A TikTok influencer named Alix Earle recently told Interview magazine that she has never read a book. The admission sent a wave of disbelief through the literary world, and one writer at Lit Hub decided to turn the moment into a thought experiment: if you had an adult friend who had never cracked a cover, which book would you hand them first?
The result is a list of nine titles, ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby to a romance novel with magic creatures. The writer, whose name is not given in the piece, frames the exercise as a search for the key that unlocks the library. It is not about finding the best book or the most literary one, they argue — it is about finding something a non-reader will actually start and finish.
The Unread Influencer
Earle got her start making “get ready with me” videos for TikTok. Those videos blew up, and she followed with a Netflix reality show and a podcast. Her follower count is large enough that she could be compared to a city’s population. She skipped homework assignments, the writer notes, but somehow made it through middle school, high school, and four years as a University of Miami marketing major without picking up a book.
Why Start With Homework?
The writer admits that some of their picks might look like homework assignments dressed up as recommendations. Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby is the exception. It is a great novel, short and accessible, with themes about wealth, love, and feeling out of place at a party that remain relevant today.
But the writer also wants to break the habit of handing over assignments. The goal is to find a book that a non-reader will actually want to read, not one that feels like punishment.
Shock Therapy With Pale Fire
One approach is the bucket-of-water method. Instead of a gentle introduction, give the reader something strange and idiosyncratic. Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire or the collaborative novel Your Name Here, co-written by Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff, fit this category.
The risk is that the reader replies with frustration. The goal is that they reply with excitement.
A Graphic Novel For The Pictures
Pictures help. A graphic novel like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis cuts the word count while adding visual interest. The book tells a coming-of-age story that is funny, touching, and smart.
For someone who has never held a book to its end, the pictures make the commitment feel smaller.
Spooky And Weird
Books do not have to be serious to be good. Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a complex, satisfying narrative that also happens to be spooky and weird. It puts the reader inside someone’s mind in a way that feels more immediate than other art forms.
It is a wild ride that might feel familiar and cinematic to a non-reader.
Time On The Page
Novels handle time in a way that few other media can match. A great book can collapse generations into a few pages or stretch a single day across sprawling volumes.
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake shows this scope. The writer says that Lahiri’s ear for a perfect detail will take anyone’s breath away, regardless of how much fiction they have read.
A Community Of Book People
Reading does not have to be lonely. The writer points to Rebecca Yarros’s The Fourth Wing as an example of a book that brings people together. The book is, as the writer puts it, appealing because it is horny and full of magic critters, but it also appeals because millions of people can talk about it.
It is a friend-maker and a foe-maker.
From Zero To Didion Tote
The list is framed as a path from zero to Didion tote. That is a reference to Joan Didion, whose work is often carried around by devoted readers. The journey from never reading a book to carrying a tote bag is the distance the writer is trying to bridge.
The list includes:
| Book | Author |
|---|---|
| Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison |
| We Have Always Lived in the Castle | Shirley Jackson |
| The Namesake | Jhumpa Lahiri |
| Persepolis | Marjane Satrapi |
| Pale Fire | Vladimir Nabokov |
| Your Name Here | Helen DeWitt & Ilya Gridneff |
| The Fourth Wing | Rebecca Yarros |
Reading Is Not Lonely
The writer quotes Mark Twain’s description of Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher exploring a Borgesian cavern without end. “No man ‘knew’ the cave,” Twain wrote. “That was an impossible thing. Most of the young men knew a portion of it.”
Reading is never lonely, the writer argues. A book is something to discuss, to share, to fight over, to flirt and fall in love over, to walk through hand-in-hand. It reveals new ways of seeing, thinking, and being, and it can inspire the sublime, humbling awe of being in the presence of great art.
The Bucket Approach
The writer admits that the list risks being homework-heavy. But the bucket approach offers a different route. Give a non-reader something that can only exist on the page, and hope they respond with excitement rather than frustration.
It is a gamble, but it is the kind of gamble that could turn a lifelong non-reader into a voracious one.
The whole exercise is a bit absurd. But it is also generous. The writer is not mocking Earle for her admission. They are offering a ladder, and they are willing to start at the bottom rung.
The question remains open. If you had an adult friend who had never read a book, which title would you hand them first?
Source material: “9 books to read if you, a fully grown adult, have never read a book.,” Literary Hub.
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