Modern day classic book recommendations

[Lapsedreader]

am keen to read a book a month in 2025.looking for recommendations for my list please!

Enjoy chick lit but keen to branch our

Depends how modern you want but off the top of my head

1984
A Handmaid's Tale
American Dirt
Kite Runner
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Color purple

All books I have read & enjoyed. All quite far from chick lit though, none of them light reads.

Hopefully others will be along soon to add to this.

I'm not sure if these quite hit the modern day classics request but I've really enjoyed reading Rebecca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest this year.

My other highlights (but not in the modern classic genre) were: Demon Copperhead and Love After Love.

They are in the young adult section but I really enjoyed the heartstopper books by Alice Oseman! I found myself really rooting for the characters. Me and my dd watched the series too!

Legends and lattes - Travis Baldree. Its a fantasy lighthearted romance about a fighter for hire who decides to stop it all and open a coffee shop.

The girl fell beneath the sea - Axie Oh. Its a re-imagining of a Korean fairytale.

I recommend downloading storygraph - if you put in your books you have read it will give you recommendations. And you can keep track of your reads and set yourself challenges!

What do you mean by classic? Popular/timeless/literary?

I would love to see Kindered by Octavia Butler as a modern classic! Written in the 1970's, such a good book!
Sadly, the story line and the author herself isn't what populist media wants to advocate for.

... so here I am mentioning it whenever I can!

The Colour of Heaven by James Runcie
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (translated by Jonathan Wright)
The Book of Chocolate Saints by Jeet Thayil (I'm a bit ambivalent about this one, but overall I'm glad I read it)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
The Casual Vacancy by JKR (my notes include "Fats is Holden Caulfield written by a better person")

If you think you might need to branch out gradually, put the Chocolate Saints and FinB at the bottom of the list. 😄