10 of the Most Impressive Books to Read

The Irish novelist James Joyce is one of the most important figures in modernist literature. The Dublin-born author's magnum opus Ulysses, published in 1922, was hugely controversial upon release and viewed as obscene. Copies had to be smuggled into the United Kingdom and USA for years before publication of it was made legal in those respective countries. Considered to be one of the most impactful pieces of modernist fiction, Ulysses is a radical retelling of the Odyssey, told over the course of a single day in Dublin: 16 June 1904. 

The hero of the piece, our Odysseus, is Leopold Bloom, the Irish son of a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, who takes what he believes will be a perfectly normal journey around his home city. Joyce uses this as the platform to discuss everything from Irish identity to faith to nationalism to human sexuality.

We don't blame you if you're intimidated by Proust's magnum opus. À la recherche du temps perdu is a novel in seven volumes with a page count of 4,215. That's about four times the length of Stephen King's longest book, The Stand, and gives it the honor of the longest novel ever published. Some scholars spend their lives studying this one book and they never run out of things to talk about.

The novel recounts the experiences of the unnamed Narrator who recalls his childhood in late 19th century France, leading to his coming of age and emergence into 20th century high society. But such simple descriptions don’t do justice to a 4,000+ page book that encompasses the very nature of what it means to be human. 

“Call me Ishmael.” Is there a more iconic opening line in the whole of English literature? Everyone knows about Moby-Dick. So much of it has been adapted, appropriated, and parodied over the decades. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself. Bob Dylan cited it as one of the biggest inspirations in his career. For many critics and scholars, Moby-Dick is the great American novel. But have you actually read it?

The epic drama is one of the great stories about the futility of vengeance. Ishmael travels to the Massachusetts coast to join a whaling voyage. He meets the Polynesian harpooner Queequeg, then joins the crew of the Pequod. The captain, Ahab, is "a grand, ungodly, god-like man" who is obsessed with getting revenge on the near-mythic white whale who chewed off his leg. But revenge turns him mad and mutiny is on the horizon…

Published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury was the fourth novel by American author William Faulkner and it took a while for it to become a hit with readers. Split into four parts and written in various narrative styles, including stream of consciousness, many American high schoolers may have flashbacks to the reading experience, which is admittedly a challenge. But there's a reason this is Faulkner's most beloved novel.

Set in the early 20th century over the course of 30 years, the novel centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats who are now living in destitution. Benjamin "Benjy" Compson is an intellectually disabled man who is a source of shame to his family. Quentin, his older brother, is a Harvard freshman struggling with endless thoughts of death. Jason deals with nihilism amid a desire to fix his financial failings. Dilsey, their Black servant, bears witness to the Compson family's decay and death.

Dickens’ legacy is undisputed and his influence wide-reaching, but a lot of modern readers find his work daunting due to its length and Victorian style. But in his time, Dickens was a writer for the people, one with readers across the class and education spectrum, who told stories about the oft-ignored lower echelons of society. Reading Dickens in the 21^st century, you’ll realize how prescient he was and how relevant he remains to this day.

Great Expectations is a classic rags-to-riches tale about Pip, a young orphan who finds himself embroiled in a strange journey involving an ensemble of strange and wonderful characters. At its heart is Estella, a young woman with whom Pip becomes enamored, and her adopted mother Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who has never gotten over being jilted at the altar and who uses Estella to be her conduit of hate towards this scary new world.

Edith Wharton grew up amid the Gilded Age of New York City and its new upper classes, and took inspiration from that for her beloved novels. The Age of Innocence, published in 1920, won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and rightly so. It’s a stunning novel that feels incredibly modern, even in 2025.

Newland Archer comes from a good family and knows it's his duty to marry well. Engaged to the beautiful but sheltered May Welland, he is ready to live a proper life. But his plans fall apart when he meets the Countess Ellen Olenksa, May's cousin who has returned to New York to get away from her cruel husband. Ellen becomes the talk of the town and a scandal in the making but Newland finds himself enraptured by her. Society, however, has no room for their growing passion or the prospect of their love.

Long before the name Vanity Fair became synonymous with a magazine, it was an influential Victorian novel about high society and the ludicrous cost of keeping up appearances. It first published as a 19-volume serial over the course of 18 months. Thackery considered it his masterpiece, as did his contemporaries like Charlotte Brontë. 

The novel follows two women, Rebecca Sharp and Amelia Sedley, and their families over the course of several years as Britain is in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. While Emmy is a kind but naïve daughter of a wealthy family, Becky is an ambitious and cunning orphan who will do anything to claw her way to the top of the social ladder.

When Madame Bovary was first published in serialized form in 1856, it was a scandal that led to an obscenity trial. The story of one woman's desire to live beyond her dull provincial life was viewed as a moral failing, but after Gustave Flaubert was acquitted, the book became a bestseller. It's now considered Flaubert's masterpiece and one of the great pieces of literature.

Emma Bovary rises from a farmer's daughter to the wife of a health officer, but she finds married life dull and uninspiring. Desperate to be more than just a wife and mother, she becomes infatuated with Léon Dupuis, a law student who inspires her passions. Soon, she falls into a life of infidelity and financial excess, so desperate to be more than what society demands of her.

You'd be hard pressed to find a story from the past two millennia that hasn't in some way or other been inspired by Homer's Odyssey. The ancient Greek epic is one of the oldest works of literature that exists to this day and is still widely read by modern audiences. In fact, Christopher Nolan is currently working on a film based on The Odyssey. 

Divided into 24 books, the poem follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. Assumed dead by his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, Odysseus' journey is long and arduous.

Published in 1321, Dante's Comedy is one of the oldest books on this list. The epic poem, completed shortly before the author's death, has influenced centuries of writers, particularly in terms of depictions of Heaven and Hell. In the poem, Dante himself is taken on a journey that explores the very nature of divinity and humanity. Accompanied by three guides—Virgil, Beatrice, and Saint Bernard—he explores Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, finally confronting the fate that befalls each and every one of us.