A Book That is Considered to be in the "Classic" Literary Canon

These books fulfill this category for UBN 2025.

Updated January 28, 2025
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The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
Generally considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel, The Great Gatsby is a consummate summary of the "roaring twenties", and a devastating expose of the "Jazz Age". Through the narration of Nick Carraway, the reader is taken into the superficially glittering world of the mansions which...
Frankenstein, : or, The modern Prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear....
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The Catcher in Rye is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth and has influenced countless coming-of-age stories since. Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up,...
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia.
Paper Book
Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been one of the literary giants of the past century; his body of work is an undisputed cultural landmark and a touchstone for countless readers and writers alike. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a true classic, a timelessly fascinating and intricately...
Things fall apart
Achebe, Chinua.
Paper Book
"A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world." --Barack Obama "African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe." --Toni Morrison "A...
The alchemist
Coelho, Paulo
Paper Book
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * OVER 80 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE "Translated into 80 languages, the allegory teaches us about dreams, destiny, and the reason we are all here."--Oprah Daily, "Best Self-Help Books of a Generation" "It's a brilliant, magical, life...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Winner of the National Book Award   Published to unprecedented acclaim,The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in...
Night
Wiesel, Elie
Paper Book
Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, as a child, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity- the ever-increasing horrors he endured, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of...
The haunting of Hill House
Jackson, Shirley
Paper Book
The greatest haunted house story ever written--the inspiration for the hit Netflix horror series! One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been...
1984
Dean, Michael
Paper Book
Orwell's classic novel tells the story of a world where thoughts and actions are controlled by the all-seeing Big Brother. When Winston Smith rebels and searches for the truth he learns a painful lesson about his world and the people in it. Also a powerful film directed by Michael Radford.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Kesey, Ken.
Paper Book
Ken Kesey's bracing, inslightful novel about the meaning of madness and the value of self-reliance, and the inspiration for the new Netflix original series Ratched Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the...
The Odyssey
Homer
Paper Book
Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty, and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. This fresh, authoritative...

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