Read to Learn! Classics for Teens and Adults

Learn something new by studying the classics and participating in our September SweetBean Challenge on Beanstack!

Updated August 27, 2024
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The call of the wild
London, Jack
Paper Book
One of the most popular and exciting adventure stories is now being reissued with vibrant, realistic paintings by a highly acclaimed artist and an introduction by award-winning author, Gary Paulsen. First published in 1903, this striking reissue is as relevant today as it was when it was first...
The personal history of David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
When David Copperfield escapes from the cruelty of his childhood home, he embarks on a journey to adulthood which will lead him through comedy and tragedy, love and heartbreak and friendship and betrayal. Over the course of his adventure, David meets an array of eccentric characters and learns...
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 great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald's family and from his lifelong publisher. This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author's own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book...
The hobbit, or, There and back again
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The stirring adventure that begins The Lord of the Rings, the greatest fantasy epic of all time When Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves embark upon a dangerous quest to reclaim the hoard of gold stolen from them by the evil dragon Smaug, Gandalf the wizard suggests an...
The house of mirth
Wharton, Edith
Paper Book
A literary sensation when it was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1905, The House of Mirth quickly established Edith Wharton as the most important American woman of letters in the twentieth century. The first American novel to provide a devastatingly accurate portrait of New York's...
Kidnapped : the adventures of David Balfour
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paper Book
David Balfour has never had an adventure. He has never spent a night camping in the Scottish Highlands. He has never sailed the high seas. He has never fought in a battle. In fact David Balfour has never even left home. All he knows is a quiet country life.All this changes after the death of his...
Metamorphoses
Ovid
Paper Book
Winner of the 2023 HAROLD MORTON LANDON TRANSLATION AWARD The first female translator of the epic into English in over sixty years,Stephanie McCarter addresses accuracy in translation and its representation of women, gendered dynamics of power, and sexual violence in Ovid's...
Pride and prejudice
Austen, Jane
Paper Book
When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister...
Siddhartha : an Indian poem
Hesse, Hermann
Paper Book
The classic novel of a quest for knowledge that has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkers--a perennial favorite for graduation gifts. Though set in a place and time far removed from the Germany of 1922, the year of the book's debut, the...
The tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu
Paper Book
Murasaki Shikibu, born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy during the Heian period (794?1185 CE), wrote The Tale of Genji--widely considered the world's first novel--during the early years of the eleventh century. Expansive, compelling, and sophisticated in its representation of ethical...
Hamlet : modern English version side-by-side with full original text
Shakespeare, William
Paper Book
Here are the books that help teach Shakespeare plays without the teacher constantly needing to explain and define Elizabethan terms, slang, and other ways of expression that are different from our own. Each play is presented with Shakespeare's original lines on each left-hand page, and a modern,...

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