12 Must-Read Classics in 2021
By: Elizabeth Dawber
Tags: 2021, Books, Reading, Literature, Classics

How many classics do you say you want to read but never get around to doing so? Make 2021 the year you read 12 great classics of literature with this helpful month by month plan.

Never again will you have to mumble ‘it’s about a whale isn’t it?’ when you’re asked if you’ve read Moby Dick. Instead, you’ll finally understand what all the fuss is about when someone says “Call me Ishmael”.

Many of the books on this list can be found for free here or here, but I’ll link directly to each one in the relevant place. Not many people realize that copyright on books ends typically 70 years after the author dies (this varies from country to country) so many classics are now available for free online. Even before copyright ends, there is still the ability to access many of them either in physical or digital form from your local library. Therefore, you can read 12 great classics next year for free. What could be better than that?

What I love most about the classics is that they have the ability to take you to places and times that you will never experience yourself, from middle-class Victorian London to Russian high-society.

These 12 books will take you on a whirlwind adventure across windy moors and choppy seas, through insane asylums and muddy pigsties. You’ll find yourself on a train platform wondering how you got there and where you will go next, but knowing that the next adventure is waiting for you just around the corner.

So, let’s begin our journey as we start with a man who foolishly paints his bathtub red resulting in hilarious consequences.

January — The Diary of a Nobody

by George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith

Start the year on a high with this comical classic that follows the life of Mr. Pooter who is considered part of the lower-middle-class of Victorian society.

Beneath the humor lies a deftly told story of the highs and lows of life. It’s an unapologetic look at relationships, society, and what to do when you think your son is getting a bit too full of himself.

For an epistolary novel, which can often border on too much telling and not enough showing, it actually feels very alive. The well-drawn illustrations definitely help but it’s the larger than life characters who are constantly finding themselves in embarrassing or difficult predicaments that make you feel like you could identify them if you bumped into them in the street.

“I got the bath ready and got in. I lay still for some time. Then I moved my hand above the surface of the water. It was at this moment that I experienced the greatest fright of my life. Imagine my horror on discovering my hand full of blood! My first thought was that I had cut an artery and was bleeding to death. Then I realized that it was not blood that filled the bath — but red paint! The enamel had dissolved in the boiling water. I stepped out of the bath, red from head to toe. I decided not to say a word to Carrie, but to tell the ironmonger to come on Monday and paint the bath white.”

You can read it for free here or if you’ve already read it then why not try Cold Comfort Farm instead; a hilarious take on 1930’s British rural life.

February — Animal Farm

by George Orwell

Just 112 pages long, this novella is perfect for the shortest month of the year. As its title suggests, this book is set on a farm and follows the rebellion of the animals who are sick of being treated so badly by the humans.

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”

Victory is not the freedom the animals thought it would be though. As the last page turns, the animal's fates are sealed with a closing paragraph that you are not likely to ever forget.

Read it for free here or if you’ve already read it then why not try Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, another allegorical tale.

March — Anna Karenina

by Leo Tolstoy

Following the shortest book on the list is the longest at 864 pages or 27–28 pages per day. You can always get a headstart on it if you finish Animal Farm early.

Set in Imperial Russia in 1874, the story follows numerous characters in their relationships and in high society. When the title character has an affair, it is clear that she has overstepped the boundaries set by the patriarchal society she lives in, and because of this, there can only be one end.

“I’d call on her if she’d only broken the law. But she broke the rules.”

Read it for free here or if you’ve already read it then why not try another tale of adultery — Madame Bovary.

April — Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

From cold Russia to a tropical island in the Pacific; this is the perfect read to whisk you away from April showers.

I want to say that this is an easy read but that massively undersells it. Following a group of adolescent boys who are stranded after their plane crashes; freedom and fun soon turn into something a lot more sinister.

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”

A dark tale that warns of the consequences when kids are left to their own devices and yet I don’t think adults would have fared much better either. If you liked the TV series Lost then you’ll love this book.

Seek this one out at the library but if you’ve already read it then why not try The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan; another tale of childhood horrors in the absence of adults.

May — Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

by Patrick Suskind

Written in 1985, it’s a ‘new classic’ that follows the life of a French man, Jean-Baptise Grenouille who has a gift for detecting even the most subtle of smells. He works for a perfumer and then later he learns the art of enfleurage — a technique which captures the smell of flowers and plants in fat.

But as the book’s title suggests, there is something a lot more sinister going on. Jean-Baptiste's mission is to create a perfect scent; one that can only be created by killing women and capturing their scent through enfleurage.

“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”

The book itself is a lesson in how to write using the senses and is essential reading for anyone who struggles with this element of writing.

“The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard, squeezing its putrefying vapor, a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn, out into the nearby alleys.”

Despite the novel being set in France, it always makes me think of the famous Dutch tulip fields, and as they are best visited in May when they are in full bloom, it makes sense to also read this book in May — in a field full of flowers if you can find one.

Borrow it for free here or check out your local library. If you’ve already read this then I’d highly recommend Breathing in Colour; not a classic (yet) but it tells the story of a rare and fascinating sensory condition called Synesthesia. It’s one of my favorite novels just because it’s so unique.

June — Wuthering Heights

by Emily Bronte

A novel that is often classified as a romance; this could either be because the film adaptations have always portrayed it as such or perhaps because the book was influenced by romanticism, a term that is easily assumed to be about love.

Romanticism: An artistic movement in the late 18th — early 19th century that placed emphasis on nature, emotions, the individual, and the imagination.

Yes, the characters Heathcliff and Catherine long for each other but arguably, the book is really about morality, and abuse, not least of all at the hands of Heathcliff. The setting of the unforgiving Yorkshire moors in England is the perfect backdrop for Heathcliff’s dark and demonic nature.

Predominantly narrated by 2 characters, both of whom are unreliable but this helps add even more mystery to the events that take place at the haunting Wuthering Heights and the ill-fated characters that come to live there.

“I have to remind myself to breathe — almost to remind my heart to beat!”

A great book to read in summer for the same reason it’s wise to watch a horror film in the daytime and not at night. But if you’re braver than I am and not scared of being haunted in the winter by this book then you could always swap this out with November’s read.

Read it for free here or why not try Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte if you want a slightly less turbulent read.

Image by ImaArtist on Pixabay (artistic representation of Catherine and Heathcliff)

July — The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”

With an introduction like that, it makes this novel perfect for the arrival of the summer months. And yet the beauty is a thin veil for the savagery that ensues at the hands of the title character.

An arrogant and selfish man, Dorian sells his soul to preserve his beauty. His sins and deterioration are then forever captured in his portrait while he remains youthful. Sins beget more sins, especially when they are encouraged by other depraved characters.

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”

A shocking read that you can’t put down.

Read it for free here or if you’ve already read it then why not try the cult classic American Psycho as it also features an arrogant and psychopathic protagonist.

August — The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Set in the summer of 1922, so a perfect read for August. The story centers around the mysterious Jay Gatsby who holds lavish parties every week at his house, situated in an area of Long Island populated by the ‘new rich’. This is done in the hope of winning back Daisy, a woman he dated previously.

Narrated by Nick, Daisy’s cousin, who can only tell us what he sees through his own eyes thereby adding to the elusive nature of Gatsby.

It’s a sad story of a man trying to be someone he’s not to win the woman of his dreams. It’s a book that always serves to remind me that happiness comes from being authentic and not by being someone that everyone else wants you to be.

“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”

Read it for free here or why not check out The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, another novel about the Lost Generation.

September — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

by Ken Kesey

“No, my friend. We are lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psycho-ceramics, the cracked pots of mankind. Would you like me to decipher a Rorschach for you?”

Published in 1962, at a time when there were significant changes going on in the world of psychiatry. It follows the story of Randle, a man who pleads insanity so he doesn’t have to serve time at a prison work farm, and subsequently, he ends up at Oregon Psychiatric hospital, a place which is badly run by Nurse Ratched.

Randle’s rebellious ways get him into trouble constantly and he disrupts the ward by recruiting other patients to rebel too. Narrated by another patient known as Chief who is presumed to be deaf and mute and this allows him to be privy to more information than he lets on.

It’s in your face, shocking, and disturbing but also very intelligently written. The ending is one that always has me in 2 minds as to whether it was right or wrong; every time I read it I draw a different conclusion.

Read it here or if you’ve already read it then why not try Faces in the Water by Janet Frame, a tale of mental institutions in New Zealand.

October — Moby Dick

by Herman Melville

In honor of its first publication in October 1851, it's only right to start reading this novel in the same month 170 years later. It’s also a great book to follow on from the suffocating feeling of the psyche ward in September’s novel, as it is all about adventure and salty sea air.

Narrated by Ishmael, a sailor, it charts the mission of Captain Ahab to hunt down the infamous Moby Dick; a whale who bit his leg half off.

There are numerous highs and lows on the voyage and you are constantly left guessing whether they will be successful or not. It’s not just the ultimate end goal that draws you in though; the atmosphere and camaraderie really make you feel like you have lived as a sailor yourself.

“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”

Read it for free here or if you’ve already read it then why not try another classic: Treasure Island.

Image by Furuno-4972175 on Pixabay

November — David Copperfield

by Charles Dickens

November is always that time of year, for me anyway, when I feel winter looming and that long summer days are an age away. It’s also the time when I try to look forward to the new year and what resolutions I will set. This is why David Copperfield is such a great book because it’s about the trials and tribulations of life but also about our extraordinary ability to overcome them.

I always feel ready to face the world when I’ve finished this book, as well as motivated to get back to whatever project I have been putting off.

“My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!”

Read it for free here or if you’ve already read it then why not try another literary classic and rags to riches story by Dickens: Great Expectations.

December — Little Women

by Louisa May Allcott

One of my favorite books as a child, although I think I must have read an abridged version as this novel is 759 pages long. The Christmas scenes are the ones I remember most from this book which makes it a great read for December.

The 4 sisters who are the little women all have their own unique characters, and I find that every time I read the book I can see someone I know in each of them. It charts the lives of Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth from adolescence to adulthood and it always makes me cry and laugh in equal parts.

“I want to do something splendid…something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead. I don’t know what, but I’m on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday.”

Read it for free here or why not try The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett; another coming of age story.