Lakeland Public Library discussion

Let's face it, sometimes the villain is vanquished, but not before he steals the show from book's presumptive hero. For this last Adult and Teen Summer Reading Challenge category we've put together a list of truly memorable villains, and some names that have, rightly or not, been villainized by history. We've included fiction, non-fiction and YA fiction. If we missed a villain you love to hate (or hate to love) let us and other readers know in the comments sections.

FICTION:

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Misery by Stephen King

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

Othello by William Shakespeare

Batman: The Killing Joke (graphic novel) by Alan Moore

The Final Problem (Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Animal Farm George Orwell

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk

Watchmen (graphic novel) by Alan Moore


NON-FICTION:
 
World of Lore: Wicked Mortals by Aaron Mahnke

Heroes & Villains : Inside the Minds of the Greatest Warriors in History by Frank McLynn
 
The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City by Stephen Dando-Collins

King John : Treachery and Tyranny in Medieval England: The Road to Magna Carta by Marc Morris

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
 
Rasputin: The Untold Story by Joseph Fuhrmann
 
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick
 
Bligh: William Bligh in the South Seas by Anne Salmond

Femme fatale : Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari by Pat Shipman

That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba

Wanted Women: An American Obsession in the Reign of J. Edgar Hoover by Mary Elizabeth Strunk



YOUNG ADULT FICITON:

The Young Elites by Marie Lu

Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Ember in the Ashes Sabaa Tahir

Anna Dressed in Blood by Blake Kendare

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

His Dark Materials Philip Pullman

Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Graceling Kristin Cashore

Evil Thing: A Tale of That de Vil Woman by Serena Valentino

Heartless by Marissa Meyer