15 Must-Read Books for 20-Somethings
Here are 15 Must-Read Books for Every 20-Something male and female Should Read.
Do you know what's must-read books? so welcome to another article. I will share my very favorite 15 Must-Read Books for 20-Somethings.
There's a famous and kind of funny quote by the filmmaker John Waters that I actually think about a lot and it is...
"If you go home with somebody and they don't have books don't f**k them".
and while John Waters may be a bit extreme in this thought process I actually understand where he's getting with this.
What Books for 20-Something Should Read?
There are many excellent books that can be useful and inspiring for people in their 20s..
These books often address common challenges and experiences that people in their 20s may face, such as finding their place in the world, navigating relationships and career decisions, and personal growth and development..
Some books may offer practical advice and guidance, while others may be more philosophical or fictional in nature..
Regardless of your specific focus, the best books for twenty-somethings are often those that speak to the unique experiences and needs of this age group and offer hope, inspiration, and encouragement as they face the challenges and opportunities of this important decade..
Some specific examples of books that may be particularly helpful for 20-somethings include:
- "The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now" by Meg Jay, which offers practical advice for navigating this decade;
- "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, explores the concept of finding meaning and purpose in life;
- "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, that is an inspiring novel about following one's dreams;
- "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari, offers a comprehensive overview of human history and helps put our own lives into perspective; and
- "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by Carol S. Dweck, explores the concept of a fixed versus growth mindset and how adopting a growth mindset can lead to greater success and fulfillment..
15 Must-Read Books for 20-Somethings
Books have not only allowed me to expand my mind but honestly, they've allowed me to expand...
- my consciousness
- my spirituality
- my skillsets
- my education
And also they helped me get through darker periods of my life and also just enjoy regular life more because they allow you to get submerged in beautiful fictional worlds.
Understand different people's perspectives and just enjoy writing so much, I just love books so much. so my love for books is most likely evident at this point so without further ado these are my favorite and most popular books for women in their 20s maybe keep their inspired.
1. Swamplandia!
This is recovered from the humid Florida Everglades story, but also with a trace of moisture.
The Big Tree family living in the swamps of Florida raises alligators and performs shows for tourists. Their lives are strange and exciting, and their families are full of strange legends.
However, when the mainstay of the family's mother passed away due to illness, tourists from the modern world became sparse. The family island was in danger of bankruptcy, and his father went inland to do temporary work.
This story about the decline and rebirth of the Big Tree family begins.
A triumphant debut novel and follow-up to Karen Russell's universally acclaimed short story collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.
The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline— think Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades—and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the World of Darkness. Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve, must manage seventy gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief.
Her mother, Swamp Landia!'s legendary headliner, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her brother has secretly defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their sinking family afloat; and her father, Chief Bigtree, is AWOL. To save her family, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the Underworld, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.
Selected as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists, Karen Russell is an irrepressible new voice in contemporary fiction.
2. Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel
Adopted by a pair of diehard hippies, restless, marginal Jude Keffy-Horn spends much of his youth getting high with his best friend, Teddy, in their bucolic and deeply numbing Vermont town. But when Teddy dies of an overdose on the last day of 1987, Jude's relationship with drugs and with his parents devolves to new extremes. Sent to live with his pot-dealing father in New York City's East Village, Jude stumbles upon the straight edge, an underground youth culture powered by the paradoxical aggression of hardcore punk and a righteous intolerance for drugs, meat, and sex.
With Teddy's half-brother, Johnny, and their new friend, Eliza, Jude tries to honor Teddy's memory through his militantly clean lifestyle. But his addiction to the straight edge has its own dangerous consequences. While these teenagers battle to discover themselves, their parents struggle with this new generation's radical reinterpretation of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll and their grown-up awareness of nature and nurture, brotherhood, and loss.
Moving back and forth between Vermont and New York City, Ten Thousand Saints is an emphatically observed story of a frayed tangle of family members brought painfully together by a death, then carried along in anticipation of a new and unexpected life. With empathy and masterful skill, Eleanor Henderson has conjured a rich portrait of the modern age and the struggles that unite and divide generations.
3. How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life
First of all, this is not a psychology book, but a literary work that is more erratic than my fanfare.
The Canadian edition I bought the year before last, was my favorite book of the year. The author's attitude is very sincere.
It was originally written in English, but it was only published in the United States this year. It was really slow. Then there is the voice criticizing the book.
Many male storytellers are too awkward and crooked, even if they are sentimental, and many female storytellers say it really. There is a silly woman who directly criticized the author's feminist political stance for not being firm enough, which is obviously not the work of mature women. I don't understand. It's not "How Should a Woman Be?". Why are you in a hurry? (For work I like to be online, it is unbearable!!!)
Although the protagonist is a female, I think it is also some of the problems faced by many literary and youthful people, such as how to be friends, how to be friends with boys and girls, how to do Art, etc.
It’s just that male writers don’t have the courage of the author and can only write in the form of novels (such as "The Rules of Attraction", a novel that is the same fucked up, depicts college students, and appears different characters, including my favorites. Paul is a little gay).
4. Room
Until the last word is read.
At that moment, the tears I held back several times, finally couldn't help it.
I closed my eyes, as if seeing what was in the "room", the reality was within reach.
My hand seems to be on the "bed wall", made of cork, too old. Maybe it has lost the delicate elasticity and staleness of the usual cork. I guessed bit by bit, details not mentioned in these stories.
Like the little Jack in the story, the five-year-old boy said in my heart: Goodbye, wall. Goodbye, floor. Goodbye, bed. Goodbye, Dandan...bye, room.
Because of you, it used to be the world.
I never expected such a novel. Unexpected, but better than any ending imagined.
I thought it was a very happy novel. From the perspective of a child, everything is love in his eyes, and every table and chair seems to be alive and alive. However, as the reading unfolds, those relished details gradually breed various seeds of doubt. They grow lightly and successfully extract the shaded vines, making people more and more disturbed when reading.
Then, I began to think this was a terrible story. A conspiracy is at least a disaster that ordinary people simply cannot encounter. Little Jack is the last. . . Escaped? My heart is squeezed.
In the end, I just decided to convince myself that this is just an affectionate horror novel. The author's pen has turned around. She made us stand up straight and ascend to overlook the ridiculous world we live in. It turns out that everyone is imprisoned in a room? We all have our own invisible, and, are we not free?
The beginning of this novel made my heart soft. Little Jack said to his mother: "You have been very sad until I came into your belly by accident." Yes. A soft baby gave the mother the courage to live and live well. The room is still the same room as before, but confidence and love let it flow with a different air, and the sadness is always filled with warmth. As the "mother" young woman, she worked hard to be strong.
She has not always been that strong. She often collapses. As we are in this unsatisfactory world. She fell and then climbed up again. again and again. It's just like we stumbled in life.
In the most desperate place, she chose her attitude.
What about us? What kind of attitude should we choose for the various invisible and tangible rooms we live in?
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The author of this book, Rebecca Scroo, first heard of such "immortal" cells in a biology class when he was 16 years old. As a girl who loves to explore, she is fascinated. She wanted to know the story of the entanglement behind this cell line.
From 1988 to 2009, through more than 20 years of surveys and interviews, reviewing literature and historical data, the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in front of me is the best answer. As soon as it was published, it won unanimous praise from the publishing industry and readers.
This book is not only an excellent scientific and humanistic work, but also a documentary literary work. The author started with a cell and traced the story behind it-the entry point is very small, but the history and stories that can be unearthed are very shocking.
Reading this book can not only understand the progress of medical progress but also popularize the generational evolution of biotechnology development. More importantly, the author traces the owner of this cell line and tells about the life and growth of a black girl, her family, marriage, and children.
It is not only rich in American life scenes in the 1920s, but also reveals the medical research that began in the 1950s, and discussed in detail the changes in American medicine/bioethics. This scientific and humanistic work spanning nearly a hundred years is not only a classic scientific and humanistic work that explores the evolution and development of medicine, but also a documentary work of great practical revelation.
In other words, it is not a purely popular science book, which simply states scientific facts and analyzes whether there is truth or not; nor is it a purely documentary work that is only responsible for the ups and downs of the story.
6. Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Book Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
In this book, Boo has tried his best to discover the ups and downs and climaxes from the trivial matters of life, and use this to organize the material of the book (it can be imagined that the original material she has collected is far more than she has chosen Described in the book).
This plot is about the incident in which one leg was burned to death at the beginning of the book, and the development of this incident is used as a clue to organize the narrative: After introducing the characters, she returns to this narrative and elaborates on the incident.
The origin, the development of the police station, the Abdul family being hit until the final lawsuit is over, and the trial is over; while events in the lives of other characters (such as the Asha family and the stories of the other two scavengers) are interspersed as spurs.
But even with such painstaking efforts, this story is still not enough to support a fascinating narrative. After all, the plot of this story is simple, there are basically no ups and downs, no suspense, and there is no climax in the end. At least I have never been interested in chasing it down.
In contrast, the story of Sister Ping in the book "Snake Head" is intricate and complicated, has ups and downs, and is suspenseful. It has a constant climax from the Golden Explorer hitting the rocks to the arrest of Sister Ping; it is also narrative. Non-fiction, but the narrative there is really not even the best novelist can think of.
And the storyline in this book and the characters in it obviously don't have enough tension to hold up such a big scene. In addition, there is a more suspenseful story—there were many murders in the slums and people being killed by thugs. This was a better narrative backbone, but probably because she did not have a clear answer, she had to make a sporadic embellishments.
7. Wild
In the beginning, Cheryl wrote about an important decision she faced in the wilderness: one of her hiking shoes rolled down into the valley, while the other was held tightly in her arms. What use is the only shoe left for her? Now that life is so bad, what else is terrible?
So she firmly threw the other hiking shoe far into the valley. How did she complete the wilderness exploration that followed? What made her, an outdoor rookie, walk on this wilderness road of no return? A book that I can’t put down after reading the beginning!
After many years of looking at the Douban page of this book, I found that there are still so many readers who are touched by this book to speak here. I am very touched!
Why not weep several times for this book. I remember that when the author was looking at the white fox on the mountain and then couldn't help calling out "mother", although I was in a noisy cafe, I suddenly felt silent everywhere, and tears flowed down unknowingly. I feel that I have caught a glimpse of what people call "great beauty", and I have touched something sacred. The Tao is unclear, unclear, but the touch is real.
8. The Lowland
After reading the book, I was full of curiosity about the young female author. Obviously, the brief introduction on the cover of the book did not satisfy me. Fortunately, it is not difficult to understand the author's life in the Internet age.
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London, England in 1967 and grew up in Rhode Island, USA. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with the collection of short stories "Illness Narrator", becoming the youngest winner (33 years old) in the history of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The aesthetics of intricate and contradictory affairs runs through her creations. The European growth environment and education, the traditions inherited by Indian families, and the rigor of scholars give her a unique perspective to observe life. She has a scholarly calm and objective, meticulously realistic narrative, she has a novelist's meticulous and sensitive design of the structure of the story, and she has a sharp and profound understanding of the tragedy of human existence.
"Lowland" is the second novel by Joppa Lahiri after "The Same Celebrity". The novel revolves around the lives of a pair of Indian brothers, Udaan and Subashi, for four generations. The older brother Subashi is cautious and quiet, while the younger brother Uda'an is bold, enthusiastic, and rebellious.
After graduating from university, his elder brother Subashi went to the United States to study further studies, and his younger brother Uda’an took part in the Naxalbari movement with enthusiasm and married his beloved woman, Korea. Udaan, who was hiding in the lowlands, was arrested and shot for secretly killing a policeman during the campaign.
After hearing the news of his brother’s death, Subashi hurriedly returned to China. In order to help Goryeo, who was not accepted by his family, and the children in his womb, Subashi took Goryeo to leave India in the form of marriage and went to the United States...
At the end of the novel, the reader Only then did she discovers that Goryeo had been hiding a secret about Udaan. It was this secret that kept her in complicated emotions toward Udaan and Subashi. For the rest of her life, she had not been able to interact with herself or everything.
9. A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan (Jennifer Egan) is not a very famous writer, but her novel "A Visit From the Goon Squad" (tentatively Trying to translate it as "Visit of the Villain") makes people shine. The reason why I like this book may be related to the author's personal interest in reading novels. I have a partial eclipse when reading novels. My favorite is those experimental novels written by contemporary writers.
However, there are not many novels of this kind, and there are even fewer excellent ones. Therefore, when I read David Mitchell’s "Cloud Atlas" and "Ghostwriting" and Roberto Polano’s "Los Detective", 2666", you will feel very pleasantly surprised. Although Egan's new book does not reach the point of surprise, it is enough to make people's eyes shine.
Although "A Visit From the Goon Squad" is not very long, it has a span of decades (from the 1970s to the 2020s), and there are many characters in the show: a female secretary who is accustomed to theft; a group of A middle school student in the 1970s who was obsessed with rock music; a record company producer who was downhill in his career; the producer of the teacher-a once domineering record industry boss; the rock star among the middle school students at that time has fallen into a cleaner.
A middle-aged man who is unwilling to work; a gossip magazine reporter who tried to assault female celebrities during an interview and was jailed for several years, two (post-zero?) teenagers who are keen on studying rock music and making PowerPoint slides, and one The former public relations manager who took the risk after he suffered a setback in his career... etc. These characters do not know each other completely, but readers who are interested enough can draw a relationship diagram to connect all the characters in the book.
There are 13 chapters in this book, and these chapters are divided into two parts A and B (remember the A and B sides of those music tapes back then?). These chapters actually read more like independent short stories (in fact, several of them have been published separately as short stories): each chapter tells a different story, the protagonist is different, and the narrative perspective is also different.
These stories are not arranged in chronological order. A story that happened in the contemporary era is often followed by a story that happened 30 years ago, and the next chapter may return to the present. Many characters have appeared many times in different chapters, but the protagonist of a certain chapter is often just a few background characters that have been hurriedly taken in other chapters, and even no longer appear.
10. Magic for Beginners
I really like Magic for Beginners so much. I like the way and sequence of the story, Kelly Link's grasp of the metonymy of love, the quiet arrangement of the timeline in it, the unreliable narrative that is difficult to detect, and the truth and falsehood that are always difficult to confirm. It’s like seeing a legendary iceberg suddenly in daily life.
The iceberg splits, travels, and retreats, but some people don’t return. Then the iceberg closes and disappears. Under the sun, you return to your daily life, like a dream. Here you have tasted the short-lived joy of love and the long-lasting loneliness, and you know how to come. Is it true?
When you look back, there is no iceberg. Is it fake? Someone will never come back again. And for the rest of your life, you only look forward to having the opportunity to meet the iceberg again, to prove the miracle again, and to bring that person back.
She has a unique writing atmosphere, and it is easy to bring readers in. There are so many scenes that I really panic thinking about it. In this episode, the first four non-collision styles have their own bright spots. In the last five, except for the great divorce, some others repeat themselves in the atmosphere.
The author's rebelliousness and nonsensicalness are played to the fullest, and a few of them are like Lull, which makes me feel like sleeping. The whole book is very idle, and the plot is not compact, which makes people anxious, but it will leave a strange impression after reading it. The Faery Handbag is really a sad and memorable story.
11. Against interpretation, and other essays
My interest in reading this book actually stems from a question that I have been buried in my heart since elementary school and cannot be answered: Why are we always required to write articles in the reading questions of our countless language tests?
The central idea of interpreting the excerpted words and sentences, and forcing us to be infinitely close to, or even consistent with, such a standard answer. I often wonder, how did these "standard answers" come about? Are they really that standard? Is it really the true intention of the original author? Doesn’t it mean that one thousand people will have one thousand Hamlet? Why should we be forced to converge instead of seeking differences?
This book is a collection of articles published in newspapers and magazines by Susan Sontag (1933-2004) between 1961 and 1965. At this time, Sontag had just stepped into the literary world and had great ambitions for pure literature (fiction and poetry). Criticism was only the result of her reflection on her creation. However, the profound and “novel” ideas in these articles soon formed a wide range of influence afterward—influencing both the world and herself, and Sontag became a world-class cultural critic and public intellectual.
The title of the book is like a banner, bright and eye-catching. But as usual, the thoughts in the book are also obscured. The book is rich in content, wise, and vibrant, and its value is not limited to "opposition", but an incisive new "interpretation" of modern literature and art, just like a building in a culturally prosperous area, a majestic, eye-catching and proud Standing tall, you can see a corner of it from every cultural street.
It can stand so highly attributable to the four articles in it: "Notes on "Camp"", "A Culture and New Sensibility", "Against Interpretation" and "On Style". The first two articles can be regarded as the book's very deep and solid foundation, while the latter two articles outline the principles and make great achievements. Others are in-depth and extensive criticism practices based on them.
12. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel
People often lament the heaviness of life, and there is always a feeling of being overwhelmed by life. Why do you feel heaviness? Is it because we believe that life can reincarnate forever?
I believe that today’s choices or what you’re doing now will have a profound impact and inevitable connection in the future or in the future or even the next life. Therefore, when you face the immediate things and make choices, you will be worried about your gains and losses. Which makes every choice heavy, so that life becomes heavy. Do you really think this is the reason?
In fact, there is no eternal reincarnation in the world, there is only one life, and from the beginning, it runs toward the end without looking back. Einmal ist Reinmal only once is equal to none, and only live once equals no life. A person’s life is a draft that can never be a formal work, a dress rehearsal that can never be officially staged.
Life belongs to us only once. In the end, we ourselves cannot test which way of life is better through comparison. Correct, so we don’t need to regard every choice as so important and so heavy. We can be mundane people and enjoy the ease of life as we please.
However, can it really be this way? Maybe some people can really do it, but there will still be some people who can’t bear the lightness of life, more than the weight of life, just like Dr. Thomas and his lover Sabina in the article. In the body, the spirit and the flesh are separated, and the lightness that the flesh can enjoy makes the soul feel inexplicably heavy.
Love, compassion, ideals, responsibilities, ambitions, etc., these ingredients satisfy the spirit and comfort the soul, but make life heavy, and cares, worries, etc. follow. After all, life belongs to us only once. Today’s things will no longer exist tomorrow. We don’t have to take it seriously.
However, because of this only time, we have to be careful of every step we take, because if we go wrong, we don’t have to take it seriously. Can't look back. The contradictory life, the contradiction of life, makes us often at a loss as to what life is, and it is precise because of this loss that we endure more painful suffering than heavy. In the end, I have to say that a life that is not worth taking seriously is more unbearable than a life of heavy responsibility and full of painful choices.
13. Sula
"Sula" is the kind of book that you will never encounter more than 10 books in your life, the kind of book that can tear the earth, and it is Toni Morrison's thinnest book.
When you read the works of writers from poor areas, you will always be amazed at the mystic atmosphere they describe, such as Latin American writers, Middle Eastern writers, Chinese rural writers, and black writers, such as Garcia Marquez, Calle de Husseini, Mo Yan, Such as Tony Morrison.
Tony Morrison is the first black writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. I see very few black works, but she has a deep sense of familiarity with her "Sula". This familiarity is in a cruel environment. The gloomy, weird, cruel, and surly atmosphere shrouded the whole book brought by similar characters from the book is as full of character as sandy Afghanistan, the ruinous sorghum field, and the noisy and empty market performances. Distorted characters, exaggerated and treacherous events, and sudden crises and deaths.
This is Tony Morrison’s second book. The brushwork is immature. (I think maybe because she won the Nobel Prize, no one dares to say that, but I can feel that the description of characters is beyond her imagination. The feeling of powerlessness in the inner world, a lot of descriptions that she can only cover up her panic by stacking inappropriate metaphors-this panic is that she can't get close to her characters, although she tries her best, it is difficult to reach the hearts of her characters.)
In my eyes, it is also her most important book. The story is simple: Sura and Nair had handkerchiefs in their early years, and there were early signs of rebellion in the world. Many years later, when Sula returned to her hometown, she became the point of a thousand words in a few moments, and only Neel still gave her tenderness and love.
But when Sura seduces Nair's husband, can Nair be gentle? When Sura finally abandons Nair's husband, can Nair still feel calm? There is no answer. But I know that I don't hate Sula in my heart, and I never regard her as a villain. In Morrison's writing, good and evil, morality and ethics, legal system and rules, sin and punishment have all become very light and light.
The kind of authentic and natural things that come from the primitive wasteland is heaven and earth. Only by reading this level will you weep for Sula's tragic end. Sula does not belong to this world, just as Sula does not belong to this mundane book world.
14. Yes Please
Amy has the heart! She really is that girl you will like to be your best friend.
I like her energy...her view of life.
She expressed tenderness, sympathy, and deep appreciation of her life, she expressed happiness-awareness-value family-friends-hard work-honesty-forgiveness-and love.
Amy is my favorite comedy actress, funny and down-to-earth. This book has been the most popular comic book, and I am often amused by the vivid language when I read it.
In addition to humorous language, Amy also talked about his own life experience, from birth, adolescence, marriage, and childbirth, the mood of being a mother, every stage of the mood, and a few words outlining her distinctive personality of Amy. Inconspicuous adolescence, was boys nicknames laugh; there are times with a guy lucky enough to spend the night after despising poor appearance, Amy fiercely retaliate after the other technical botched went home and wept; she and her six-year-old son of a dialogue ---
My son asked, "Mom, why don't you have a little dick?"
---"Because I am a girl, there are no girls..." Mom explained seriously and responsibly.
The son said sympathetically, "Actually, you still want it"
---Mom said, "Yes, my mother also had it, but then I had to break it off because you don't like it."
Most humorous people are Wise. Amy suggested that it is most appropriate to treat work as a bad boyfriend: like wishful thinking, unanticipated rewards, and even the risk of betrayal, but the process of falling in love is the most evocative, isn't it?
15. NW: A Novel
North West London comes vividly to life in NW, the new novel by the author of the bestselling White Teeth and Man Booker-shortlisted On Beauty.
This is the story of a city.
The northwest corner of a city. Here you'll find guests and hosts, those with power and those without it, people who live somewhere special, and others who live nowhere at all. And many people in between.
Every city is like this. Cheek-by-jowl living. Separate worlds.
And then there are the visitations: the rare times a stranger crosses a threshold without permission or warning, causing a disruption in the whole system. Like the April afternoon, a woman came to Leah Hanwell's door, seeking help, disturbing the peace, forcing Leah out of her isolation...
Zadie Smith's brilliant tragi-comic new novel follows four Londoners-Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan-as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end.
Depicting the modern urban zone familiar to town-dwellers everywhere-Zadie Smith's NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.
Praise for Zadie Smith:
'A tremendous talent' Boyd Tonkin, Independent
'A writer of remarkable wit and originality' Observer
'One of the handfuls of novelists writing at present who really matter and who, we may confidently assume, will "last". She is "canonical"' --- The Times
'[It is] impossible not to admire Smith's marriage of humanity, humor, and intellect' ---Irish Times
'An outstanding novelist with the powerful understanding both of what the brain knows and what love knows' Observer.
