30 Classic Literature Audiobooks You Must Hear Before You Die

Classic literature audiobooks now allow listeners to enjoy works that have captivated readers for generations. These books are classics, for a reason, and most are required reading in school.

Throughout history, great writers have written timeless tales providing insight into the human condition and exploring themes still relevant today. With audiobooks, these classic stories come alive through the voices of talented narrators. According to Michigan State University, classical literature also expands brain function.

Audiobooks have helped introduce new generations to literature that has shaped culture and civilization for centuries.

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The Red Badge of Courage

Book Summary:

The book explores a soldier’s life in a Civil War Union Army unit. After not getting into battle quickly, the reality of the war sinks in. By Henry Fleming’s first battle, he focuses on self-preservation, and flees. As he meets up with wounded members of his unit, he figures out he needs redemption. He heads back towards the battle he ran from, looking for the wound that will give him his “red badge of courage.”

The Prophet

Book Summary:

This is a powerful collection of fables gathered together written by Lebanese American Khalil Gibran. They are the wisdom an old sage, Al Mustafa, passes along to his followers before heading back to his home after living with them for 12 years. He covers many topics about love, life and how to treat each other.

Great Expectations

Book Summary:

Great Expectations tells the story of Victorian England street urchin, Pip, who rises well above his station with a benefactor’s help. It is the recounting of his life from poverty to riches, and getting the woman he thought he wanted. It is also the humbling humiliation he faced from leaving all of his friends behind when he became rich, as his arrogance grew with his wealth.

The Canterbury Tales

Book Summary:

This story brings together people from different walks of life and station in Medieval England. Using a pilgrimage to the shrine St. Beckett at Canterbury Cathedral as the mechanism to bring these different people together, they each tell stories from their lives, providing merriment and understanding.

Anna Karenina

Book Summary:

Tolstoy tells the story of a Russian socialite who realizes the man she is married to is not the one she loves. She falls for a dashing officer, and the ensuing romance causes scandals in the social circles around them.

Walden

Book Summary:

It is the story of the lessons learned when a person leaves the city, and settles in a secluded private cabin by a lake. The main lesson in rejecting materialism and the need for self-reliance. His conclusion is simple living in nature is more beneficial for a person’s overall life.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Book Summary:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is about an eccentric detective who solves “unsolvable” crimes in Victorian England. His methods are quirky, his wit is biting, but he is never wrong. It is originally a collection of 12 short stories told from Dr. Watson’s perspective.

War and Peace

Book Summary:

Using the 1812 invasion of Russia by Napoleon as a medium, Tolstoy explores ideas of spirituality and the importance of family. The novel follows 3 characters and their differing perspectives on war from their different stations in life.

Lord of the Flies

Book Summary:

Young British boys survive a plane crash on a deserted Pacific island. Unfortunately, their attempts at self governance and society are less than stellar. Lord of the Flies is a story about the fight between isolationism and the need to avoid groupthink when building a society governance.

Fahrenheit 451

Book Summary:

This is a dystopian novel about Guy Montag, a “fireman” who burns books. In this futuristic society, books are deemed dangerous to society and must be destroyed. Guy becomes disillusioned and realizes he is on the wrong side of what is right.

The Bell Jar

Book Summary:

Young Esther Greenwood dreams of being a poet. She wins an internship at a ladies magazine in New York. She struggles to form her own identity in a new city, as a young woman, bumping and chafing against societal norms of the time.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Book Summary:

Widower Atticus Finch, finds himself having to do what he teaches his two young children to do. Be empathetic and help people. Unfortunately, he is an attorney in Depression era Alabama, and he has to defend a black man from charges of raping a white woman. Facing severe scrutiny and backlash from the community he must do what is right as an example to his children, and the town.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Book Summary:

Young Huck is desperate to escape his abusive alcoholic father. He gathers his friend Jim, and they head down the Mississippi River. Jim, a runaway slave, and Huck have many adventures to freedom and growing up on their trip down the river.

Ulysses

Book Summary:

James Joyce takes Homer’s epic Odyssey into a modern (1904) setting. He condenses the long struggle into a single day in Leopold Bloom’s life in Dublin, Ireland. It is a notoriously difficult book to read, and listening by audiobook is a much better option.

Pride and Prejudice

Book Summary:

Societal norms and prejudices in aristocratic England are examined as young Elizabeth Bennet falls for an aristocratic landowner. They have to navigate the social strata differences and stigmas, as they struggle to find what is true about human nature.

Robinson Crusoe

Book Summary:

Robinson Crusoe is the sole survivor of a shipwreck at sea. When he washed ashore, it is battle to survive. He realizes the true meaning of faith and belief, as he looks for salvation.

The Winter of Our Discontent

Book Summary:

Ethan Allen Hawley has fallen from the aristocracy he once enjoyed. He now works as a grocer at a store his family once owned. He finds the work meaningful and is reluctant to regain his previous family status. As he sees the societal issues abound around him, he is forced to face serious questions.

Crime and Punishment

Book Summary:

Raskolnikov is a poor former student living in St. Petersburg, Russia. He murders an elderly pawn broker in what he thinks is the perfect crime. He believes he has a right to the money she has hidden in her apartment because he is an extraordinary man. After killing her, he is wracked with moral and ideological guilt, especially when someone else confesses.

The Three Musketeers

Book Summary:

D’Artagnan, a poor young man, leaves home to go to Paris. There is a school that will train him to become his dream, a Musketeer. On the way his letter of introduction is stolen, leading him on swashbuckling adventures to regain what is rightfully his.

Paradise Lost

Book Summary:

Paradise Lost is John Milton’s explanation of the Fall of Man, in poem form. It is organized in twelve books, and chronicle the reasons why man is locked out from the Garden of Eden due to our own actions. The main argument it works through is the idea of free will or pre-destination.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Book Summary:

This is the ultimate revenge story. Edmund Dantes is falsely imprisoned, and his love taken. While in jail he plots his revenge to a minute detail. When he is released, he implements his plan, becomes wealthy and looks for his revenge.

Catch-22

Book Summary:

American bombadier pilot Captain John Yossarian is convinced the military and WW II is out to kill him. He sees friends die around him and looks for a way to survive. He finds a mysterious reg about insanity that just might do it, but by asking for the reg to be enforced he is proving his sanity.

A Clockwork Orange

Book Summary:

Set in a near future marred by complacency and violence among youth, Alex is the protagonist. He leads a violent gang, and eventually gets picked up and sentenced to a long prison stint. The state uses severe techniques to try and rehab people, and the story is about what is freedom, what is good and what is evil.

The Chronicles of Narnia

Book Summary:

The Chronicles of Narnia is a fantasy novel about four young children sent to the country to keep them safe from the German bombing campaign of WW II. While there, the children explore the home and find a magical wardrobe. Opening the door to the wardrobe transports them to a magical world of mythical animals and fantastical things.

The Metamorphosis

Book Summary:

This one is just weird. I know there are morals and lessons in it. Unfortunately, I could never get over the fact Gregor woke up as a giant moth. from salesman to moth was too big a leap for me.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Book Summary:

This is a story of war, love and duty. Robert Jordan is an American fighting in Spain against Franco. He sees first hand the devastation of war, and while grievously wounded, struggles to complete his mission of blowing up an important bridge.

Wuthering Heights

Book Summary:

This novel explores the societal issues of aristocracy, social and gender class in Victorian England. It does this through the troubles and friction between two aristocratic families.

Anne of Green Gables

Book Summary:

Set in 19th century Canada, Anne (always with an “e”), is an orphan sent to live with an adoptive family. Through the struggles of growing up as a young orphan girl, Anne realizes the family has given her the only home she has ever known. As she prepares to go off to school, her duty to this family that took her in overwhelms her desire to leave.

Frankenstein

Book Summary:

Victor Frankenstein is a brash scientist who creates a living, sentient creature in his lab. His story and the subsequent aftermath is told by a ship Captain in letters to his sister. What the Captain details in horrific detail is the ramblings of half frozen Victor Frankenstein they found on the ice near the North Pole.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Book Summary:

Everyone knows Alice in Wonderland, don’t they?

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Katy B. Rutland

Freelance Writer

My name is Katy, and storytelling is pretty much my jam. Snuggling up with a good book and escaping into a thrilling movie has been my addiction since I was a little kid. I studied English Lit in college which was literally heaven for a word nerd like me. Since graduating I've focused my passion and energy on writing my own novels and screenplays.