Curated Shelves

Shelves worth reading down.

Hand-built reading lists you can pull into Lexis with one tap — every title free, public-domain or open access, and ready to annotate. New shelves added each season.

Georgist EconomicsThe 100 You Must ReadEssential KnowledgeEditors' Picks
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Shelf № 01 · Political Economy

Georgist Economics

Land, rent, and the single tax — the tradition that runs from Henry George's Progress and Poverty through the economists it provoked. A compact course in why the question of who owns the earth never quite goes away.

9volumes · ~3,400 pp
Progress and Poverty
Henry George · 1879
Progress and Poverty
Henry George
The founding text — wages, rent, and the cause of want.
Social Problems
Henry George · 1883
Social Problems
Henry George
George for the general reader — plainer, sharper, shorter.
Protection or Free Trade
Henry George · 1886
Protection or Free Trade
Henry George
Read into the Congressional Record in full, twice.
The Theory of Political Economy
W. S. Jevons · 1871
The Theory of Political Economy
W. Stanley Jevons
The marginalist turn George wrote against and through.
All 9 volumes in this shelf+
01Progress and Poverty Henry George
02Social Problems Henry George
03Protection or Free Trade Henry George
04The Science of Political Economy Henry George
05A Perplexed Philosopher Henry George
06The Theory of Political Economy W. Stanley Jevons
07Principles of Economics Alfred Marshall
08The Single Tax: What It Is and Why We Urge It Henry George
09Natural Taxation Thomas G. Shearman
Shelf № 02 · The Canon

The 100 Books You Must Read

A lifetime's reading on one shelf — the novels, epics, and essays that keep turning up on every serious list. Start anywhere; the order is yours. We mark the ones most readers begin with.

100volumes · a few years
War and Peace
Tolstoy · 1869
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
★ A good first summit.
Middlemarch
Eliot · 1872
Middlemarch
George Eliot
★ The great novel of ordinary lives.
Moby-Dick
Melville · 1851
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville
The whale, and everything else.
Crime and Punishment
Dostoevsky · 1866
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
★ The conscience novel.
All 100 titles · ★ marks a good starting point+
01War and Peace Tolstoy
02Middlemarch Eliot
03Moby-Dick Melville
04Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky
05Pride and Prejudice Austen
06Anna Karenina Tolstoy
07The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky
08Great Expectations Dickens
09Jane Eyre C. Brontë
10Wuthering Heights E. Brontë
11The Odyssey Homer
12The Iliad Homer
13Don Quixote Cervantes
14The Divine Comedy Dante
15Hamlet Shakespeare
16King Lear Shakespeare
17Bleak House Dickens
18Emma Austen
19The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Twain
20Frankenstein Shelley
21Vanity Fair Thackeray
22Madame Bovary Flaubert
23Les Misérables Hugo
24The Count of Monte Cristo Dumas
25Tess of the d'Urbervilles Hardy
26The Portrait of a Lady James
27Dracula Stoker
28The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde
29Heart of Darkness Conrad
30Persuasion Austen
31David Copperfield Dickens
32Sense and Sensibility Austen
33A Tale of Two Cities Dickens
34Gulliver's Travels Swift
35Robinson Crusoe Defoe
36Treasure Island Stevenson
37The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne
38Walden Thoreau
39Uncle Tom's Cabin Stowe
40Little Women Alcott
41The Mill on the Floss Eliot
42North and South Gaskell
43Far from the Madding Crowd Hardy
44The Aeneid Virgil
45Candide Voltaire
46Eugene Onegin Pushkin
47Dead Souls Gogol
48Fathers and Sons Turgenev
49The Awakening Chopin
50The Age of Innocence Wharton
51Sons and Lovers Lawrence
52A Room with a View Forster
53Howards End Forster
54The Time Machine Wells
55The War of the Worlds Wells
56Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Verne
57Around the World in Eighty Days Verne
58The Hound of the Baskervilles Doyle
59The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Doyle
60The Moonstone Collins
61The Woman in White Collins
62Kim Kipling
63The Call of the Wild London
64The Red Badge of Courage Crane
65Three Men in a Boat Jerome
66The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde
67Cranford Gaskell
68Silas Marner Eliot
69The Return of the Native Hardy
70Nostromo Conrad
71The Secret Agent Conrad
72Washington Square James
73The Turn of the Screw James
74Ethan Frome Wharton
75The House of Mirth Wharton
76My Ántonia Cather
77O Pioneers! Cather
78Main Street Lewis
79Winesburg, Ohio Anderson
80The Enchanted April von Arnim
81The Secret Garden Burnett
82Anne of Green Gables Montgomery
83Peter Pan Barrie
84Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Carroll
85The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Baum
86A Christmas Carol Dickens
87The Wind in the Willows Grahame
88Black Beauty Sewell
89The Jungle Book Kipling
90A Little Princess Burnett
91The Prince Machiavelli
92Meditations Aurelius
93The Republic Plato
94Essays Montaigne
95Leaves of Grass Whitman
96The Souls of Black Folk Du Bois
97Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Douglass
98A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Wollstonecraft
99The Wealth of Nations Smith
100On Liberty Mill
Shelf № 03 · Foundations

Essential Knowledge

The works that built how we think — science, philosophy, and political thought at the source, not in summary. Read Smith, Euclid, and Wollstonecraft in their own words, with definitions a tap away.

24volumes · the foundations
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Wollstonecraft · 1792
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft
The founding argument for equal education.
The Wealth of Nations
Smith · 1776
The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith
More humane than its reputation.
Elements
Euclid · c. 300 BC
Elements
Euclid
Two millennia of geometry, from the axioms up.
Meditations
Aurelius · c. 175
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
A private notebook that became a public good.
All 24 volumes in this shelf+
01The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith
02Elements Euclid
03Meditations Marcus Aurelius
04The Republic Plato
05Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle
06A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Wollstonecraft
07On Liberty J. S. Mill
08The Prince Machiavelli
09Leviathan Hobbes
10Two Treatises of Government Locke
11The Social Contract Rousseau
12An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Hume
13The Essays Montaigne
14Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences Galileo
15The Voyage of the Beagle Darwin
16Experimental Researches in Electricity Faraday
17Relativity: The Special and General Theory Einstein
18The Analects Confucius
19Tao Te Ching Laozi
20The Histories Herodotus
21The Wealth of Knowledge: Novum Organum Bacon
22Discourse on Method Descartes
23Common Sense Thomas Paine
24Democracy in America Tocqueville
Shelf № 04 · This Season

Editors' Picks

A small, changing shelf of the books we've loved reading in Lexis this season — gentle, strange, and worth the evening. Refreshed every few weeks.

7volumes · Summer 2026
Anne of Green Gables
Montgomery · 1908
Anne of Green Gables
L. M. Montgomery
The most hopeful orphan in literature.
Persuasion
Austen · 1817
Persuasion
Jane Austen
Austen's quietest, and maybe her kindest.
The Secret Garden
Burnett · 1911
The Secret Garden
F. H. Burnett
Things grow if you let them. So do people.
A Room with a View
Forster · 1908
A Room with a View
E. M. Forster
Sunlight, Florence, and saying what you mean.
The Enchanted April
von Arnim · 1922
The Enchanted April
Elizabeth von Arnim
Four women, an Italian castle, and quiet renewal.
Cranford
Gaskell · 1853
Cranford
Elizabeth Gaskell
A small town, gently observed, with great warmth.
All 7 picks for this season+
01Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery
02Persuasion Jane Austen
03The Secret Garden F. H. Burnett
04A Room with a View E. M. Forster
05The Enchanted April Elizabeth von Arnim
06Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell
07Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome

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