger base for what makes a great book for different genres. Sometimes I feel like an imposter for writing book reviews when I haven’t read these classics. While playing Tiny Bookshop on my Nintendo Switch, I realized many customers loved the classics too. hehe (love that game by the way, it’s super cozy).

Here are fifty classics that I want to read. Next year, I’d like to get as many of these read as I can. I’ve been making a yearly TBR the past few years, and every year I start off strong, then completely ignore it and read other things. This year is going to be different! Haha Maybe. I would also like to re-read all my 5-star books to see if they are still five stars, but I might save that project for after I retire in 20 years. HA!

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?

Alphabetical by Author’s Last Name:

Persuasion by Jane Austen
Historical Fiction, Romance

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (I read this one a long time ago)
Historical Fiction, Romance

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Science-Fiction, Dystopian

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Historical Fiction, Romance, Gothic

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Historical Fiction, Romance, Gothic

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Historical Fiction, Romance, Gothic

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Science Fiction, Dystopian, Horror

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (read this as a teenager, would like to re-read)
Middle-grade Historical Fiction

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
Sci-Fi Fantasy, Horror (vampires)

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
Horror, Short Stories

The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Historical Fiction, Feminism

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Mystery

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) by Philip K. Dick
Sci-Fi Fantasy, Dystopian, Cyberpunk

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Russian Literature, Philosophy

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Historical Fiction

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier
Horror, Mystery, Short Stories

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
Historical Fiction, Gothic, Romance

Middlemarch by George Eliot (pen name for Mary Ann Evans)
Historical Fiction

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Historical Fiction, Romance

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Magical Realism, Historical Fiction

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Historical Fiction Romance

Dune by Frank Herbert
Science Fiction

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Horror, Gothic, Mystery

The Odyssey by Homer
Poetry, Mythology, Fantasy

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Historical Fiction

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Historical Fiction

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Science Fiction, Dystopian

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Horror, Gothic, Mystery

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Short Stories, Horror, Dystopian

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Horror, Gothic, Mystery

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs
Nonfiction, History, Memoir

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Short Stories, Fantasy, Horror

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Historical Fiction, Mystery, Horror

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Science Fiction, Dystopian, Horror

Beloved by Toni Morrison
Historical Fiction, Magical Realism

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Magical Realism, Japanese Literature

1984 by George Orwell
Science Fiction, Dystopian

The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman
Short Stories, Horror, Feminism, Mental Health

Wild Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Historical Fiction, Feminism

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Horror

Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice
Horror

The Catcher and the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Young Adult, Coming-of-Age

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Historical Fiction

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Historical Fiction

The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Dark Academia, Mystery

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
Epic Fantasy

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Horror

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
Nonfiction, Feminism, History

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Literary Fiction, Feminism

Connect With Me 😊

Blue Sky | The Story Graph | Goodreads