Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov's novel is told by an unreliable narrator, a European professor of French literature writing under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. After moving to New England, he becomes obsessed with Dolores Haze, a 12-year-old girl whom he privately calls Lolita, and becomes her stepfather; he describes his victimization of her while romanticizing his obsession. The novel also sets an overcivilized European against the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Written in English, it was first published in Paris by Olympia Press because of fears of censorship in the United States and Britain. It has appeared on Time's and the Modern Library's lists of the 100 best novels and was filmed twice, by Stanley Kubrick and by Adrian Lyne.

Bryan Callen, co-host of The Fighter and the Kid, urged people to listen to it in his Top Three Must Reads recommendations.