Books'n'Bytes

Must-Read

Modern Classics Every Reader Should Know

Six titles from the last fifty years that have already earned the word "classic." These are the books that reshape how a reader thinks once they have closed the cover. Start anywhere. Finish all of them.

6 books on this list.

  1. The Hours
    The Hours

    by Michael Cunningham

    The Hours by Michael Cunningham review. The 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that triangulates Virginia Woolf, a 1949 LA housewife, and a contemporary NYC editor. One of the great American literary novels of its decade.

  2. Rubyfruit Jungle
    Rubyfruit Jungle

    by Rita Mae Brown

    Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown 1973 review. The landmark coming-of-age novel about Molly Bolt, a smart, queer Florida kid who refuses every social script she is handed.

  3. Microserfs
    Microserfs

    by Douglas Coupland

    Microserfs by Douglas Coupland review. The 1995 novel about Microsoft programmers starting a Bay Area startup. The defining Silicon Valley novel of its decade.

  4. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
    The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

    by Robert A. Heinlein

    The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein 1985 review. A late-Heinlein World-As-Myth novel in which the writer Richard Ames is recruited into a multiverse-spanning conspiracy on Luna.

  5. The Light Of Other Days
    The Light Of Other Days

    by Arthur C. Clarke

    The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter 2000 review. Wormhole technology lets anyone look anywhere, anytime. The end of privacy and the end of secret history arrive in the same decade.

  6. Atomic Habits
    Atomic Habits

    by James Clear

    The single best book on building good habits. Clear breaks down the science into a practical system anyone can follow - and actually stick with.

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