Top 11 Fiction Books Everyone Should Read

Hey everyone! I am back with another bookish post. 😁 Today I will be sharing my top eleven favorite fiction books: ones that I believe YOU should read at some point in your life.

#1- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words: wait and hope.

Edmond Dantes – Count of Monte Cristo

This is my favorite book ever. *happy sighs* The story is so tragic and so beautiful and so complex. There are a lot of characters and I love how their stories intertwine. The vengence that the Count takes on all of his enemies is…so well done. He makes them suffer in all of the worst ways – so much so that you end up feeling bad for them even though they are the villians.

Moral wounds have this peculiarity – they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.

Count of Monte Cristo

I also love the ending *spoiler alert* and how Edmond comes to realize that even though he thought he was in control all the time, he really wasn’t. He thought himself like God and God’s hand of justice, when in reality there was so much that was out of his control.

Beautiful story all around!

It’s necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.

Edmond Dantes – Count of Monte Cristo

#2- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Gandalf – Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings. Man, this series is amazing!! If you haven’t read it yet, you absolutely must. All of the characters are so well done. The story is gripping and amazing. You come to love Sam (and Frodo, yes, despite what certain people say *glares at sister*) as they go on their perilous journey to destroy the ring.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

Gandalf – The Fellowship of the Ring

Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

The Fellowship of the Ring

The last book is… absolutely heartbreaking. It is beautiful and…and…*has no more words* Just go read it, okay?

‘Come, Mr. Frodo!’ He cried. ‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. So up you get! Come on, Mr. Frodo dear! Sam will give you a ride. Just tell him where to go, and he’ll go.’

Sam (aka best character ever) – The Return of the King

#3- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

“We are plain quiet folk, and I have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, and uncomfortable things. Make you late for dinner!”

Bilbo – The Hobbit

The Hobbit is hilarious. I read it after I’d seen the movies and was bitterly disappointed. The movies added so much. You know how epic the Battle of the Five Armies is, right? Well, in the book Bilbo gets knocked out part way through and wakes up when it’s all over – just in time to say goodbye to Thorin. It was a letdown.

“I come from under hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air, I am he that walks unseen…I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number…I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me…I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am barrel-rider.”

Bilbo – The Hobbit

However, the story is one of my favorites because there is so much humor. Poor Bilbo is taken away from everything that he knows – from everything that is safe, warm, comfortable, and full of food – and thrust into a terrifying adventure. I absolutely love stories where characters are dropped into a completely foreign world and this one was so well done.

#4- Ben Hur by Lew Wallace

A man is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good fortune.

Ben Hur

I apparently like revenge stories! 😂 Ben-Hur’s revenge isn’t nearly as elaborate as the Count’s, but it is equally fascinating.

I love the whole setting – the time when Christ was on earth. I love how Jewish the story is (obviously!). My whole family loves the Jewish festivals and the culture and this book just immersed me in it. I loved it.

What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart.

Ben Hur

#5- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher stowe

“Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Get ready to cry your eyes out. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is one of the saddest books I’ve read. *sniffles* It’s such a heartbreaking story of cruelty and pain. I love the aspects of faith and hope that are interwoven in the midst of the sadness.

“Of course, in a novel, people’s hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is a most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is commonly called living, yet to be gone through…”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

“I am braver than I was because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

#6- The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterson

“Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.”

The Man Who Was Thursday

This book was incredibly confusing. I was still really confused by the ending. XD But I love the style in which it was written. There is so much humor sprinkled throughout the book. AND I LOVE THE PLOT TWIST (which I won’t spoil because my family is reading it for the first time now.) 😉

“I cannot betray you, but I might betray myself. Come, come! wait and see me betray myself. I shall do it so nicely.”

The Man Who Was Thursday

#7- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

Scout – To Kill A Mockingbird

I read this book for the first time a couple years ago, liked it, and then forgot about most of it. But as I am re-reading it again, I realize how much I love the story.

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

To Kill A Mockingbird

It is written in a hilarious style. Everything seems so natural and real. Scout’s relationship with Jem is spectacular. XD It so reminds me of my siblings!

There were a lot of difficult scenes that Harper Lee wrote amazingly well. *nods*

“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em.”

Atticus – To Kill A Mockingbird

#8- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

“Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him-he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.”

Les Miserables

Again, get ready to weep. *spoiler alert* Victor Hugo kills off all of your favorite characters and the ones that you despise live. Of course. *shakes head* The ending is absolutely tragic. Jean Van Jean’s last little speech is tear-worthy.

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.”

Les Miserables

I love this book, but man…there are so many long and seemingly unrelated parts where the author spends forever talking about random things. It took me eight months to read the whole thing. XD I am hoping to read it again over a couple months and hopefully get a better view of everything.

“To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.”

Les Miserables

#9- The Odyssey by Homer

“Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say
that we devise their misery. But they
themselves- in their depravity- design
grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.”

The Odyssey

This is a long but entertaining story about Odysseus and his travels home. It was really fun to read after the Iliad because I got more stories than just learning about battles and wars. Lots of suspense and lots of unique and crazy adventures. 🙂

“Say not a word in death’s favor; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man’s house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.”

Achilles – The Odyssey

#10 – The Illiad by Home

“Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you – it’s born with us the day that we are born.”

Achilles – The Iliad

This is a very, very long story that mainly tells about a war. When I realized I would have to read it all for school, I wasn’t thrilled. But as I read, I was amazed by how quickly the pages flew by and how interested I became in the whole thing.

“Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”

Achilles – The Iliad

I find it amazing that Homer could tell about battles for so long and they were still suspenseful and unique every time. I will say, though, that there is a lot of descriptive language when it comes to people dying. Lots and lots of blood and guts.

The deeper theme, though, is how much pride can destroy and I think that is a really important lesson that we need to learn today.

“Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

The Iliad

#11- The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

“A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.”

Screwtape – The Screwtape Letters

This is another book that I read a few years ago for school and then promptly forgot about. XD But I re-read it this year and realized how many wonderful truths are hidden in these letters. They are told from the point of view of a senior tempter instructing his nephew in the best ways to lead his human patient astray from the faith. It is so good. The letters on suffering and pleasures were especially good.

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Screwtape – The Screwtape Letters

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

Screwtape – The Screwtape Letters

~Hattush

What are your favorite books? Have you read any of these books? If so, what were your thoughts?