9 books to read if you, a fully grown adult, have never read a book.

In a recent interview with Interview magazine, influencer Alix Earle admitted that she has never read a book. Speaking for myself and the collective reaction in the Lit Hub Slack, this was shocking. I’ve run into people who only read one book a year, or who haven’t read a book since it was assigned to them as homework, but someone who has not read a single book ever is next level.

You’re not alone if your first question is “Who?” I Googled it: Alix Earle is an influencer who got her start making “get ready with me” videos for TikTok that blew up. She’s now got a Netflix reality show, a podcast, and more followers than people who live in New York City. Another good first question: How?

It’s almost impressive to have gone through middle school, high school, and then four years as a University of Miami marketing major without reading one book. I skipped homework assignments too, but damn. (A sidebar, but if you have a book coming out soon, send Earle a copy ASAP because getting the “This was the first book I read” jacket copy would be an apex blurb.) This is an interesting thought experiment, though. If there was an adult in your life who was a literary blank slate, what is the first book you’d hand them?

It might not be necessarily the best book or your favorite book, but rather something that could serve as the key that unlocks the entire library. What book could make someone fall in love with reading as an experience and introduce them to what the art form is capable of? There’s a related (and very interesting!) question about the bookiest book, the ideal of the novel that could stand as the exemplar of the form.

But that’s not precisely what’s on the table here. I’m trying to think through books that will specifically appeal to someone who has gone this long without reading. An abstention from reading isn’t about developing taste as much as it’s breaking a habit.

So a first book has to be something that a non-reader will 1) start, 2) be interested in enough to finish, and then as a side quest, 3) spark a desire for more books. To put this in Lit Hub terms: Here are some ideas for going from zero to Didion tote. I don’t think it makes sense for all of these recommendations to boil down to “go back and finish your homework,” but Fitzgerald’s classic is an exception.