The Best Classic Books to Have on Your Bookshelf

"The Bell Jar" ($9)

Sylvia Plath's own dramatic end at just 30 years old has made this novel — narrated by a young, college-age woman who, throughout the course of the book, goes mad — even more affecting in the decades since it was first published in 1963. An indictment of gender roles and the forced domesticity of women, "The Bell Jar" was in many ways ahead of its time, and still holds up today.