Do you have an interest in reading books? Do you want to read books but don’t understand which is the best book to start reading? So this article is for you, where we are going to try to provide you with the list of 50 best books to start a reading habit in you. Before moving forward, let’s understand the benefits of reading books.
Reading is a very good habit that one desires to widen in life. Good books can enlighten you, inform you, and lead you in the correct direction. There is no superior companion to a good book. Reading is significant because it is fine for your overall well-being. Once you begin reading, you practice on a whole new planet. When you begin loving the habit of reading, you ultimately get captivated by it.
Reading develops speech skills and vocabulary. Reading books is also a means to relax and lessen stress. It is important to read a good book at least for a few minutes each day to widen the brain muscles for vigorous performance. So one should select the best book to start reading.
What are the Benefits of Reading Books?
The following are the benefits of reading books –
1. Self Development: Reading helps widen the positive thoughts. Reading is significant because it develops one’s mind and gives an extreme knowledge and lessons of life. It helps in understanding the world around us better. It keeps your mind energetic and enhances your creative capacity
2. Boost awareness: Books facilitate a peek into cultures, traditions, arts, history, geography, health, psychology, and several other subjects and features of life. One gets an amazing quantity of awareness and information from books.
3. Diminishes Monotony: Journeys for long hours or a long break from work can be a bit boring instead to all the social sites. Books come in handy and discharge you from boredom.
4. Communication Proficiency: Reading improves your terminology and develops your communication proficiency. It helps you learn how to employ your language productively. Not only does it develop your communication but it also makes you an enhanced writer. Good communication is significant in every part of life.
5. Grand Enjoyment: When I read a book, I read it for enjoyment. I just pamper myself by reading and practicing a whole new world. Once I begin reading a book, I get so fascinated that I never want to leave it until I come to an end. It always gives a lot of enjoyment to read a good book and appreciate it for a lifetime.
6. Decreases anxiety: Reading a good book captures you in a new world and helps you reduce your day-to-day anxiety. It has several optimistic effects on your mind, body, and soul. It motivates your brain muscles and keeps your brain vigorous and strong.
7. Develop Logical Ability:
By lively reading, you discover numerous aspects of life. It involves inquiring about what you read. It helps you expand your thoughts and articulate your opinions. New ideas and opinions pop up in your mind by active reading. It inspires and develops your brain and gives you a fresh perception.
List of 50 best books to start reading:
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
NB Rating: 9.9/10
To Kill a Mockingbird is the best book to start reading. It is a novel by Harper Lee. Set in small-town Alabama, the novel is a coming-of-age story, and archives the childhood of Scout and Jem Finch as their father Atticus protects a Black man falsely charged of rape. Scout and Jem are mocked by classmates for this.
- Publication Year: 1960
- Author: Harper Lee
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 281
2. Where the Sidewalk Ends
NB Rating: 9.8/10
‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ is a three-stanza poem that depicts the adult world as a little harsh and challenging, in contrast to a more childlike mindset that can present a break from the responsibilities and heaviness of being an adult. The book is considered as the Best book to start reading by today itself.
- Publication Year: 1974
- Author: Shel Silverstein
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 309
3. Crime and Punishment
NB Rating: 9.8/10
Crime and Punishment follows the mental suffering and moral problem of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who plans to murder an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old lady who stores currency and valuable objects in her flat.
- Publication Year: 1866
- Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Country: Russia
- Language: Russian
- Pages: 527
4. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
NB Rating: 9.7/10
The novel explores the shameful effects of power and criticizes the bend of the revolutionaries’ original aims through “class domination, Americanization, financial corruption, and failure of land reform”. The Death of Artemio Cruz is devoted to the sociologist. It is one of the Best books to start reading today itself.
- Publication Year: 1962
- Author: Carlos Fuentes
- Country: Mexico
- Language: Spanish
- Pages: 316
5. Diary of a Madman
NB Rating: 9.7/10
“Diary of a Madman” by Lu Xun is a political commentary. Lu Xun condemns the Confucian-based society, calling for a more humanistic civilization. To make his point, the main theme he uses is cannibalism, which he uses to remark on how people treated each other in China at that point in time.
- Publication Year: 1918
- Author: Shel Silverstein
- Country: Republic of China
- Language: Chinese
- Pages: 501
6. 1984
NB Rating: 9.6/10
George Orwell wrote 1984 to teach the public a lesson about the depressing things that could happen if they permitted their government to exercise whole power. The totalitarian regime of Oceania is able to influence their citizens into believing everything, which allows them as much power as they could probably want. If you love reading, then it is the Best book to start reading now.
- Publication Year: 1949
- Author: George Orwell
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 328
7. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
NB Rating: 9.6/10
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by American author Mark Twain, is a novel set in the pre-Civil War South that scrutinizes institutionalized racism and explores themes of freedom, civilization, and prejudice. What Huck and Jim seek is liberty, and this liberty is sharply contrasted with the existing society along the great river. This conflict between freedom and orderly society forms the overarching theme of the novel.
- Publication Year: 1884
- Author: Mark Twain
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 362
8. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
NB Rating: 9.6/10
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve short stories featuring the well-known detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal friend Dr. Watson. Set in late 19th-century London, the volume follows Holmes as he solves a series of complex and fascinating cases using his keen powers of inspection and assumption. It is one of the Best books to start reading today itself.
- Publication Year: 1892
- Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 307
9. The Alchemist
NB Rating: 9.6/10
An Andalusian Shepherd boy named Santiago dreams of wealth while in a ruined church. He consults a Gypsy fortune-teller about the significance of the recurring dream. The woman interprets it as a prophecy, telling the boy that he will realize wealth at the Egyptian pyramids.
- Publication Year: 1988
- Author: Paulo Coelho
- Country: Brazil
- Language: Portuguese
- Pages: 163
10. The Aleph and Other Stories
NB Rating: 9.6/10
In Borges’ story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see the whole things in the universe from every angle concurrently, without misrepresentation, overlapping, or puzzlement. It is the Best book to start reading today only.
- Publication Year: 1949
- Author: Jorge Luis Borges
- Country: Argentina
- Language: Spanish
- Pages: 224
11. Animal Farm
NB Rating: 9.5/10
Animal Farm demonstrates the idea that power constantly corrupts. The novella’s heavy use of foreshadowing, particularly in the opening chapter, creates the wisdom that the events of the story are inescapable.
- Publication Year: 1945
- Author: George Orwell
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 92
12. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
NB Rating: 9.5/10
It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a dream realm populated by talking playing cards and anthropomorphic individuals. The tale is filled with satirical allusions to Dodgson’s friends and to the lessons that British schoolchildren were anticipated to learn.
- Publication Year: 1865
- Author: Lewis Carroll
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 352
13. Anna Karenina
NB Rating: 9.5/10
The narrative centers on the adulterous issue between Anna, wife of Aleksey Karenin, and Count Vronsky, a young bachelor. Karenin’s finding of the liaison arouses only his distress for his own public image. Anna promises care for the sake of her husband and young son but ultimately becomes pregnant by Vronsky.
- Publication Year: 1878
- Author: Leo Tolstoy
- Country: Russia
- Language: Russian
- Pages: 864
14. Anne of Green Gables
NB Rating: 9.5/10
Set in the late 19th century, the novel recounts the adventures of 11-year-old orphan girl Anne Shirley sent by blunder to two middle-aged siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had originally intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
- Publication Year: 1908
- Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 443
15. As I Lay Dying
NB Rating: 9.4/10
The novel is set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, as are many of Faulkner’s novels. It tells the story of the dysfunctional Bundren family which travels for nine days with the rotting corpse of their wife and mother to fulfill her dying wish to be buried in her hometown. It is the Best book to start reading as soon as possible.
- Publication Year: 1930
- Author: William Faulkner
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 290
16. Beloved
NB Rating: 9.4/10
Beloved, novel by Toni Morrison, published in 1987. The work examines the negative legacy of slavery as it chronicles the life of a Black woman named Sethe, from her pre-Civil War days as a slave in Kentucky to her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1873.
- Publication Year: 1987
- Author: Toni Morrison
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 324
17. The Book Thief
NB Rating: 9.4/10
The Book Thief is a historical fiction novel by the Australian author Markus Zusak, set in Nazi Germany during World War II. Published in 2006, The Book Thief became a global bestseller and was translated into 63 languages and sold 17 million copies. It was modified into the 2013 feature film, The Book Thief.
- Publication Year: 2006
- Author: Markus Zusak
- Country: Australia
- Language: English, German
- Pages: 584
18. Brave New World
NB Rating: 9.4/10
The novel examines a futuristic people, called the World State, which revolves around science and efficiency. In this society, emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children at a young age, and there are no lasting relationships because “every one belongs to everyone else” (a common World State saying). the book is one of the Best book to start reading by now itself.
- Publication Year: 1932
- Author: Aldous Huxley
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 311
19. The Brothers Karamazov
NB Rating: 9.4/10
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom play, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental”.
- Publication Year: 1880
- Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Country: Russia
- Language: Russian
- Pages: 1072
20. Catch-22
NB Rating: 9.4/10
Catch-22, satirical novel by American writer Joseph Heller, published in 1961. The work centers on Captain John Yossarian, an American bombardier who was stationed on a Mediterranean island during World War II, and chronicles his distressed attempts to stay alive.
- Publication Year: 1961
- Author: Joseph Heller
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 453
21. The Catcher in the Rye
NB Rating: 9.4/10
The Catcher in the Rye is the story of Holden Caulfield, a teenage boy who has been expelled from his prep school and is wandering through New York City over a few days, struggling to come to terms with the complexities of growing up and the seeming phoniness of the adult world.
- Publication Year: 1951
- Author: J.D. Salinger
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 234
22. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
NB Rating: 9.3/10
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the best book to start reading habits. In this book, Charlie is one of five children who win admission to tour the mysterious chocolate factory, alongside its owner Willy Wonka.
- Publication Year: 1964
- Author: Roald Dahl
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 192
23. Charlotte’s Web
NB Rating: 9.3/10
Charlotte’s Web is one of the best books to start reading by today. It’s a story about friendship, courage, and self-sacrifice. Wilbur is a pig who finds out that he is destined for slaughter. His friend, a spider named Charlotte who lives in the doorway of his pigpen, is determined to save him.
- Publication Year: 1952
- Author: E. B White
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 192
24. The Call of the Wild
NB Rating: 9.3/10
The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel divided into seven chapters. It follows the story of Buck, who is removed from his pampered life and sold as a sled dog. As Buck learns to survive in his new surroundings, his primitive instincts begin to stir. Its one of the best books to start reading.
- Publication Year: 1903
- Author: Jack London
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 232
25. A Clockwork Orange
NB Rating: 9.3/10
A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. It is set in a near-future civilization that has a youth subculture of severe violence. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities’ aim on reforming him.
- Publication Year: 1962
- Author: Anthony Burgess
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 192
26. The Code of the Woosters
NB Rating: 9.3/10
The Code of the Woosters is a silly tale of romantic mix-ups, splendid larceny, extortion, and other antics at a posh country house in Gloucestershire, England.
- Publication Year: 1938
- Author: P.G. Wodehouse
- Country: England
- Language: English
- Pages: 224
27. The Color Purple: A Novel
NB Rating: 9.2/10
An epistolary novel, The Color Purple is one of the best books to start a reading habit. It depicts the growing up and self-realization of an African American woman between 1909 and 1947 in a town in rural Georgia. The book is considered as one of the Best book to start reading by now.
- Publication Year: 1982
- Author: Alice Walker
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 245
28. Coraline
NB Rating: 9.2/10
Coraline is a novel for young readers by Neil Gaiman. It was published in 2002. The novella tells the story of Coraline Jones, who finds a doorway to a parallel, sinister otherworld inside her new home, and must battle the evil “Other Mother” who lives there to secure her family’s safety.
- Publication Year: 2002
- Author: Neil Gaiman.
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 210
29. The Count of Monte Cristo
NB Rating: 9.2/10
The Count of Monte Cristo is the story of betrayal, love, and redemption. The story follows Edmund Dantes through imprisonment, freedom, and revenge spanning nearly his entire life. After meeting Abbe Faria, the priest, while imprisoned, Dantes learns the location of the treasure of Monte Cristo.
- Publication Year: 1844–1846
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
- Country: France
- Language: French
- Pages: 2480
30. Paper Moon
NB Rating: 9.1/10
Paper Moon is the best book to start reading. Overnight, Fiza’s placid life is thrown into a whirl of decoration decisions and book-buying sprees, unconventional staff and colorful patrons, small pleasures and little heartbreaks, as the store-Paper Moon begins to take shape in a charming, old Bandra mansion.
- Publication Year: 2019
- Author: Rehana Munir
- Country: India
- Language: English
- Pages: 312
31. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
NB Rating: 9.1/10
The Diary of a Young Girl, journal by Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who recorded her family’s two years (1942–44) in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. It is the best book to start reading for beginners.
- Publication Year: 1947
- Author: Anne Frank
- Country: Netherlands
- Language: Dutch
- Pages: 280
32. Dracula
NB Rating: 9.1/10
The novel tells the narrative of Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse, and of the fight between Dracula and a small group of men and a woman led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. It is one of the Best book to start reading today itself.
- Publication Year: 1897
- Author: Bram Stoker
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 418
33. Fahrenheit 451
NB Rating: 9.1/10
Fahrenheit 451 is one of the best books to start reading. This book tells the story that in a future society where books are forbidden, Guy Montag, a “fireman” whose job is the burning of books, takes a book and is seduced by reading.
- Publication Year: 1952
- Author: Ray Bradbury
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Pages: 156
34. Frankenstein
NB Rating: 9.1/10
The novel follows the ambitious scientist Victor Frankenstein, who, driven by a desire to overcome death and unlock the secrets of life, creates a human-like creature from reanimated body parts.
- Publication Year: 1818
- Author: Mary Shelley
- Country: England
- Language: English
- Pages: 280
35. The Golden Compass
NB Rating: 9.1/10
11-year-old Lyra and her demon, Pan, sneak into the Retiring Room at Jordan College so they can see what the Scholars do there. She sees something that shocks her: the Master poisons wine intended for her beloved but terrifying uncle, Lord Asriel.
- Publication Year: 1995
- Author: Philip Pullman
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 195
36. Great Expectations
NB Rating: 9.1/10
Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is a rich and lively novel that one should start reading today itself, centering on the life of Pip, an orphan who, thanks to a generous patron, is given ‘great expectations’ of becoming a gentleman. This is the best book to start reading.
- Publication Year: 1860
- Author: Charles Dickens
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 544
37. Grimm’s Fairy Tales
NB Rating: 9.1/10
Grimms’ Fairy Tales, originally known as the Children’s and Household Tales, is a German collection of fairy tales by the Grimm brothers or “Brothers Grimm”, Jacob and Wilhelm, first published on 20 December 1812.
- Publication Year: 1812
- Author: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
- Country: Germany
- Language: German
- Pages: 652
38. Gulliver’s Travels
NB Rating: 9.0/10
Through Gulliver’s travels, Swift uses satire to criticize various aspects of human nature, politics, and society. For example, in the first voyage, Gulliver visits the land of Lilliput, where he encounters a society of tiny people and becomes embroiled in their petty disputes and absurd laws.
- Publication Year: 1726
- Author: Jonathan Swift
- Country: England
- Language: English
- Pages: 336
39. Hamlet
NB Rating: 9.0/10
The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet.
- Publication Year: 1603
- Author: William Shakespeare
- Country: England
- Language: English
- Pages: 214
40. The Handmaid’s Tale
NB Rating: 9.0/10
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel set in a version of the United States that has been overthrown by religious fundamentalists. In what was once most likely Massachusetts, under the militaristic regime of the Republic of Gilead, women no longer have civil rights or autonomy. It is one of the best books to start reading for beginners.
- Publication Year: 1985
- Author: Margaret Atwood
- Country: Canada
- Language: English
- Pages: 311
41. Harry Potter
NB Rating: 9.0/10
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
- Publication Year: 1997-2007
- Author: J.K. Rowling
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 3407( total editions)
42. Heart of Darkness
NB Rating: 9.0/10
Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism. The novel’s setting provides the frame for Marlow’s story of his fascination for the prolific ivory trader Kurtz. Conrad draws parallels between London (the greatest town on earth) and Africa as places of darkness.
- Publication Year: 1899
- Author: Joseph Conrad
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 72
43. The Hobbit
NB Rating: 9.0/10
The Hobbit is set in Middle-earth and follows home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit of the title, who joins the wizard Gandalf and the thirteen dwarves of Thorin’s Company, on a quest to reclaim the dwarves’ home and treasure from the dragon Smaug.
- Publication Year: 1937
- Author: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 310
44. The Lord of the Rings
NB Rating: 8.9/10
The plot of The Lord of the Rings is about the war of the peoples of the fantasy world Middle-earth against a dark lord known as ‘Sauron’. At the same time they try to destroy a ring which would give Sauron a lot of power if he got it, but the only place to destroy the ring is deep into Sauron’s land ‘Mordor’.
- Publication Year: 1954
- Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 1137
45. A Passage to India
NB Rating: 8.9/10
A Passage to India is a 1924 novel by English writer E.M. Forster. The novel follows the often difficult relations between the English and Indian communities in an Indian town in the later days of the British Raj.
- Publication Year: 1924
- Author: E.M. Forster
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 37 chapters
46. Romeo and Juliet
NB Rating: 8.9/10
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a world of violence and generational conflict in which two young people fall in love and die because of that love. This is the best book to start reading today itself.
- Publication Year: 1597
- Author: William Shakespeare
- Country: London
- Language: English
- Pages: 480
47. The Shadow of the Wind
NB Rating: 8.9/10
The Shadow of the Wind explores a number of themes, including the importance of books, the power of words, and the search for identity. The novel also contains a number of motifs, including the idea of doubles and doppelgangers, the use of masks and disguises, and the presence of mirrors and reflections.
- Publication Year: 2001
- Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- Country: Spain
- Language: Spanish
- Pages: 565
48. The Sound of the Mountain
NB Rating: 8.9/10
The novel examines the life of Ogata Shingo, an older man transitioning into his sixties who begins to grapple with the finitude of life. Looking back on his experiences, he grows anxious about his personal legacy, bringing him into a complicated relationship with the memory of his wife’s sister, whom he once loved.
- Publication Year: 1949-1954
- Author: Yasunari Kawabata
- Country: Japan
- Language: Japanese
- Pages: 288
49. The Stranger
NB Rating: 8.8/10
In the book, The Stranger, Camus argues that the only certain thing in life is the inevitability of death, and, because all humans will eventually meet death, all lives are all equally meaningless.
- Publication Year: 1942
- Author: Albert Camus
- Country: France
- Language: French
- Pages: 159
50. Treasure Island
NB Rating: 8.8/10
Treasure Island” is the story of a twelve-year-old boy, Jim Hawkins, who finds a treasure map that belonged to a pirate, Captain Flint. Jim and his friends travel to a faraway island and meet ex-crew members of Captain Flint, who were also looking for the treasure and take Jim as a hostage. It is one of the best books to start reading.
- Publication Year: 1883
- Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
- Country: United Kingdom
- Language: English
- Pages: 292
FAQs:
Q1. Which book is No.1 in the world?
Ans. With over 5 billion copies sold and distributed, the Bible takes the top spot as the most read and widely distributed book in the world.
Q2. Which is the most expensive book in the world?
Ans. Codex Leicester Leonardo Da Vinci is considered to be the most expensive book in the world.
Q3. What types of books sell most?
Ans. Romance novels are the highest-earning genre of fiction, with 19 million printed units sold and revenue of over $1.44 billion. Romance novels are a popular and profitable genre, and that they are driving the growth of adult fiction.
Q4. Which is the rarest book in the world?
Ans. The rarest book in the world is a 1593 first edition of Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare.
Q5. What is the longest book in the world?
Ans. A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust contains an estimated 9,609,000 characters. The title translates to “Remembrance of Things Past”.
Q6. Who has written the most books?
Ans. The Spanish writer Maria Lopez, born 1927, who hammered out more than 4,000 novels. She is followed by Brazilian pulp writer and thoracic surgeon Ryoki Inoue with 1,100 books.
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