“I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”
Reaching your 30s or 40s often makes you ponder on the stories and ideas that have shaped your life – and the books you haven’t read can all feel like hugely missed opportunities. This is precisely why we’ve put together this list of must-read books by 40 – timeless reads and essential novels that everyone needs to experience at least once in their lives. These aren’t just any books; they’re books you’ll regret not reading, offering life lessons, unforgettable characters, and perspectives that linger long after the final page. From literary classics to modern masterpieces, each selection is carefully chosen to challenge your thinking, expand your imagination, and add depth to your understanding of the world. Whether you’re looking for iconic books to read, life-changing novels, or simply stories that have stood the test of time, join us at What We Reading for the most essential books for adults!
1984 – George Orwell
Kicking off our list of books to read by 40, 1984 is one of the most infamous and influential novels to read in adulthood. Set in a dystopian future ruled by the Party and the omnipresent Big Brother, the story follows Winston Smith, a man who quietly rebels against a regime built around surveillance, propaganda, and a distorted version of the truth.
Far more than just one of the most famous dystopian novels of all time, 1984 is one of those books you’ll regret not reading because its themes only become more eerily resonant as time goes on. It challenges us readers to think critically about power, language, and personal freedom – cementing its status as one of the most essential books for adults.
Check Out The Best Books Like 1984
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, the story’s protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio. However, eighteen years later, she still isn’t free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened.
And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as rope, Beloved is a towering accomplishment by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison that all adults need to read at least once.
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental.” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons – the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky depicts the whole of Russian life, a social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.
The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all slaves, but especially bad for Cora. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned – Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey – hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the terrors for Black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative deftly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day, making for one of the most timely and gripping books to read before 40.
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner, is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons – their love, their sacrifices, and their lies.
A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last three decades, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become the sort of one-of-a-kind classic all adults need to read.
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
As a child, Kathy lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special, and that their well-being was crucial not only to themselves, but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back to her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.
And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fuelled her adolescent crush on Tommy start to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. With the drawing clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to confront the truth about their childhood – and about their lives now.
Check Out Our Never Let Me Go Book Review
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. Thus begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read.
Soon, she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up and closed down. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most powerful stories of our time.
Check Out The Best Books Like The Book Thief
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Octavia Butler pulls us readers – along with her Black female hero – through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy, both then and now. Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South.
Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end long before it has had the chance to begin.
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Truly deserving of the accolade of a modern classic, Donna Tartt’s novel is a remarkable achievement – both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful. Under the influence of their charismatic classic professor, a group of brilliant, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries.
But, when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality, they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last – inexorably into evil.
Check Out Our The Secret History Book Review
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Now a Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale, is an instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon. The story is one of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its image and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once known as the United States, and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans.
The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population. The story is told through the lens of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions.
Check Out Our The Handmaid’s Tale Book Review
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
