There is no companion like a particularly brilliant book.
Some books have the power to transport you to another world entirely, and once they spit you back out, you find yourself completely changed.
We spoke to dozens of women to compile the ultimate list of books you must read before you die. There are a few classics, but we decided to leave out any of those books people a little bit pretend to have read because they make you sound smart and sophisticated.
Without even necessarily intending to, the list includes an incredibly diverse range of authors and characters – representing a spectrum of human experience.
These books explore themes of sexuality, race, mental illness, disability, the meaning of life, motherhood, love, heartbreak, grief and fear.
Consider this your ultimate checklist.
Just a note: With small businesses doing it especially tough at the moment, consider buying from your local bookshop. To find out more, check out loveyourbookshop.com.au.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
When You Are Engulfed By Flames by David Sedaris
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Night by Elie Wiesel
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Shining by Stephen King
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Damned Whores and God's Police by Anne Summers
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The First Stone by Helen Garner
Top Comments
The bronze horseman is very problematic- particularly the other books int he series- it really romanticises domestic violence. I don't think teenagers should be allowed to read it without also understanding about the risks of DV!
I’ve only read about half, thanks for the suggestions.
I couldn’t even finish ‘All the light you cannot see’ - did not see the appeal.
Found the kite runner so, so stifling and depressing - made me grateful to be living in Australia!
And when will we see the movie version of the bronzed horseman??