The 100 best easy books about death and mortality

One of the most important collections in postwar American poetry. 'Skunk Hour' alone secures its place in the canon.

Kokoro is universally regarded as the supreme masterpiece of modern Japanese literature and one of the most important novels of the twentieth century in any language. It is the single most commonly assigned novel in Japanese high schools and universities, and appears on literature syllabi worldwide. It has been continuously in print since 1914 and has been translated into dozens of languages. It is a permanent fixture of every serious list of world literature, from the Penguin Classics and Oxford World Classics catalogs to Harold Bloom's discussions of global literary achievement.

Bérénice is a cornerstone of French classical literature, taught in virtually every French lycée and featured in world literature and drama curricula internationally. Alongside Phèdre and Andromaque, it is one of the three works most associated with Racine's genius and is considered essential reading for anyone studying French neoclassical theatre.

Universally regarded as one of the greatest novellas ever written. Studied across literature and philosophy courses.

One of the most anthologised poems in American literature and a standard school text.

Philip Faulconbridge knows exactly who he is: the illegitimate son of Richard Coeur-de-lion, raised as a Faulconbridge, legitimized by his own choice. King John knows what he wants: the English throne his brother's son Arthur has the better legal claim to. What neither man can control is the play's central force — commodity, Shakespeare's word for self-interest dressed as principle. Around them, King Philip of France swears sacred oaths and breaks them within an act. Cardinal Pandulph maneuvers the papacy's interests through excommunication and alliance. Constance, Arthur's mother, rails at every betrayal with an intensity that makes her grief both righteous and inconvenient. The play traces the political machinery of the Plantagenet world with cold precision: marriage negotiations dissolve wars, papal legates redirect armies, and a child's claim to a throne becomes a reason to have the child killed. Shakespeare sets the Bastard at the center not as hero but as observer — his asides running alongside the action like a mordant commentary on how kings behave when they think no one is watching. The verse shifts register constantly, from formal diplomatic address to earthy soliloquy to Constance's raw lament. King John is among the least-produced of Shakespeare's histories, which has left it free of the interpretive weight that settles on Hamlet or Richard II. Reading it now, the question of who has the right to rule — by birth, by force, by divine sanction, by popular consent — has not become less urgent.

One of the most widely assigned books in American elementary and middle school curricula, read by tens of millions of children since 1952. Appears on virtually every list of essential American children's literature. Wikipedia articles exist in 30+ languages, reflecting global reach across generations.

Taught in graduate poetry programs and comparative literature courses at major universities, 'A Part of Speech' is the collection through which Brodsky entered the Western canon. It appears in virtually every major anthology of 20th-century exile and émigré poetry. Not a fixture in broad undergraduate syllabi, but essential in advanced poetry and diaspora literature courses.

One of the foundational texts of Palestinian literature and one of the most widely read Arabic novellas worldwide.

Our Town is among the most-produced American plays, a staple of high school and college drama and American literature courses. It won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is widely taught as a landmark of twentieth-century American theater.