The 100 best easy books about love and desire

Bérénice by Jean Racine, The Miser by Molière and Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe lead the 100 best easy books about love and desire, ranked by literary regard. To start, The School for Wives by Molière is the most approachable of the highly regarded books here, about 1.2 hours to read.

Each point of light is one of the 100, placed by how hard it is to read. The brighter, the higher it ranks. The dotted line is one way up.

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No. 1 of 100

Bérénice

Jean Racine · 1670

Difficulty 41/10050 min

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Readable here · 13

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About 506 hours for 100 of 100 books with measured lengths. Estimates use 250 words a minute, adjusted for each book's difficulty. At 2 hours a day, about 254 days for those books.

1–10 · 44 hours

  1. No. 1 on this list. Bérénice

    Jean Racine · 1670

    Moderate50 min

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    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.

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  2. No. 2 on this list. The Miser

    Molière · 1668

    Moderate1.4 hours

    Taught in schools: Lektury obowiązkowe – Polish national reading list (Poland), UNAM Escuela Nacional Preparatoria – programas de Literatura (Mexico)

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    The Miser is a staple of French literature and world theater curricula across universities globally, ranking among the most performed and studied comedies of the Western canon. While no syllabus count is in the database, it appears consistently on comparative literature, French studies, and drama course lists. Its presence in world literature anthologies across dozens of languages reflects its canonical standing.

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

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  4. Andromaque, widowed queen of Troy, has one goal: protect her son Astyanax, the last living heir of Hector. Standing between her son's life and his death is Pyrrhus, the Greek king who killed her husband and now holds them both captive — and who, inconveniently, is in love with her. Pyrrhus will spare the boy if she marries him. She refuses. He turns back to his betrothed, Hermione. Then he returns to Andromaque again. This chain of unrequited desire — Oreste loves Hermione, Hermione loves Pyrrhus, Pyrrhus loves Andromaque, Andromaque loves only the dead Hector — is the entire engine of the play. Racine wrote Andromaque in 1667, when he was thirty, and it made him famous overnight. The alexandrine verse is strict and relentless, each character arguing their case with the precision of a lawyer and the desperation of someone who knows they are losing. What distinguishes this from other tragedies is how little pity Racine allows anyone: every character is both victim and tormentor. By the final act, Pyrrhus is dead, Hermione has killed herself, and Oreste has gone mad. Andromaque survives, which in context feels like its own punishment.

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  5. Pamela Andrews is fifteen years old and in service when her mistress dies and the mistress's son, Mr. B, begins a campaign to seduce her. She refuses. He escalates — intercepting her letters, relocating her to a remote estate, locking her in — and she keeps writing, to her parents and in a secret journal she hides in her clothing. What makes the novel strange is that we only have Pamela's account: earnest, relentlessly self-observing, written in the knowledge that Mr. B may one day read every word she has set down. Published in 1740, Pamela invented something — not just the epistolary novel, but the novel's peculiar project of making a single consciousness the center of a world. Richardson called his method 'writing to the moment': the heroine records events as they happen, before she knows how they will turn out. Readers have been arguing about Pamela's sincerity ever since. Henry Fielding published Shamela the following year, certain the whole performance was calculation dressed as virtue. That argument — is Pamela genuinely good, or is goodness here just the strategy that worked? — has never been settled. The novel is slow by design: captivity is repetitive, and Richardson wants you to feel it. But the compression of one young woman's inner life, the surveillance she endures and returns in kind, and the original sin of a marriage that rewards persistence over refusal make Pamela one of the most uncomfortable triumphs in English fiction.

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  6. No. 6 on this list. The Comedy of Errors

    William Shakespeare · 1594

    Moderate1 hours

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    The Comedy of Errors appears on English literature syllabi worldwide as a fixture in Shakespeare survey courses. Among Shakespeare's 37 plays it ranks below the major tragedies in teaching frequency, but as the shortest play in the canon and the foundational English stage farce it maintains consistent academic presence across drama and literature programmes.

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  7. No. 7 on this list. Phèdre

    Jean Racine · 1677

    Moderate52 min

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Phedre is the acknowledged masterpiece of French neoclassical drama and a permanent fixture of French lycee and university curricula worldwide. Wikipedia articles exist in 26 languages with a dedicated Reception section, reflecting sustained international scholarly attention. Though the database records no syllabus appearances, this reflects a data gap — the play is core curriculum in French literature courses across Europe and North America.

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  8. Universally recognized as the masterpiece of Spanish realism and one of the great European novels of the nineteenth century.

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  9. The undisputed masterpiece of twentieth-century Catalan literature. Widely translated and recognized as one of the great European novels of the postwar period.

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  10. No. 10 on this list. The School for Wives

    Molière · 1662

    Easy1.2 hours

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    A major Molière comedy, regularly performed and studied. Marks the beginning of his mature period and the great querelle it provoked.

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11–20 · 61 hours

  1. No. 11 on this list. Meditations in an Emergency · Frank O'Hara · 1957

    An important early New York School text, though less widely known than Lunch Poems. Its reputation has grown as O'Hara's stature has increased.

    Easy23 min

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  2. No. 12 on this list. Sister Carrie · Theodore Dreiser · 1900

    Appears on 1,040 university syllabi and sits on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list. It is a standard text for American naturalism and the Gilded Age city.

    Easy9.4 hours

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  3. No. 13 on this list. Ethan Frome · Edith Wharton · 1911

    One of the most widely assigned American novels, a staple of high school and college curricula. A central text of American literary realism.

    Easy1.7 hours

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  4. No. 14 on this list. Cousin Bette · Honoré de Balzac · 1846

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Cousin Bette is central to the Balzac canon and widely taught in French university courses across Europe; it appears on numerous syllabi as his finest late novel and as a cornerstone of European realism. Its Anglophone classroom presence is smaller than in France, but it features in world literature survey courses and Victorian-comparative programs.

    Easy10 hours

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  5. No. 15 on this list. Our Town · Thornton Wilder · 1938

    Taught in schools: Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US), CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

    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.

    Easy2.8 hours

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  6. No. 16 on this list. Jenny · Sigrid Undset · 1911

    Jenny holds significant status in Scandinavian literary history as an early psychological realist novel examining female artistic ambition and sexuality with unprecedented frankness. Its 1911 publication sparked controversy and established Undset as a major voice before her Nobel-winning Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. While less universally canonical than her medieval epics, Jenny remains essential for understanding early 20th-century Nordic modernism and appears regularly in Norwegian literary curricula and scholarship on women's writing.

    Easy5.3 hours

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  7. No. 17 on this list. Memed, My Hawk · Yasar Kemal · 1955

    Included in: UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

    The foundational novel of modern Turkish literature's international reputation. Widely translated and studied as a masterpiece of Turkish fiction.

    Easy5.4 hours

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  8. No. 18 on this list. Count Julian · Juan Goytisolo · 1970

    Count Julian (Reivindicación del conde don Julián, 1970), the middle novel of the trilogy begun with Marks of Identity, is a standard text in courses on the post-war Spanish novel. Banned in Franco's Spain, it is read in English in Helen Lane's translation.

    Very Easy2.6 hours

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  9. No. 19 on this list. The Little Prince · Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · 1943

    Taught in schools: Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US)

    One of the most translated books in history with over 300 language editions, making it among the most widely read works of French literature. A staple of French school curricula and taught globally in world literature, philosophy, and children's literature courses. Wikipedia articles exist in well over 100 languages, reflecting universal cultural penetration.

    Easy60 min

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  10. No. 20 on this list. The Way We Live Now · Anthony Trollope · 1875

    Widely taught in Victorian literature courses at universities worldwide and consistently included in lists of the greatest 19th-century English novels. Routinely called Trollope's masterpiece and the finest Victorian satire of money and society. While no formal database entry is available here, the novel's presence on undergraduate syllabi is extensive, placing it solidly in the upper tier of Victorian canonical texts, though below the very highest (Dickens, George Eliot, Hardy).

    Moderate23 hours

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21–30 · 69 hours

  1. No. 21 on this list. Dear Life · Alice Munro · 2012

    Munro's final collection, published the year before her Nobel Prize. Regarded as a fitting capstone to one of the great careers in short fiction.

    Easy4.6 hours

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  2. No. 22 on this list. The Golden Pot · E.T.A. Hoffmann · 1814

    One of the masterpieces of German Romanticism and Hoffmann's most celebrated tale. Widely studied in German literature courses.

    Moderate1.9 hours

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  3. No. 23 on this list. Manon Lescaut · Abbé Prévost · 1731

    Taught in schools: Programme de français, lycée général et technologique (France)

    A cornerstone of the French novel and one of the great love stories of European literature. Widely read and studied.

    Easy2.9 hours

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  4. No. 24 on this list. Julie, or the New Heloise · Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1761

    The most important French novel before the 19th century and a founding text of Romanticism. Less read today than it deserves, partly due to its length and didactic passages.

    Moderate18 hours

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  5. No. 25 on this list. Thérèse Raquin · Émile Zola · 1867

    Widely read and taught as a foundational naturalist text, though less prominent than Germinal or L'Assommoir in the Zola canon.

    Easy3.6 hours

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  6. No. 26 on this list. The Art of Love · Ovid · 2

    One of Ovid's most famous works, notorious in its own time and frequently censored, now recognized as a masterpiece of ironic didactic poetry.

    Moderate1.3 hours

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  7. No. 27 on this list. The Learned Ladies · Molière · 1672

    A significant Molière play, regularly included in collected editions and periodically revived. Less universally performed than Tartuffe or The Misanthrope.

    Easy1.2 hours

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  8. No. 28 on this list. Journey to the Center of the Earth · Jules Verne · 1864

    A foundational text of 19th-century adventure fiction and proto-science fiction, taught in French literature and science fiction history courses worldwide. No syllabus data is available in the database, but Verne's novel is widely considered essential reading in genre history. It appears on most curated lists of classic science fiction and has remained in continuous print for over 160 years.

    Easy4.3 hours

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  9. No. 29 on this list. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon · Jorge Amado · 1958

    Gabriela is among the defining works of Brazilian literature and appears regularly on Latin American literature syllabi worldwide. It established Jorge Amado's international reputation and is one of the most-translated Brazilian novels ever published. While not as universally taught as García Márquez, it occupies a secure place in world literature curricula.

    Moderate9.3 hours

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  10. No. 30 on this list. An American Tragedy · Theodore Dreiser · 1925

    An American Tragedy appears on both TIME's All-TIME 100 Novels and Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, two of the most authoritative canons in American literature. With 75 syllabus appearances (46.87th percentile in the Open Syllabus database), it is a fixture in American literature survey courses though not as universally assigned as Fitzgerald or Hemingway. Wikipedia covers it in 23 languages with a dedicated Reception section, reflecting steady international recognition.

    Moderate22 hours

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31–40 · 49 hours

  1. No. 31 on this list. Paroles

    Jacques Prévert · 1946

  2. No. 32 on this list. Elmer Gantry

    Sinclair Lewis · 1927

  3. No. 33 on this list. Three Tall Women

    Edward Albee · 1991

  4. No. 34 on this list. Tonio Kröger

    Thomas Mann · 1903

  5. No. 35 on this list. A Woman's Life

    Guy de Maupassant · 1883

  6. No. 36 on this list. The Postman Always Rings Twice

    James M. Cain · 1934

  7. No. 37 on this list. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

    Anne Tyler · 1982

  8. No. 38 on this list. The Visit of the Royal Physician

    Per Olov Enquist · 1999

  9. No. 39 on this list. Home of the Gentry

    Ivan Turgenev · 1859

    Taught in schools: Russian FGOS literature standard

  10. No. 40 on this list. The Old Wives' Tale

    Arnold Bennett · 1908

41–50 · 51 hours

  1. No. 41 on this list. Love in a Fallen City

    Eileen Chang · 1943

  2. No. 42 on this list. Sanshiro

    Natsume Sōseki · 1908

  3. No. 43 on this list. The Story of Zahra

    Hanan al-Shaykh · 1980

  4. No. 44 on this list. Maurice

    E.M. Forster · 1971

  5. No. 45 on this list. The Bell

    Iris Murdoch · 1958

  6. No. 46 on this list. Wild Seed

    Octavia E. Butler · 1980

  7. No. 47 on this list. And Then

    Natsume Sōseki · 1909

    Included in: UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

  8. No. 48 on this list. Barchester Towers

    Anthony Trollope · 1857

  9. No. 49 on this list. Drown

    Junot Diaz · 1996

  10. No. 50 on this list. The Gate

    Natsume Sōseki · 1910

    Included in: UNESCO Collection of Representative Works

51–60 · 44 hours

  1. No. 51 on this list. Miss Sophia's Diary

    Ding Ling · 1928

  2. No. 52 on this list. Simple Passion

    Annie Ernaux · 1991

  3. No. 53 on this list. Raise the Red Lantern

    Su Tong · 1990

  4. No. 54 on this list. In the Blood

    Suzan-Lori Parks · 1999

  5. No. 55 on this list. Indian Summer

    Adalbert Stifter · 1857

  6. No. 56 on this list. Appointment in Samarra

    John O'Hara · 1934

  7. No. 57 on this list. The Accidental Tourist

    Anne Tyler · 1985

  8. No. 58 on this list. The Long Valley

    John Steinbeck · 1938

  9. No. 59 on this list. The Ripening Seed

    Colette · 1923

  10. No. 60 on this list. The Horseman on the Roof

    Jean Giono · 1951

61–70 · 56 hours

  1. No. 61 on this list. White Nights

    Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1848

  2. No. 62 on this list. The Dragon Can't Dance

    Earl Lovelace · 1979

  3. No. 63 on this list. Mary Barton

    Elizabeth Gaskell · 1848

  4. No. 64 on this list. Couples

    John Updike · 1968

  5. No. 65 on this list. Tropic of Capricorn

    Henry Miller · 1939

  6. No. 66 on this list. Bastard Out of Carolina

    Dorothy Allison · 1992

  7. No. 67 on this list. Marianela

    Benito Pérez Galdós

  8. No. 68 on this list. The Last Picture Show

    Larry McMurtry · 1966

  9. No. 69 on this list. The Financier

    Theodore Dreiser · 1912

  10. No. 70 on this list. The Devil

    Leo Tolstoy · 1911

71–80 · 41 hours

  1. No. 71 on this list. Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

    Mario Vargas Llosa · 1973

  2. No. 72 on this list. Closely Watched Trains

    Bohumil Hrabal · 1965

  3. No. 73 on this list. A Town Like Alice

    Nevil Shute · 1950

  4. No. 74 on this list. All-Star Superman

    Grant Morrison · 2011

  5. No. 75 on this list. A Happy Boy

    Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson · 1860

  6. No. 76 on this list. A Severed Head

    Iris Murdoch · 1961

  7. No. 77 on this list. Voyage in the Dark

    Jean Rhys · 1934

  8. No. 78 on this list. Laurus

    Eugene Vodolazkin · 2012

  9. No. 79 on this list. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

    Marina Lewycka · 2005

  10. No. 80 on this list. Amy and Isabelle

    Elizabeth Strout · 2005

81–90 · 39 hours

  1. No. 81 on this list. The Divorce

    Diane Johnson · 2010

  2. No. 82 on this list. The Fury

    Paul Heyse

  3. No. 83 on this list. The Tendrils of the Vine

    Colette · 1908

    Taught in schools: Programme de français, lycée général et technologique (France)

  4. No. 84 on this list. Bel Canto

    Ann Patchett · 2003

  5. No. 85 on this list. Beware of Pity

    Stefan Zweig · 1939

  6. No. 86 on this list. Angels

    Denis Johnson · 1983

  7. No. 87 on this list. Arne

    Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson · 1858

  8. No. 88 on this list. Ashes

    Grazia Deledda · 1904

  9. No. 89 on this list. Blue Angel

    Francine Prose · 2000

  10. No. 90 on this list. Whitney, My Love

    Judith McNaught · 1985

91–100 · 53 hours

  1. No. 91 on this list. The Dying Animal

    Philip Roth · 2001

  2. No. 92 on this list. How Should a Person Be?

    Sheila Heti · 2012

  3. No. 93 on this list. That Hideous Strength

    C.S. Lewis · 1945

  4. No. 94 on this list. A Civil Action

    Jonathan Harr · 1995

  5. No. 95 on this list. The garden of Eden

    Ernest Hemingway · 1986

  6. No. 96 on this list. Terms of Endearment

    Larry McMurtry · 1975

  7. No. 97 on this list. The Lay of the Land

    Richard Ford · 2006

  8. No. 98 on this list. Magnhild

    Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson · 1877

  9. No. 99 on this list. Love and Garbage

    Ivan Klima · 1986

  10. No. 100 on this list. Laughing Boy

    Oliver La Farge · 1930

About this list

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible easy books about love and desire currently in the catalogue. About 506 hours of reading in all. Difficulty runs from 34 to 42 out of 100 for the middle half of the list; the summit is Appointment in Samarra at 45.

This list is ranked by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. A book is here when ReadingRate files it under Love & Desire as one of its primary reading domains, at a confidence of 0.8 or more. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent.

When we matched the Canons dataset to our catalogue in October 2026, our canonical-status scores rose with the number of school curricula, publisher series and lists in it that cite a work: the median score was 72 for books one such source cites, 84 at two, 88 at three, 92 at four and 93 at five or more. Prizes are left out of that count. Outside the state curricula, the dataset’s sources choose mostly from what has been translated into English or French, so it is a weaker check on other literatures. Source: Canons (Andrew Piper), CC BY 4.0

Questions people actually ask

What are the best easy books about love and desire?
By literary regard, which weighs canonical status, critical standing and influence: Bérénice by Jean Racine, The Miser by Molière, Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, Andromaque by Jean Racine and Pamela by Samuel Richardson. ReadingRate ranks 100 such books, each with a difficulty score and a reading-time estimate.
Which easy books about love and desire should I read first?
Start from difficulty, not from rank. The most approachable books on this list that still carry top literary regard are The School for Wives by Molière (about 1.2 hours), Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara and The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda.
What are the shortest of the best easy books about love and desire?
Among the top 25, the shortest are Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe (about 24 min), Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara (about 23 min) and Bérénice by Jean Racine (about 50 min), at an average pace of 250 words a minute adjusted for each book's difficulty.
Which of the best easy books about love and desire are the established classics?
By canonical status, how firmly a book sits in curricula, anthologies and the canon: Bérénice by Jean Racine, The Miser by Molière, Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, Andromaque by Jean Racine and Pamela by Samuel Richardson.
Can I read any of these easy books about love and desire for free?
13 of the 100 open in ReadingRate's reader with a free account, from public-domain editions: The Comedy of Errors, Sister Carrie, Jenny, The Art of Love, An American Tragedy and 8 more.
How long would it take to read the top ten?
About 44 hours, at an average pace of 250 words a minute adjusted for each book's difficulty: 22 days at two hours a day. Set your own pace on the page and the list's reading times change to it.
How hard are easy books about love and desire to read?
Most of this list sits between 34 and 42 on ReadingRate's 100-point difficulty scale, where 40 to 55 is moderate. The summit is Appointment in Samarra at 45. Every entry carries its own score, so a reader can pick a great book at a difficulty they will finish.
How is this list ranked?
On literary-regard data: how canonically established a work is, its critical standing, and its influence on later writing. It is not a readers’ poll, which is why recent bestsellers rarely appear. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Lists by country, author, period, theme or difficulty keep to literature (fiction, poetry, drama and philosophy), their novels, poems and plays first and their philosophy after them; a list of a kind of book, such as memoir or criticism, keeps every book of that kind. Every list holds at most three works by one author. A book is here when ReadingRate files it under Love & Desire as one of its primary reading domains, at a confidence of 0.8 or more.