Books To Read in Your 20s
Finishing school, starting a career, making new friends, moving to new cities — a lot happens in your 20s! The books below cover stories about navigating life as a new adult, as well as a few classics that you definitely should have under your belt before the next life stage. How many of the below books have you read?
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Add to BookshelfSet Boundaries, Find Peace
by Nedra Glover Tawwab
Healthy boundaries. We all know we should have them — in order to achieve work/life balance, cope with toxic people, and enjoy rewarding relationships with partners, friends, and family. But what do “healthy boundaries” really mean — and how can we successfully express our needs, say “no,” and be assertive without offending others? In a relatable and inclusive tone, Set Boundaries, Find Peace presents simple-yet-powerful ways to establish boundaries in all aspects of life so you can experience the freedom of being truly yourself.
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$27.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Roommate
by Rosie Danan
“Rosie Danan not only created characters who you’ll think about long after you’re finished reading, but she wrote a powerful, feminist book, that makes you laugh as hard as you cheer. The Roommate is sunshine in the form of a book. ” —Alexa Martin, author of Snapped
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Crying in the Bathroom
by Erika L. Sánchez
From the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, an utterly original memoir-in-essays that is as deeply moving as it is hilarious. In these essays, Sánchez writes about everything from sex to white feminism to debilitating depression, revealing an interior life rich with ideas, self-awareness, and perception. Raunchy, insightful, unapologetic, and brutally honest, Crying in the Bathroom is Sánchez at her best — a book that will make you feel that post-confessional high that comes from talking for hours with your best friend.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Either/Or
by Elif Batuman
Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it’s sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice — no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel.
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Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies
by Tara Schuster
Brutally honest, often hilarious, hard-won lessons in learning to love and care for yourself from a former vice president at Comedy Central who was called “ahead of her time” by Jordan Peele.
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Quiet
by Susan Cain
Experience the book that started the Quiet Movement and revolutionized how the world sees introverts — and how introverts see themselves — by offering validation, inclusion, and inspiration.
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$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning — at once a memoir, a self-help book, and a psychology manual — is the story of psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s struggle for survival during his three years in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Yet rather than a “tale concerned with the great horrors,” Frankl’s seminal work offers us all an avenue to greater meaning and purpose in our own lives — a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the act of living.
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White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
The blockbuster debut novel from “a preternaturally gifted” writer (The New York Times) and author of Swing Time — set against London’s racial and cultural tapestry, reveling in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Midnight Library: A GMA Book Club Pick
by Matt Haig
The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How to Stop Time and The Comfort Book.
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The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is “an intricate and dazzling novel” (The New York Times) about the perfect butler and his fading, insular world in post-World War II England.
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$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Know My Name
by Chanel Miller
Universally acclaimed, rapturously reviewed, and an instant New York Times bestseller, Chanel Miller’s breathtaking memoir “gives readers the privilege of knowing her not just as Emily Doe, but as Chanel Miller the writer, the artist, the survivor, the fighter” (The Wrap). Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.
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Finance for the People
by Paco de Leon
Unlike most personal finance books that focus on skills and behaviors, Finance for the People asks you to examine your beliefs and experiences around money — blending extremely practical exercises with mindfulness, and including more than 50 illustrations and diagrams to make the concepts accessible (and even fun). This book is for anyone who feels unseen, ignored, or bored to death by the way personal finances are approached and taught, and is ready to go on a journey of self-discovery and step into their financial power.
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A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
A Little Life follows four college classmates — broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition — as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.
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Start with Why
by Simon Sinek
Discover the book that is captivating millions on TikTok and that served as the basis for one of the most popular TED Talks of all time. Start with Why shows that leaders who have the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
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How to Do Nothing
by Jenny Odell
In a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to Do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin
Sam and Sadie — two college friends, often in love, but never lovers — become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before.
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The Source of Self-Regard
by Toni Morrison
Here is the Nobel Prize winner in her own words: a rich gathering of her most important essays and speeches, spanning four decades that “speaks to today’s social and political moment as directly as this morning’s headlines” (NPR).
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Into the Wild
by Jon Krakauer
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. This is the unforgettable story of how Christopher Johnson McCandless came to die.
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Crying in H Mart
by Michelle Zauner
From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American — “in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR).
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