As booksellers, one of our principal duties is to help new and returning readers on a journey to discover their own unique and personal taste in books. Whether you’ve never read for pleasure, or you’re coming back to reading after a long hiatus (as so many of us have!) an entire bookshop can be a daunting prospect. Where to begin? Read the hot new release everybody is raving about? Or immediately dive into War and Peace to make up for lost time?
Three pathways we suggest to ease into reading are:
1: Read the book of a film or TV show you loved – after all, you already know the plot and characters, so it’s almost like getting to watch the deleted scenes and getting a peek into the protagonists’ heads all at the same time!
2: Read the biography of someone you admire – you’re likely to get an easier-to-follow narrative structure and, if it’s an autobiography, it’ll be in a voice you know and like.
or
3: Read a classic.
For those of us who are engaging (or re-engaging) our reading muscles for the first time in pursuit of enrichment, enlightenment, escape and entertainment, the ocean of choice can be scary. A bookshop is, after all, a holding place for a thousand tiny universes trapped between bits of cardboard. How can you be sure that it’s the universe for you? You can’t!
But what you can be reasonably certain of, in one section more than most, is consistent quality of writing. Which is why, so often, we lead new and returning readers to the classics, where there is truly something for everybody – at every budget! With over 3,950 titles available, you’re spoiled for choice, so we’ve compiled a few of our favourites, bestsellers and hidden gems below to give you a springboard into (or back into!) reading in 2025.
Australian classics
While they may be the first publisher you think of, Penguin aren’t the only publisher to present classics (although they are the most prolific). Our own beloved Australian publishers are giving the international behemoths a run for their money. The incredible Text Classics work to bring unsung (or very well sung but no longer in print) classics from the Australian canon of great literature into readers’ hands at an accessible price. From childhood classics from authors like Robin Klein to out-of-print hidden gems from celebrated authors like Helen Garner, there are plays, poetry, biographies and prose galore from some of our very best writers to discover.
UQP are another major contributor to making the very best of Australian writing more accessible with their First Nations Classics series 1 & 2. These 8-book series include celebrated titles and some that were almost forgotten, with stunning designs by Larrika Artist Jenna (Mayilema) Lee and new introductions from Indigenous artists, authors and performers. If you’re not ready to tackle her Stella Prize- and Miles Franklin Award-winning 700+ page epic Praiseworthy, get your reading engine ready for a long drive with her debut, Plains of Promise to see where one of Australia’s most celebrated authors began her writing journey. Or, for another debut by a now-established author, pick up a copy of Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven, about whom Tony Birch said 'I am certain this is just the first of many books from this remarkable young talent'.
Genre classics
If you’re a fan of sci-fi and speculative fiction, or just looking for a way to read more as a way to disengage from devices and screens, look no further than the cinematic and truly ahead-of-its-time The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, available in Penguin Modern Classics, Popular Penguin and Clothbound Classic editions. Any lover of apocalyptic films and TV shows will quickly recognise how much the genre owes to Wyndham’s storytelling! Once you’ve devoured Triffids, there’s plenty more of his work to choose from, including the surprisingly feminist The Trouble with Lichen, or if you feel like something creepy and compelling, grab a copy of The Midwich Cuckoos. When it comes to some of the more prolific authors in the science fiction genre, it can be daunting to know where to start, but you’ll always be in safe hands if you seek out the neon-yellow spines that are a signature design feature of the SF Masterworks series which publishes important, obscure and out-of-print classics.
For crime buffs there is an endless array of classics to choose from – explore the Penguin Modern Classics – Crime and Espionage series, grab an Agatha Christie and a cup of tea, or pick-up an Ian Fleming and a martini, to get your heart rate up without getting off the sofa!
Modern classics
The Faber Editions series brings rediscovered gems to the shelves of bookshops and book-lovers alike, in their signature matte finish. Another publisher with a distinctive aesthetic is Picador, which celebrates the best of international writing with their modern classics line, featuring affordable (and attractively consistent) covers with an angular flair and their distinctive white spine. If you’re looking to bring some colour to your bookshelf, look no further than Pushkin Press, who reprint 'timeless storytelling icons' in fiction and nonfiction, featuring new translations and gorgeous full-colour covers. Another new-comer to the field of classics publishing is Granta’s 2023 launch of the Best of Granta series, which includes such modern classics as Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries and 2024’s Nobel Prize in Literature winner Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. There may be only 8 titles in this series so far, but given the impressive Granta catalogue to choose from, there must surely be more added over time.
The thing about classics is that they’re not a stagnant category – publishers are constantly adding new titles to their collections, like the masterful two-part autobiographic graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. And there are always more titles coming to the various classics lines, ranging from re-releases of out-of-print titles to anthologies like The Portable Feminist Reader (edited by the incomparable Roxane Gay); to new translations (including the medieval Persian epic poem Khosrow and Shirin), a collection gleaned from over a dozen books by 97-year-old author and essayist Cynthia Ozick, titled In a Yellow Wood and the stunning poetry collection The Penguin Book of Elegy which will be released in a paperback (although the hardcover is still available, and makes a beautiful gift). For fans of fantasy, Night Watch by the late, great and prolific Sir Terry Pratchett will join the classics shelf in July this year, a long overdue recognition of a master wordsmith at work. If you can’t wait to add it to your collection, there is the lovely painted hardback edition from the Discworld Collector’s Library.
Following a New Year’s resolution to read books that have inspired future modern classics, I’ve also added a fabulous copy of Jorge Luis Borges’ The Library of Babel to my TBR after reading in the postscript to The Wood at Midwinter that it had inspired the author Susanna Clarke’s masterpiece Piranesi.
Beloved books to start with
One of the best-selling classics at our Malvern store (thanks to the enthusiastic evangelism of bookseller Mel) is the devastating (and devastatingly beautiful) Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen. This three-part autobiography charts Ditlevsen’s Childhood growing up in working-class Copenhagen in the 1920s, her Youth as she struggled to gain independence from her parents and recognition for her poetry, and her relationship with Dependency in her adulthood – titled ‘Gift’ in Danish, a word that means both ‘marriage’ and ‘poison’. Translated from Danish by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favela Goldman, this quiet, internal and deeply honest work burns through the reader like a fever, and is one you’ll definitely return to in years to come. Anybody who has ever felt like the odd one out in their family will feel this one deeply, but there’s truly something for everybody in this gorgeous trilogy (and for those of us who are numbers-motivated, technically, it’s three books towards your reading goal!).
One classic gift to give is a book that resonated with many during childhood and beyond – like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, a haunting tale of a stranded aircraft pilot and the mysterious boy he meets in the desert as he struggles to repair his plane. While we stock a large range of editions (including a lovely Puffin Clothbound Edition), one of the loveliest is Coralie Bickford-Smith’s design for the Penguin Clothbound Classics series – she’s the genius behind the entire collection.
Another publisher of classics in a special collector’s edition are Harper Collins, with their Painted Editions series. Designed by artist Laci Fowler, these feature gold edges, matching ribbon bookmarks, and textured, almost three-dimensional covers depicting scenes or locations from these classic novels.
Whether you’re drawn to classics from a desire to re-engage with literature, for self-education, or for the sheer love of a well-written word, there’s something for lovers of every genre of fiction, plus oodles of nonfiction, essays, poetry and plays to choose from. There are works written hundreds of years ago, translations of incredible stories English-readers have never had access to, and newly-crowned masters of writing who are still publishing new work, but whose earlier titles already command respect in the literary community. Whether you’re looking for an affordable option to comfortably toss in your bag, or a beautifully designed special edition to cherish, there are thousands of ‘little universes’ that await you, and always more to come.
