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Do you remember when you were in school and your English teacher announced that the class was going to read and discuss a classic novel for the next month or so? I was the kind of student who loved those announcements. While there were a few classics I ended up not liking at all, I did find something meaningful or thought-provoking in most of the ones we were assigned to read.

In fact, I ended up picking up many other classic novels on my own time because of how positive my experiences generally were with this genre. (No, I’m not Hermoine Granger, but I’d bet she and I would have gotten along well if we’d been classmates. Ha!)

1. Beowulf by Unknown.

As soon as my college literature professor told us that the author’s name of this poem is unknown, my ears perked up. I’m fascinated by orphaned creative works like this. There’s something mysterious about reading a story without knowing anything at all about the person or people who came up with it.

Finding out that Beowulf was going to attempt to slay a dragon in it only made me more interested in finding out how it ended.

2. The Pearl by John Steinbeck.

Wealth and power can corrupt people in all sorts of terrible ways that aren’t always clear in the beginning. Seeing those behaviors play out from the perspective of poor characters only made the author’s points stronger. While I can’t say much else about this without giving away spoilers, this is one of those stories that has stuck with me for years.

3. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. 

This is actually the first part of a trilogy about several generations of a Chinese family whose elders were born into poverty and whose later generations grew up in much more luxurious surroundings. I enjoyed getting to know each generation from childhood to adulthood and even old age in some cases. Honestly, I wished this series could have kept going much longer than it did. The character development was really well done.

4. Beloved by Toni Morrison. 

I’d studied slavery in the United States in school, of course, but this was the first book that really drove home how much those experiences affected not only former slaves but their descendants as well. I only wish that one of my teachers or professors had assigned this to us.

It’s something everyone should read, so I’m glad to see it’s been included on so many lists as an example of a more modern classic. I hope that the list of books that are considered classics grows much more diverse over time as well. Based on the amazing titles that are being released these days, I think it’s only matter of time before this happens.

5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

Like Francie, the main character, I grew up in a family that really needed to pinch our pennies in order to make ends meet. Even though she and I were from different eras, I saw a lot of similarities between her life and my own, from the simple meals we rustled together from whatever was left in the kitchen when grocery funds grew low to how hard our parents worked to take care of us.

There’s something to be said for classics that look at the world from the perspectives of low-income and working class people.

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6. The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.

Honestly, I wanted to pick everything that Edgar Allen Poe has ever written for choice number 6 on today’s list. The Raven is an excellent place to start, though. I loved the way it personified guilt in such a chilling way from the very first time I read it.

7. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

So, who else has ever felt incredibly angry with one or more of the characters in a story? The first time that happened to me was when Hester Prynn’s community discovered she was pregnant out of wedlock by a married man and shunned her and her baby. Meanwhile, the man who helped her make that child didn’t face any real repercussions for his choices at all.

I can’t tell you how many times I scowled at those characters for behaving so awfully to Hester. Yes, their society found this sort of thing deeply shameful, but it made me furious to see the father getting off scot-free while an innocent child suffered and her mother was abandoned by a community that claimed to be righteous.

The classroom discussions my teacher guided us through about sin, guilt, legalism, repentance, and the double-standards of that society were well worth my initial reaction to this plot twist, though.

8. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

I hope things have changed since I graduated, but when I was a kid most of the classics we were assigned to read in school were about boys. The girls in these stories, if they existed at all, were often sidekicks or love interests. As much as I enjoyed the plots themselves, I often found myself wishing for more protagonists that were girls like me.

It was refreshing to find Little Women and read about the world from the perspectives of many different types of girls and women.

9. Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Allegories aren’t just for children. In fact, they can be an excellent way for adults to rethink, debate, and hopefully come to better understand the things they’ve been taught about the world, too.

I didn’t know the political history behind this book when I first read it. Looking back, it would have been really helpful to have a teacher explain topics like Stalinism to me before I started reading about a farm full of animals who decide to govern themselves.

10. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

I first read this when I was a little too young to understand what the author was trying to say, but the messages about persistence, bravery, and commitment mean more to me with every passing year. This is the sort of thing I’d recommend rereading every so often. It’s only become better and more meaningful as I’ve grown older, and I’m still nowhere near the age of the main character yet.

Did your literature instructors assign any of these titles to you when you were in high school, college, or university? Which classic novels or plays do you like?