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If you want to get into the classics but aren't quite ready to crack open a book that was written centuries ago, these comic book versions should be far more accessible.

Tasia Bass
You might associate his name with science fiction, but Ray Bradbury wrote plenty of scary stories that will keep you up at night.

From a homicidal infant to a man who gleefully dismembers his own adolescent daughter, these Ray Bradbury stories are not for the faint of heart.

April Snellings




Curious George lives up to his reputation.

Beloved childrens' book character Curious George got himself into some real pickles, including knocking himself unconscious while high on ether.

Jake Rossen






Erin McCarthy

More than two decades before a certain boy wizard ditched his cupboard at 4 Privet Drive for the halls of Hogwarts, readers were introduced to clumsy but sweet-natured Mildred Hubble in the 1974 kidlit classic 'The Worst Witch.'

April Snellings


Star Trek was a key influence in Emily St. John Mandel's 2014 novel, Station Eleven.

Emily St. John Mandel’s ambitious and acclaimed 2014 novel, 'Station Eleven,' whisks readers around the globe and across decades, exploring the before and after of a fictional pandemic that eradicates the world as we know it.

Kristy Puchko




Jackie Collins at her home in Beverly Hills, California in 1995.

Before there was 'Sex and the City' or 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' Jackie Collins was delivering unapologetically raunchy tales of glamour and seduction with a treasure trove of erotic novels.

Kristy Puchko
Authors Khaled Hosseini (left), Ralph Ellison (top center), Octavia E. Butler (bottom center), and Toni Morrison (right).

As recent graduates start exploring the job market, they should take comfort in the fact that these noteworthy authors—featured in Mental Floss’s new book, 'The Curious Reader: A Literary Miscellany of Novels and Novelists,' out now—took a sometimes windi

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Erin McCarthy

Daniel Keyes’s 'Flowers for Algernon' is a poignant science-fiction novella that has won critical acclaim and popularity around the globe.

Kristy Puchko




Photo by Erin McCarthy

Bette Greene’s 1973 debut novel, about a 12-year-old Jewish girl in rural Arkansas who befriends a German prisoner of war in the early 1940s, was embraced by critics and readers alike, and it’s still a mainstay on school reading lists.

April Snellings




You might be surprised to find out that the author of Harriet the Spy called her protagonist “a nasty little girl who keeps a notebook on all of her friends.”

Here are a few facts about author Louise Fitzhugh's 1964 novel 'Harriet the Spy' that we scribbled in our notebook. (DO NOT share with anyone.)

Stacy Conradt
CribbVisuals // iStock via Getty Images Plus

Today, 'Maniac Magee' is a beloved modern classic and a fixture on school reading lists—but when Jerry Spinelli initially turned in the manuscript, he didn’t think he was onto anything special.

April Snellings