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
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...
Frankenstein
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
The world's most famous work of horror fiction: a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel presents the epic battle between man and...
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
Paper Book
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you...
Dracula
Stoker, Bram
Paper Book
Count Dracula has inspired countless movies, books, and plays. But few, if any, have been fully faithful to Bram Stoker's original, best-selling novel of mystery and horror, love and death, sin and redemption. Dracula chronicles the vampire's journey from Transylvania to the nighttime streets of...
One hundred years of solitude
Garc©?a M©?rquez, Gabriel
Paper Book
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history...
Things fall apart
Achebe, Chinua.
Paper Book
The most widely read book in modern African literature, presented here in stunning hardcover, tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around a fearless Igbo warrior in Nigeria in the late 1800s, before and after the European colonization of the continent. ...
Their eyes were watching God
Hurston, Zora Neale.
Paper Book
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
The alchemist
Coelho, Paulo
Paper Book
Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and soul-stirring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino. Celebrating its fortieth anniversary, The Color Purple writes a message of healing,...
Night
Wiesel, Elie
Paper Book
Night-- A terrifying account  of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young  Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of  his family...the death of his innocence...and the  death of his God. Penetrating and powerful, as  personal asThe Diary Of Anne  Frank,Nightawakens the shocking ...
The haunting
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
Orwell, George
Paper Book
Written 75 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever... This 75th Anniversary Edition includes: *...
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Kesey, Ken
Paper Book
An international bestseller and the basis for the hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the defining works of the 1960s. In this classic novel, Ken Kesey's hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who...
The Odyssey
Homer.
Paper Book
  The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of every man's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, renowned translator Robert Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom and given us an...

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