{"id":202373,"date":"2026-04-19T05:06:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T05:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202373\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T05:06:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T05:06:40","slug":"the-books-you-shouldve-read-at-every-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202373\/","title":{"rendered":"The Books You Should\u2019ve Read at Every Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to
Be Cultured<\/a> Menu Literature <\/p>\n

\u2026 10<\/p>\n

According to the writer and illustrator Carson Ellis, 50, the author of the children\u2019s books \u2018Home\u2019 (2015) and \u2018Du Iz Tak?\u2019 (2016).<\/p>\n

\u2018D\u2019Aulaires\u2019 Book of Trolls\u2019 (1972) by Ingri and Edgar Parin d\u2019Aulaire<\/p>\n

\u201cThe d\u2019Aulaires are probably best known for their \u2018Book of Greek Myths\u2019 (1962) but, as a child, I was more interested in the strange, mountainous, twilit world of trolls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Last Stop on Market Street\u2019 (2015), written by Matt de la Pe\u00f1a and illustrated by Christian Robinson<\/p>\n

\u201cCJ and his nana board a city bus after church, and other passengers move in and out of the story like real strangers on a bus would: a blind man, an old lady with a jar of butterflies, a guitarist, two teenage boys. CJ\u2019s nana demonstrates for him \u2014 and for us \u2014 how to be a curious, openhearted citizen. At the end of the ride their destination is revealed, and it always makes me cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Who Needs Donuts?\u2019 (1973) by Mark Alan Stamaty<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in the suburbs of New York, and the chaotic city of this picture book \u2014 teeming with tiny flying horses, ranting pedestrians, metaphysical vehicles, overflowing garbage cans and cryptic signage \u2014 captures my suburban kid impression of New York City perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 20<\/p>\n

According to the writer Jacqueline Woodson, 63, the author of \u2018Brown Girl Dreaming\u2019 (2014), \u2018Another Brooklyn\u2019 (2016) and \u2018Remember Us\u2019 (2023).<\/p>\n

\u2018Sula\u2019 (1973) by Toni Morrison<\/p>\n

\u201cMorrison is an author who crosses time, genre, gender and age. Within a very short narrative, Sula shows us where she lived and all the magical things she was able to accomplish. At around 200 pages, it might speak to people today, who are reading shorter books.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Brutal Imagination\u2019 (2001) by Cornelius Eady<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cThis brilliant poetry collection reimagines the character invented by Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who in 1994 killed her kids and said a Black man did it. For a time, no Black man in the area was safe from being pulled over, searched and questioned. Everybody, by the time they\u2019re 20, should\u2019ve read some good poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 30<\/p>\n

According to the singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, 30, the founder of Service95 Book Club.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u2019 (1985) by Margaret Atwood<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cI first read the book when I was 15, and I just reread it at 30 \u2014 what I accepted as dystopian fiction in my teens feels all too real today. I recently had the chance to interview Margaret Atwood, a slightly terrifying prospect, but actually she was brilliantly mischievous. Always meet your heroes if you get the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Nineteen Eighty-Four\u2019 (1949) by George Orwell<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unsettling just how prescient Orwell was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Norwegian Wood\u2019 (2000) by Haruki Murakami<\/p>\n

\u201cIt captures the highs and lows of adolescence and young adulthood with grace, beauty and dignity. And every T.B.R. pile needs translated fiction \u2014 it\u2019s a gift from around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 40<\/p>\n

According to the writer Esi Edugyan, 48, the author of \u2018Half-Blood Blues\u2019 (2011) and \u2018Washington Black\u2019 (2018).<\/p>\n

\u2018Barney\u2019s Version\u2019 (1997) by Mordecai Richler<\/p>\n

\u201cOstensibly the memoirs of a scoundrel TV producer, this irreverent comic novel is also one of the most moving pieces of fiction you\u2019re likely to read. Nothing is sacred in Richler\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Love in the Time of Cholera\u2019 (1985) by Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s everything a grand novel should be \u2014 stately, funny, stirring, idiosyncratic. It feels especially meaningful in middle age, when you\u2019ve experienced the vagaries of decades-long relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018War & Peace\u2019 (1869) by Leo Tolstoy<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the possibilities it offers for what a meaningful life can look like. It\u2019s the book I\u2019ve needed at every age.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 50<\/p>\n

According to the writer Hernan Diaz, 52, the author of \u2018In the Distance\u2019 (2017), \u2018Trust\u2019 (2022) and the forthcoming novel \u2018Ply\u2019 (September 2026).<\/p>\n

\u2018Don Quixote\u2019 (1605-15) by Miguel de Cervantes<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is one perfect book for avid middle-aged readers, it\u2019s this book about an avid middle-aged reader. Alonso Quijano, a bachelor of around 50, devours adventures of chivalry, disregarding everyone and everything until he loses his wits and mutates into Don Quixote, a knight-errant who goes out into the world to right all wrongs in order to impress the woman of his dreams, whom he barely knows. Through his formal inventiveness, Cervantes both inaugurates the modern novel and demolishes it in one single gesture. The book is also hilarious: the best midlife crisis in the history of literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Mrs. Dalloway\u2019 (1925) by Virginia Woolf<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cWoolf once claimed that George Eliot\u2019s \u2018Middlemarch\u2019 \u2018is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.\u2019 If this is true, I\u2019d argue that Woolf\u2019s own \u2018Mrs. Dalloway\u2019 is one of the few novels written for those of us who are midway in the journey of our lives. Only now, being Clarissa\u2019s exact age, can I hope to understand at least some of her regrets and joys. Only now can I sometimes feel how all one\u2019s life may be condensed into an instant (the book takes place over the course of a single day), and how those droplets of time may compound into a stream (the novel also submerges us into Mrs. Dalloway\u2019s past).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I Remember\u2019 (1975) by Joe Brainard<\/p>\n

\u201cBrainard was only in his early 50s when he died, but he published this masterpiece at 33. Each one of the more than 1,000 entries in the book begins with \u2018I remember,\u2019 followed by seemingly mundane recollections presented mostly in a line or two. Individually, these evocative objets trouv\u00e9s are gorgeous; collectively, they draw both an unsentimental self-portrait and a sharp picture of America. But the most wonderful thing about this book is that, as you sink into its mantra, \u2018I remember\u2019 shifts to you, the reader. This incantation will return to you things you didn\u2019t know you\u2019d lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 60<\/p>\n

According to the writer Bernardine Evaristo, 66, the author of \u2018Girl, Woman, Other\u2019 (2019) and \u2018Mr. Loverman\u2019 (2013).<\/p>\n

\u2018Kindred\u2019 (1979) by Octavia E. Butler<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you progress through life, you might grow more receptive to stories that don\u2019t directly relate to you. Let\u2019s hope. This one is among the most original and exciting novels about African enslavement in the United States, with an ingenious plot device that keeps you hooked from start to finish. A Black woman is dragged back through history to the 19th century, and there are parallel stories of her life in the \u201970s and her experiences as a slave woman. It\u2019s an amazing conceit for a novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Quicksand\u2019 (1928) and \u2018Passing\u2019 (1929) by Nella Larsen<\/p>\n

\u201cSet in the 1920s, \u2018Quicksand\u2019 is about a mixed-race woman \u2014 part African American, part Danish \u2014 trying to come to terms with her identity as somebody who doesn\u2019t quite fit neatly into the racial parameters of America. I was probably 14 when I first read it, and it\u2019s withstood the test of time. \u2018Passing\u2019 gets to the heart of how racialization works in America and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 70<\/p>\n

According to the writer Valerie Martin, 78, the author of \u2018Mary Reilly\u2019 (1990) and \u2018Property\u2019 (2003).<\/p>\n

\u2018Resurrection\u2019 (1899) by Leo Tolstoy<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Tolstoy\u2019s last novel gets read enough. It\u2019s about a juror who recognizes a woman accused of murder as the poor housemaid he seduced and abandoned years earlier. She\u2019s condemned, and he resolves to follow her into exile in Siberia. It reveals a world you don\u2019t see much of in \u2018Anna Karenina\u2019 \u2014 the desperately poor, universally brutalized underclass of Russia. Tolstoy admitted to his biographer that, as a young man, he\u2019d seduced a maid in his aunt\u2019s house and that, as a result, she\u2019d been sent away. So in this novel he is working out major guilt. I think once you get to 70, you\u2019ve probably got some unresolved guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The Infatuations\u2019 (2011) by Javier Mar\u00edas<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cA young woman is fascinated by a couple she observes nearly every morning in a Madrid cafe. When she learns the husband\u2019s been murdered, she stumbles into the investigation. She\u2019s a wonderful, believable character, and she winds up in a very dangerous situation. It\u2019s quite scary. Mar\u00edas, who\u2019s one of my favorite writers, once said in an interview that he\u2019d never write from the point of view of a woman, so this book, which he published at age 60, was a challenge for him \u2014 something he didn\u2019t believe he could do until he was older. In my view, he was amazingly successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 80<\/p>\n

According to the writer Armistead Maupin, 81, the author of \u2018Tales of the City\u2019 (1978-2024).<\/p>\n

\u2018To Kill a Mockingbird\u2019 (1960) by Harper Lee<\/p>\n

\u201cSome books have the power to endure a lifetime, and I think this is one of them. I read it when it was first published, when I was 15, living in North Carolina. It shook me to the core about my family\u2019s racist attitudes. I saw a nonracist view of the world for the first time. It amazed me that my racist father loved it too. I often talk about it as one of the first gay-themed things I ever read because the character Scout is, for all intents and purposes, a little baby lesbian tomboy, and Dill, her friend, was based on Truman Capote.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A Single Man\u2019 (1964) by Christopher Isherwood<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite novel, period. It\u2019s a small, delicate book about a man coming to terms with his partner\u2019s death. Isherwood\u2019s language in all his books is perfect, but this is his best work. He doesn\u2019t waste a word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 90<\/p>\n

According to the writer, director and actor Andr\u00e9 Gregory, 91, a co-author and co-star of the film \u2018My Dinner With Andr\u00e9\u2019 (1981).<\/p>\n

\u2018Hope Against Hope\u2019 (1970) by Nadezhda Mandelstam<\/p>\n

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve gotten older, I\u2019ve become more interested in nonfiction and less interested in fiction. The world is going through such a terrifying transition. Nonfiction often seems more relevant. Nadezhda Mandelstam was the widow of the great Soviet poet Osip Mandelstam, who made a silly little slip at a dinner party and was arrested and ultimately killed by the Stalinists. She memorized all of his poems, and then she walked around Russia surreptitiously staying with friends for 20 years until she could come back to Moscow and get them down on paper. Had she not done that, the work of one of the greatest poets of all time would\u2019ve been lost. This memoir is the most precise, accurate and horrific description of what it\u2019s like to live in a dictatorship. It also poses the question, \u2018In dictatorial times, what can we do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The World of Yesterday\u2019 (1942) by Stefan Zweig<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral months before this book was published, the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, along with his wife, committed suicide. Because he\u2019d feared that, under the Nazis, culture would be destroyed, possibly forever, he wanted to write about the beauty of creative people and artists, so that young people could learn something before the lights went out. I don\u2019t think Zweig\u2019s novels are great, but this memoir is.\u201d<\/p>\n

These interviews have been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n

More in Literature See the rest of the issue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to Be Cultured Menu Literature \u2026 10 According to the writer and illustrator Carson Ellis, 50, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80174,80176,80179,36197,80170,80180,80173,80182,17031,71927,80178,13837,80181,80186,36410,80172,35105,80175,9,11,10,80183,80184,79790,80185,80187,80177,80171,47307],"class_list":{"0":"post-202373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-andre","9":"tag-armistead","10":"tag-bernardine","11":"tag-books-and-literature","12":"tag-carson","13":"tag-diaz","14":"tag-dua","15":"tag-edugyan","16":"tag-ellis","17":"tag-esi","18":"tag-evaristo","19":"tag-gregory","20":"tag-hernan","21":"tag-hope-against-hope-book","22":"tag-jacqueline","23":"tag-lipa","24":"tag-martin","25":"tag-maupin","26":"tag-new-york","27":"tag-new-york-headlines","28":"tag-new-york-news","29":"tag-quicksand-1928-book","30":"tag-resurrection-book","31":"tag-tculture2026","32":"tag-the-infatuations-book","33":"tag-the-world-of-yesterday-book","34":"tag-valerie","35":"tag-woodson","36":"tag-writing-and-writers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}