The best and most important books in each genre?

For sci-fi, gotta go Dune (Herbert), Foundation Trilogy (Asimov), and if you want a more modern addition I’d give you Red Rising and it’s 5 follow up books (Pierce Brown). The Expanse series (Corey) is amazing and also much more recent. Well worth your time.

Historical fiction, I’d give you Killer Angels and the associated books in that civil war trilogy by the Shaara father and son pair. Ken Follet’s Pillars of The Earth, anything by Gore Vidal and Irving Stone also work. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy is going to go down in history as extremely important and a seminal effort of historical fiction.

Romance I’m out on, with two exceptions. Love Story, by Erich Segal. I have no idea if it’s a seminal work or romance or not (I suppose ones supposed to say things like ‘Pride and Prejudice’! here but eff it. Read Love Story.) Again, also not sure if it’s a seminal romance or not, and it seems to be love/hate, but The Time Traveler’s Wife is an amazing book and a great TV show.

Crime/Thriller can be a little more pulp fictiony but I’d definitely read some Grisham, just cause… Grisham. I’d grab some Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killings) and Colson Whitehead (Harlem Shuffle) as some more literary additions to this genre. Or just like… Go all in and read Crime & Punishment.

Fantasy, you’re just gonna have to bite the bullet and read the Game of Thrones books and the Wheel of Time series (this takes a long time). Then I’d also go like… Gaiman, Pratchett, etc. American Gods and Good Omens are where I’d go for those two, respectively.

There’s so much literary fiction. Obviously do Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway. Modern day, pick up some Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Richard Powers.