The 100 best moderately difficult books about survival and endurance

No. 11 on this list. The Conference of the Birds · Attar of Nishapur · 1177

Recognized as one of the greatest works of Persian literature and a foundational text of Sufism. It ranks alongside the Quran and works by Rumi in Islamic intellectual tradition. Western literary canons increasingly recognize it as essential world literature.

No. 12 on this list. Shakuntala · Kalidasa · 400

Supreme Sanskrit drama; first Indian text to reach European audience.

No. 13 on this list. Amores · Ovid · c. 16 BCE

Ovid is twenty years old and Corinna will not open her door. So begins the Amores — forty-nine love elegies written in the 20s BCE by a Roman poet who understood, from the first poem, that wit is more powerful than sincerity. Cupid, he explains in Elegy I, stole a foot from his heroic hexameter and turned his epic into love poetry against his will. This is Ovid's characteristic move: mock complaint that reveals total mastery. The Amores catalogues an affair with the unnamed mistress Corinna — bribing her doorkeeper, watching her comb her ruined hair, mourning her parrot with the same hyperbolic grief he'd spend on a person, catching her in adultery and immediately forgiving her because she denied it too beautifully. Each poem is a rhetorical performance: Ovid argues, apostrophizes, invokes mythology, reverses himself, and lands a final turn with the timing of a practised comedian. He invented the mode of the suffering lover who is too articulate to suffer. Reading the Amores is to watch the cleverest poet in Rome construct the template that Petrarch would use a millennium later, and that has governed love poetry ever since — which is to say, Ovid built the room everyone else still lives in.

No. 14 on this list. An Enemy of the People · Henrik Ibsen · 1882

An Enemy of the People is a standard text in university drama, literature, and political philosophy curricula worldwide, and is featured on virtually all lists of essential Western drama. Arthur Miller's celebrated 1950 adaptation attests to its enduring canonical status. While taught less broadly than Ibsen's A Doll's House or Hedda Gabler, it remains a fixture in theatre studies and social realist drama courses globally.

No. 15 on this list. If Beale Street Could Talk · James Baldwin · 1974

Firmly embedded in the American literary canon, the novel appears on major school and university syllabi, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning 2018 film, and is routinely included in retrospectives of 20th-century African American literature. Its status as one of Baldwin's essential works is uncontested.

No. 16 on this list. The Bluest Eye · Toni Morrison · 1970

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

While not as universally canonical as Beloved, The Bluest Eye is firmly established in the American literary canon, widely taught in universities, and recognized as a landmark debut that announced a major voice in American letters.

No. 17 on this list. Paradise · Toni Morrison · 1999

As Morrison's seventh novel following her 1993 Nobel Prize, Paradise occupies secure canonical position. It completes Morrison's loose trilogy with Beloved and Jazz, cementing her exploration of African American historical trauma. The novel appears regularly on graduate syllabi and receives sustained scholarly attention. While perhaps less taught than Beloved or Song of Solomon, it represents mature-period Morrison at peak powers and contributes essential perspectives on black utopian communities, gender conflict, and religious violence.

No. 18 on this list. Philoctetes · Sophocles · c. 409 BCE

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

Philoctetes is a fixture in university courses on Greek drama and classical literature worldwide, taught alongside the other surviving Sophoclean tragedies. While it receives less classroom attention than Oedipus Rex or Antigone, it is consistently included in surveys of ancient Greek theater and world literature curricula. Its place in the Western canon is secure, grounded in its 2,400-year history of continuous scholarly attention.

No. 19 on this list. The Color Purple · Alice Walker · 1983

Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Pearson Edexcel GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

Appears on 1,185 university syllabi according to Open Syllabus (76.8th percentile), making it a fixture of American literature, women's studies, and African American studies courses. Wikipedia articles in 22 languages reflect its global reach. Consistently listed in essential American fiction surveys, and the 1985 Spielberg film expanded its cultural footprint far beyond academic settings.

No. 20 on this list. Life & Times of Michael K · J.M. Coetzee · 1983

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

Life and Times of Michael K won the Booker Prize in 1983 and stands as a foundational text in postcolonial literature. Its examination of apartheid South Africa, individual resistance, and the ethics of fiction has secured its place in literary canons alongside Coetzee's other major works. Frequently taught in universities and cited in critical literature.

No. 21 on this list. Kindred · Octavia E. Butler · 1979

Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

Kindred is required reading in African American literature, American history, and science fiction courses at universities across the United States and internationally. It appears on the Modern Library's reader list of the 100 best novels and is frequently paired with primary sources on American slavery. Octavia Butler is the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, and Kindred is her most assigned work.

No. 22 on this list. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories · Ryūnosuke Akutagawa · 1915

Akutagawa is central to the Japanese literary canon and his stories are among the most widely read works of Japanese literature internationally, amplified by Kurosawa's adaptations.

No. 23 on this list. Herzog · Saul Bellow · 1965

The great American novel of intellectual crisis. Moses Herzog's unsent letters, his failed marriages, his Jewish learning put to life's test—Bellow captured the American intellectual in extremis.

No. 24 on this list. Poet in New York · Federico García Lorca · 1940

One of the major poetry collections of the twentieth century and a landmark of Spanish-language surrealism.

No. 25 on this list. Voices from Chernobyl · Svetlana Alexievich · 1997

Widely recognized as the definitive literary account of Chernobyl and a landmark of documentary literature. The 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature elevated its status, establishing Alexievich's polyphonic method as a major formal innovation. Required reading in post-Soviet studies and increasingly taught in world literature curricula. Its documentary approach has influenced contemporary non-fiction globally.

No. 26 on this list. Moll Flanders · Daniel Defoe · 1722

Moll Flanders is taught in virtually every 18th-century British literature and novel origins course, recognized as one of the first English novels alongside Robinson Crusoe. No syllabus data is available in the database, but Defoe's foundational status in the novel's history ensures widespread academic presence. Wikipedia articles exist in dozens of languages, reflecting its global canonical recognition.

No. 27 on this list. A Grain of Wheat · Ngugi wa Thiong'o · 1967

Included in: Heinemann African Writers Series

Major postcolonial novel; widely taught in African and world literature.

No. 28 on this list. Eugénie Grandet · Honoré de Balzac · 1833

Eugénie Grandet stands as a cornerstone of French literary realism and a key work in Balzac's vast Comédie humaine. It appears regularly in French literature curricula, realist novel courses, and 19th-century European literature surveys. The novel's dissection of provincial avarice and its portrait of female suffering under patriarchal capitalism have made it essential reading for understanding the realist tradition.

No. 29 on this list. Blindness · José Saramago · 1995

Included in: Bokklubben World Library

Blindness is widely taught in world literature courses and appears on multiple international lists of essential contemporary fiction. It is the most recognized work of the only Portuguese-language Nobel laureate, and its Wikipedia article appears in over 50 languages. It occupies a position below the Anglo-American high canon (Beloved, Great Gatsby) but above cult-status works like Infinite Jest (78).

No. 30 on this list. Mr. Sammler's Planet · Saul Bellow · 1971

Winner of the 1971 National Book Award, the novel secured Bellow's position as America's preeminent intellectual novelist. It appears regularly on 20th-century American fiction syllabi and maintains strong presence in academic discourse on postwar Jewish-American literature. While not achieving the iconic status of 'Herzog' or 'Humboldt's Gift,' it remains central to Bellow's major-period reputation and discussions of Holocaust literature's second generation.