Bookshelf · Childhood IconsLive list

Hermione Granger.

Harry Potter · 1997–2007

The most famous reader in modern fiction. Hermione’s shelves are half library reference, half novels she has memorized but will never admit are favorites.

"When in doubt, go to the library."

6 booksCurated · cited · cross-referenced

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The shelf, decoded

Why this list.

Hermione Granger reads everything. The list below is the muggle canon she would read alongside the Hogwarts curriculum — real-world books for the most famous fictional reader of the last forty years.

The reading list

6 books for Hermione.

No. 01Character fit
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
The Lizzie Bennet comparison Hermione would resist and then privately enjoy.
CitationCharacter-fit
No. 02Character fit
Matilda
Roald Dahl
The girl-with-a-library origin myth. Hermione has read this annually since she was six.
CitationCharacter-fit
No. 03Character fit
A Little Princess
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Sara Crewe is, in many ways, the muggle Hermione.
CitationCharacter-fit
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No. 04Character fit
The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien
Read at eight. Re-read at eleven. The rest of fantasy follows from here.
CitationCharacter-fit
No. 05Character fit
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
The governess novel for the girl who insists on being top of the class.
CitationCharacter-fit
No. 06Character fit
A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking
Hermione, on holiday from Hogwarts, reads muggle physics for fun.
CitationCharacter-fit

Closing note

Try not to read them all in one summer.

Matilda Wormwood

Cover of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Cover of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Four years old. Library card. Walking home with a stack taller than she is. Matilda’s reading list is the patron-saint canon for every kid who hides under the covers with a flashlight.

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Beauty and the BeastSoon

Belle

Cover of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green

Cover of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Cover of The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm

The provincial girl with a borrowed library and a bigger imagination. Belle’s reading list runs from fairy tales to Greek myth — and the one book she keeps re-reading.

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Browse all 25 character lists