The best captivating complete perfect reads of selfless importance and relevance read as of April 2025

I’ve been searching for what’s considered the best reads of all time. A lot of best-of reads are classics, obviously. I felt the need to form my own opinion about them, compare them to new praised reads (that rarely appears on these kinds of lists), and as an old sci-fi and comic fan give those a fighting chance as well.

My ranked list is below. The title, above, defines the scope for this list, which is basically a description of what I think is my taste in literature. My criteria seems to be that the literary quality of a work is an important part, but perhaps secondary. The work has to tell something of more unintuitive importance for the current world or a plausible future, look beyond somewhat, through its story, themes or meanings. At the same time it has to captivate.

Untangling the scope

• Regarding “perfect”: stand alone books can maintain higher quality throughout and easier deliver all points top notch; a book series can vary more in quality; a better book tend to find the needed balance of it’s actors, settings, plots, themes and conflicts.
• Regarding “selfless”: I’m referring to books that matters more than the self; themes or meanings that matters for society, culture, humanity or the ‘world’.
• Regarding “relevance”: books should still bear great relevance in general, and preferably not have missed too much when envisioning the future — older classic sci-fi struggle with the latter — but sometimes it just works in another way.

The 10 best books and comics

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The Road (Cormac McCarthy 2006)

A perfected warning, desperat through a scorched world of desperate remains, still humans exploit. A barren, ashy world, the man and his boy is slowly escaping with a wheel cart, scavenging what little they find, surviving inhuman climate, surviving the deserted road and the few other, exploitative, desperate. Through humanity’s hopelessness they cary the fire. The Road Folio edition cover, illustrated by Gérard DuBois

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Moby Dick (Herman Melville 1851)

An amazing colorful blue adventure of greed in a time gone by, to timelessness. Charming – and less so – sailship whale-hunting romanticism, of the then last human dangerous naive conquest, of the sea and the admired mightiest animal of an ecosystem, for greed and Ahab’s unrightful vindictive hunt of the fierce Moby Dick. Moby Dick art by Sergey Shikin

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Orbital (Samantha Harvey 2023)

Uniquely beautiful from the space station – space is also dark. Life aboard the space station affects body and mind. From its view, dip into all human and earthly aspects: beauty, to the darker; our effects on weather to the extreme; difference in capital, opportunities and living; private space ventures, and; an optimistic migration-image of earth’s missing planetary flag. Orbital Vintage edition cover by Aino-Maija Metsola, interviewed at creativeboom.com

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Child of God (Cormac McCarthy 1973)

Based on the real events of a murder case in the first half of the 1900s, Child of God paints the image of a poor outcast, lack of societal sympathy and perhaps somewhat of a reaction, his roaming above and below the ground. Child of God cover art by Ian Westwater (behance.net)

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Minor Detail (Adania Shibli 2017)

An incident in the Negev desert when Israelin soldiers patrols for what they call infiltrators. Exactly 25 years later a woman is born and when grown up she learns about this incident and is able to embark on a road trip from her often bombed neighborhood to learn more about this minor detail, in a military restricted Israel where the occupants in question fear being targets simply because of their less valued origin. Minor Detail Fitzcarraldo Editions cover

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The Outsider (Albert Camus 1942)

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.

Detached from emotional norms. Short on social norms. Norms barely makes sense to the protagonist Meursault. Still a little part of the social and societal; a day at a time; observing; conveniently fulfilling little needs of body and mind, naively opportunistic of the simple; going along with what comes along without reflection, then plainly reflecting; retrospect of happiness; the inconvenience of bodily discomfort by any cause especially affects. The heating sun makes Meursault’s case boil. The Outsider art by Yeji Yun (behance.net)

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Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean (Morten A. Strøksnes 2015)

Originally titled Havboka which directly translates to “The Ocean Book” (the English title could be missleading and the translation have been mentioned to be subpar). It’s a book about the ocean and life in the north of Norway; life in the ocean, fishing and its effects, and about catching a large Greenland shark. Havboka cover art by Exil Design, Forlaget Oktober edition

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No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy 2005)

A deadly no country for old men, the state of the modern world through the layered, violent chase of illegal money and old justice. No Country for Old Men Folio edition cover, illustrated by Gérard DuBois

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Watchmen (Moore & Gibbons 1986-1987)

An intricate comic about an unusual, more real and flawed group of superheros – who watches the watchmen? Watchmen art – new – by Dave Gibbons

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Happening (Annie Ernaux 1999)

Sharp, to the point, author’s experience of illegal abortion that timelessly depicts the mixed morality that can be involved in occupations manifested when something societally necessary is illegalized. Happening cover art by Laura Wächter

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Honorable mentions

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (Jon Krakauer 1997). A season in the human attraction to and craziness of extremes, the case being Mount Everest. A pressure to expose those involved of more danger in a competitive business, histories of life changing death and survival stories, and the especially dangerous and high paying jobs that is tempting the poor locals to a high death toll. Into Thin Air cover art by Christian Grey Hawkins

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Blindsight (Peter Watts 2006). Blindsight art by Dmitry Skolzki (artstation.com)

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Echopraxia (Peter Watts 2014). Note: Blindsight and Echopraxia has a connecting short story, The Colonel (Peter Watts 2014). Echopraxi and Blindsight cover art from Centipede Press‘ limited editions

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• Swimming With Sharks: My Journey into the World of the Bankers (Joris Luyendijk 2016).
• Sad Tiger (Neige Sinno 2023).
• Vertebrae (Thure Erik Lund 2023).
• Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion (Dan Simmons 1989, 1990).
• Unflattening (Nick Sousanis 2015).
• We who are about to… (Joanna Russ 1976).
• Hilda and the Troll (Luke Pearson 2010).
• The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway 1952).
• Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (Kurt Vonnegut 1969).
• Shyness and Dignity (Dag Solstad 1994).
• Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer 1996).
• A Shining (Jon Fosse 2023).
• Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West (Cormac McCarthy 1985).
• Solaris (Stanislaw Lem 1961).
• The Dispossessed (Ursula K. Le Guin 1974).
• Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866).
• Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge 1992).
• Nine Stories (J. D. Sallinger 1953).
• Hunger (Knut Hamsun 1890).
• The Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkien 1954-1955).
• The Freeze-Frame Revolution (Peter Watts 2018).
• We (Yevgeny Zamyatin 1921).
• My Struggle: Book 1 (Karl Ove Knausgård 2009).

B-tier – B for below

The Years (Annie Ernaux 2008). One Hundred Years of Solitude (García Márquez 1967). Stoner (John Williams 1965). Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick 1968). Morning and Evening (Jon Fosse 2000). Lanzarote (Michel Houellebecq 2000). Soft City (Pushwagner 1969-1975). My brilliant friend (Elena Ferrante 2011). The Vegetarian (Han Kang 2007). Dune (Frank Herbert 1965). Remembrance of Earth’s Past (Cixin Liu 2006, 2008, 2010). 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke 1968). The Incal (Jodorowsky & Moebius 1980-1988). The Arrival (Shaun Tan 2006). Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Miyazaki 1982-1994). Metabarons (Jodorowsky & Giménez 1992-2003). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari 2011). The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943). Dark Matter (Blake Crouch 2016). Neuromancer. 1984 (George Orwell 1949). Brave New World (Aldous Huxley 1932). This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone 2019). Foundation (Isaac Asimov 1951).

Ignore-tier

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925). Mentioned as a “must read” several places, but actually has no real relevance (except literary) for anyone (anymore?). It’s a shallow drama, presenting shallow insights of its victims, in a shallow upper class setting.

Reflection

This little obsession started when I explored what sci-fi I ‘needed’ to read and looked at best-of lists of sci-fi. I’ve been reading many considered the best and those I thought possibly could make this list. Then I continued exploring what’s considered the best books of all time in the same way. And then comics, graphical novels and mangas. And, update in 2025, I’ve been continuing and keeping up to date with new reads.

Classics are naturally more easily widely regarded as best-ofs, perhaps they were unique when published, and over a longer time are mentioned as great books and becomes more read, and for people reading less modern they still appear as great books without being compared to modern great books with authors that possibly have built on all the preceding greats. Some aggregated best-of lists are too colored of other older lists and classics. But some classics, like Moby Dick!, really hold up though, then some seem flat to me, barely telling us anything today, like The Great Gatsby. A list for me is more likely to be an actual best-of list when I see a mix of old classics, modern classics and newer. And preferably the list presents the criteria/scope — what separates a great book from the best books on this list.

There were some surprises along the way for me, e.g., how Ernaux and Hemingway ended up in my top 20, read more by accident, and finding the, to me, unknown, Blindsight on top of a sci-fi list — I’ve later seen it on top of another list — and being that special read as it is. I’ve also noticed that my taste has changed somewhat during this project, or that just putting words on my taste have made me tone in more on what’s really for me.

For my top pick, The Road hasn’t been on top of any list, but it’s present on several both sci-fi and general best-of lists, but still a bit by chance I borrowed and read the best book ever written. A book I’m not sure I have the stomach to read again. Luckily there’s apparently many great books to continue this journey with.