The 100 best easy books about family and generations

No. 11 on this list. Death on the Installment Plan · Louis-Ferdinand Céline · 1936

Considered one of the great French novels of the twentieth century, though less widely read than Journey to the End of the Night. Central to studies of literary modernism.

No. 12 on this list. Live or Die · Anne Sexton · 1966

Anne Sexton arranged these thirty-three poems in the order she wrote them — January 1962 to February 1966 — and called the result 'a fever chart for a bad case of melancholy.' Each poem arrives with a date at the bottom, evidence rather than ornament. The collection opens with her father, a wool salesman who drank in his bedroom and died on the road; within pages she has checked herself into a psychiatric ward, addressed Sylvia Plath's corpse ('Thief!— how did you crawl into, crawl down alone into the death I wanted so badly'), mourned a son she never had, and watched her daughter call on God instead of her mother when a horse crushes her foot. Sexton's language stays in the body. She counts out eight pharmaceutical capsules each night, arranges them 'as in the laying on of hands or the black sacrament.' Suicides, she observes, 'have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build.' The hospital and the suburban kitchen share equal authority. God appears, and Mary, and Judas, and Sylvia, and none of them offer adequate answers. The final poem, 'Live,' turns the collection's entire argument on its axis. Eight Dalmatian puppies survive the pails of water that waited to drown them. 'I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take.' The fever chart ends with a temperature that isn't, finally, fatal. This is the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection that defined confessional poetry as a form capable of sustaining both unbearable honesty and survival.

No. 13 on this list. The House of the Seven Gables · Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1851

A major work of the American Renaissance, widely taught alongside The Scarlet Letter though less frequently read outside academic settings.

No. 14 on this list. The Golovlyov Family · Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin · 1880

Considered the greatest Russian satirical novel and one of the major achievements of nineteenth-century Russian prose, though less internationally known than Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

No. 15 on this list. The Castle of Otranto · Horace Walpole · 1764

The Castle of Otranto appears regularly on syllabi for 18th-century literature, Romanticism, and Gothic studies courses at universities worldwide. It is the mandatory founding text for any serious study of the Gothic genre. Its canonical presence is disciplinary rather than universal — standard in literary history surveys but not assigned with the frequency of Austen or Defoe.

No. 16 on this list. Brown Girl Dreaming · Jacqueline Woodson · 2014

Brown Girl Dreaming is standard reading in American middle school and high school curricula, particularly in units on memoir, poetry, and Civil Rights-era literature. It appears on numerous recommended reading lists for young adults and is included in many school districts' required reading programs. Its canonical status is strong within YA and middle-grade education but has not yet reached the broader university literary canon.

No. 17 on this list. A Woman's Life · Guy de Maupassant · 1883

Jeanne de Lamare leaves her convent at seventeen with a calendar she will spend the rest of the novel crossing off, one disappointed hope at a time. Her father, a gentle Norman baron who worships Rousseau, has kept her cloistered from life so that he can introduce her to it properly — out in the countryside, among flowering fields and honest peasants. Within months she is married to Julien de Lamare, a handsome local nobleman whose charm evaporates immediately after the wedding night. Maupassant traces what follows with the patient, unsentimental eye of a naturalist: the husband's infidelities, the death of parents, the catastrophic indulgence of a son who bleeds her dry, the slow sale of everything she owns. The prose stays close to physical sensation — rain hammering on roof tiles, the salt smell of low-tide seaweed, Jeanne's hands trembling at the cliff edge. Maupassant refuses melodrama; the disasters accumulate quietly, the way ordinary life wears people down. Flaubert, who called this novel a masterpiece before it was finished, recognized the kinship with Emma Bovary: both women mistake romantic literature for a guide to living. But where Emma rages, Jeanne endures. A Woman's Life — Maupassant's first and finest novel — delivers its verdict in the maid Rosalie's closing line: life is never as good or as bad as we think.

No. 18 on this list. Roots: The Saga of an American Family · Alex Haley · 1976

Roots is widely taught in American history and literature courses, and the 1977 miniseries made it a national event. It is a staple of African American literature curricula, though less universal than Beloved.

No. 19 on this list. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant · Anne Tyler · 1982

Widely considered Tyler's best novel. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and frequently included in lists of the best American novels of the twentieth century.

No. 20 on this list. The Old Wives' Tale · Arnold Bennett · 1908

Ranked 87th on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels and regularly taught in courses on Edwardian and realist fiction. It is the Bennett novel most likely to appear on syllabi.

No. 21 on this list. Love in a Fallen City · Eileen Chang · 1943

Chang is recognized as a major figure in modern Chinese literature and is regularly taught in Chinese literature, Asian studies, and world literature courses. This Penguin Modern Classics edition and inclusion in the Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature signal canonical standing. Her syllabi presence in Western universities remains more limited than in Chinese-speaking academic institutions, where she is a curriculum staple.

No. 22 on this list. The Story of Zahra · Hanan al-Shaykh · 1980

Major work of Lebanese and Arab women's literature. Widely taught.

No. 23 on this list. The Earth · Émile Zola · 1887

An important entry in the Rougon-Macquart cycle but less widely read than Germinal, L'Assommoir, or Nana. Valued by scholars of naturalism and rural fiction.

No. 24 on this list. Drown · Junot Diaz · 1996

Widely taught in creative writing programs and contemporary fiction courses. A touchstone debut collection of the 1990s.

No. 25 on this list. In the Blood · Suzan-Lori Parks · 1999

Widely taught in American drama and African American literature courses. Recognized as one of Parks's major works and a significant contemporary American play.

No. 26 on this list. The Witches · Roald Dahl · 1983

The Witches (1983) is a staple of children's reading in Britain and widely read elsewhere, though less central to school reading than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Matilda. It appears on many lists of the best children's books.

No. 27 on this list. The Accidental Tourist · Anne Tyler · 1985

One of Tyler's most celebrated novels, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and widely taught. The film adaptation increased its cultural presence.

No. 28 on this list. A Broken Mirror · Mercè Rodoreda · 1974

Less well known internationally than The Time of the Doves but highly regarded in Catalan literature. Increasingly recognized as Rodoreda's most ambitious work.

No. 29 on this list. In the Time of the Butterflies · Julia Alvarez · 1994

Taught in schools: UNAM Escuela Nacional Preparatoria – programas de Literatura (Mexico)

In the Time of the Butterflies appears on high school and university reading lists across the United States, particularly in Latin American literature, women's studies, and Latina/o studies courses. It is one of the most frequently assigned novels for teaching about Caribbean history and political resistance. The novel's adoption into AP Literature curricula and its presence in multicultural education programs have made it a near-standard text in American secondary and post-secondary education.

No. 30 on this list. Little House on the Prairie · Laura Ingalls Wilder · 1935

A staple of American children's literature and classroom reading lists across generations, part of the Little House series. It is less often taught at the university level, and its portrayal of Native people is now widely discussed.