Photo Illustration by The Globe and Mail. Sources: Getty Images
Earlier this year, something peculiar happened in the stacks of Munro’s Books. Copies of the classic adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo began flying off the shelves at the independent bookstore in Victoria. Even more strangely, the purchasers were mostly readers in their 20s and late teens.
“That is a big doorstop of a novel and not something you would think of when you think of stereotypes of young people and their reading. But we could not keep that one in stock,” says Sarah Mead-Willis, head buyer at Munro’s. “Before we were selling maybe one or two a month. Suddenly we were selling like six or 12.”
It turned out the uptick in sales dovetailed with a flurry of discourse surrounding The Count of Monte Cristo on social media. Though an oft-reposted sentiment on X refers to the book as historical “slop,” and the late critic Umberto Eco famously called it “one of the most badly written novels of all time,” in an essay for The Paris Review, the online debate clearly translated into sales.
Romantasy is transforming the publishing industry – and readers can’t get enough
Eight mystery books to keep you glued to the page
Over the past few years, Munro’s has also seen increased interest in classic books coinciding with film and television adaptations, such as 2024’s Nosferatu (a reimagining of Dracula) and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which saw Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel hit the Amazon bestseller list in 2017 as the first season aired.
Munro’s isn’t the only bookstore to notice a resurgence in the popularity of classic novels, particularly among younger readers.
“Lots of our customers age 25 to 35 are coming into the shop and heading straight to our classics section,” says Danielle McNally of Ben McNally Books in downtown Toronto. “We’ve started bulking up our orders for this very reason – not only increasing quantities of specific titles but also bringing in more titles for more choice.”
Industry numbers back this up. According to data from BookNet Canada, sales of books classified as fiction classics increased by 44 per cent from 2023 to 2025, and by 28 per cent between 2024 and 2025.
But the motivation behind young readers’ choices is more complex than just an algorithm’s pull. Some are looking to the past to understand the world they’re navigating today – a world rife with inequity and uncertainty.
“No problem is ever a new problem,” says Olivia Grant, 22, who has started rereading classic novels she’d covered in her high-school English curriculum. “It’s better to hear someone who’s lived through it talk about it again and hear their point of view.”
Grant often finds the material in classic novels mimics challenges she sees around her in Regina, where she lives. She says George Orwell’s 1984, with its satirical take on class disparity and totalitarianism, is particularly salient.
“They talk about how they’re kept dumb and poor on purpose. And then you look at how public education and public health care is being stripped away in Canada. Classroom sizes are getting bigger and resources are shrinking, and a lot of relief is being given to the private sector.”
Opinion: A viral essay declares the end of reading is here. But there’s no end to its pleasures
Similarly, Elora Colbert, who lives in Toronto, was surprised how much material classic novels gave her to talk about with her friends, who often read the same books. The 16-year-old started reading classics she picked up around her family home, many of which had belonged to her parents and grandparents. So far, she’s read Anne of Green Gables, Lord of The Flies, The Great Gatsby and Little Women, to name a few. That’s in addition to any titles – Othello, for example – required for her high-school English classes.
Colbert finds classics more nuanced and layered than contemporary novels. With classic novels, “There’s so many different jumping off points. We’re debating the endings and different topics in it, or we’re like ‘Oh yeah, I saw this in real life,’ and I’ll pull up a news article, and then we can talk about that.”
Others find historical books a welcome reprieve from contemporary culture, despite the resonance of their storylines. Lauren Louise, a Winnipeg-based BookTok creator known as @bigbooklady on social media, has found herself reading – and recommending – more classics than ever this year for that very reason.
“In contemporary fiction we’re starting to see so much of internet culture seep into literature. … It almost feels too reflective of everyday life, but not in a way that feels fun and relatable,” says Louise, 27.
A fan of novels by Daphne du Maurier and the Brontë sisters, Louise has also been surprised by how “accessible and relatable” many classics are, even those dating back to the 1800s.
“I think there’s this misconception that classics are renowned because they’re really complex and difficult,” she says. “I think most classics are actually nothing like that at all.”
These trends haven’t escaped the notice of classics producers, either. Last month, Penguin Random House Canada and Indigo launched a dedicated classics display at Indigo Bay and Bloor in Toronto, featuring a selection of Penguin Black Classics and Penguin Clothbound Classics. The retailer and the publisher are betting on younger readers not just wanting to read the classics, but to collect them.
“It’s about what the physical book has become in an age of digital abundance,” says Robert Wheaton, chief operating officer at Penguin Random House Canada. “There’s something about being able to display what kind of reader you are, right? There’s a sort of identity component to that.”
He believes the desire to curate a physical bookshelf is part of the return in popularity of analog technology, “slower living” and a wish to increase one’s attention span as a remedy to the ubiquitousness of fast-moving social media.
“Crime and Punishment or War and Peace, you know, if you’re going to bring yourself to those books,” Wheaton says, “you’re going to bring yourself to a lot of sustained attention.”