501 Must-Read Books

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About this list

LibraryThing, 501 Books

501 Must-Read Books (Octopus/Bounty Books, 2006) is a 544-page coffee-table guide that distils the literary world into 501 illustrated, one-page entries. Edited by Emma Beare, the picks are spread across eight genre-based chapters—Children’s Fiction, Classic Fiction, Modern Fiction, Thrillers, Science-Fiction, History, Memoirs & Biography, and Travel—each essay pairing a brisk synopsis with key publication facts and a quick “why it matters” hook. Billed by the publisher as “the wisest, cleverest, best-read and most trusted friend you have ever had,” the list itself was drawn up by “a bibliophile and writer with a peerless reputation,” while the descriptive write-ups were farmed out to a team of lecturers, critics and book lovers. The result is an accessible, browsable canon designed to lure general readers into corners of the bookshop they might otherwise overlook.

Who voted: 1 unnamed expert

This list was originally published in 2006 and was added to this site about 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
14870 Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin 1903 American English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
15899 The Red Box Rex Stout 1937 American English
17120 A Red Death Walter Mosley 1991 American English
536 Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett 1929 American English
14897 The Red House Mystery A. A. Milne 1922 British English
849 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
2237 Ringworld Larry Niven 1970 American English
17120 Rites Of Spring Modris Eksteins 1989 Canadian English
1163 The Road to Oxiana Robert Byron 1937 British English
17120 Roads To Santiago Cees Nooteboom 1992 Dutch Dutch
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
17120 The Rose At Ten Marco Denevi Unknown Unknown
15899 A Rose For Winter Laurie Lee 1955 British English
17120 Running In The Family Michael Ondaatje 1982 Canadian English
2668 Sailing Alone Around the World Joshua Slocum 1900 Canadian English
15899 La Salle And The Discovery Of The Great West Francis Parkman 1869 American English
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
1375 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima 1965 Japanese Japanese
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
17120 The Seasick Whale Ephraim Kishon 1965 Israeli Hebrew
814 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 1911 British English
425 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen 1811 British English
1988 Seven Gothic Tales Isak Dinesen 1934 Danish English
541 The Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence 1926 British English
1068 The Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton 1948 American English
1098 Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer 1952 Austrian German
6405 The Seven Per Cent Solution Nicholas Meyer 1974 American English
2085 The Sheep Look Up John Brunner 1972 British English
15899 A Short Account Of The Destruction Of The Indies Bartolomé de las Casas 1552 Spanish Spanish
2102 Collected Short Stories of Saki Saki 1930 British English
5323 A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush Eric Newby 1958 British English
7954 A Sicilian Romance Ann Radcliffe 1790 British English
9222 Slan A. E. van Vogt 1940 Canadian English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
862 Smilla's Sense of Snow Peter Høeg 1992 Danish Danish
1224 The Snow Leopard Peter Matthiessen 1978 American English
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
1394 Soldiers of Salamis Javier Cercas 2001 Spanish Spanish
803 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
4983 Sophie's Misfortunes Countess of Ségur. 1858 French French
1835 Sophie's World Jostein Gaarder 1991 Norwegian Norwegian
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
514 Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov 1951 American English
233 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold John le Carré 1963 British English
2997 Staying On Paul Scott 1977 British English
6149 The Steam Pig James McClure 1971 South African English
14970 The Stepford Wives Ira Levin 1972 American English
128 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
680 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
15899 The Story Of Doctor Dolittle Hugh Lofting 1920 British English
3469 The Story Of English Robert McCrum 1986 British English
2203 The Story of My Life Helen Keller 1903 American English
218 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
3247 A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder James De Mille 1888 Canadian English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
10793 The Stripping of the Altars Eamon Duffy 1992 British English
15899 Suicide Excepted Cyril Hare 1939 British English
9719 The Sunday Woman Carlo Fruttero, Franco Lucentini 1972 Italian Italian
2174 Surfacing Margaret Atwood 1972 Canadian English
3083 Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome 1930 British English
14232 The Sweet Hereafter Russell Banks 1991 American English
1380 The Sword in the Stone T. H. White 1938 British English
17120 Take A Girl Like You Kingsley Amis 1960 British English
1014 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter 1902 British English
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
14886 Tales Of The Grotesque And Arabesque Edgar Allan Poe 1840 American English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
494 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
782 Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome 1889 British English
1625 The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch Philip K. Dick 1965 American English
5123 Thus Was Adonis Murdered Sarah Caudwell 1981 British English
687 The Time of the Hero Mario Vargas Llosa 1963 Peruvian Spanish
16614 The Time Traders Andre Norton 1958 American English
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
9254 To Your Scattered Bodies Go Philip José Farmer 1971 American English
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
1548 Tom's Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce 1958 British English
1378 The Towers Of Trebizond Rose Macauley 1956 British English
15899 A Tramp Abroad Mark Twain 1880 American English
15899 The Traveller's Tree Patrick Leigh Fermor 1950 British English
10655 The Travels of Ibn Battutah Ibn Battúta 1355 Moroccan Arabic
1244 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
4790 Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes Robert Louis Stevenson 1879 British English
13518 Travels with Charley John Steinbeck 1962 American English
115 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
953 Trent's Last Case E. C. Bentley 1913 British English
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
2580 Trial And Error Anthony Berkeley 1937 British English
17120 The Trial Of Socrates I.F. Stone 1988 American English
15899 Tschiffely's Ride A. F. Tschiffely 1933 British English
14788 Two Planets Kurd Laßwitz 1897 German German
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
2928 Unless Carol Shields 2002 Canadian English
17120 Unnatural Exposure Patricia Daniels Cornwell 1997 American English
1139 The Unquiet Grave Cyril Connolly 1944 British English
881 Utopia Thomas More 1516 British Latin
17120 Víctimas En Fals Sebastien Japrisot French French
14170 The Valleys of the Assassins Freya Stark 1934 British English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
702 Vathek William Beckford 1786 British French
5335 Vendetta Michael Dibdin 1990 British English
352 The Vicar of Wakefield Oliver Goldsmith 1766 British English
1795 Victory Joseph Conrad 1915 British English
17120 Video Night In Kathmandu And Other Reports From The Not So Far East Pico Iyer 1988 British English
826 Voss Patrick White 1957 Australian English
1728 The Voyage of the Beagle Charles Darwin 1839 British English
108 Walden Henry David Thoreau 1854 American English
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
9854 The War Of The Buttons Louis Pergaud 1912 French French
2603 The Wars Timothy Findley 1977 Canadian English
2902 Waverley Sir Walter Scott 1814 British English
17120 Ways Of Escape Graham Greene 1971 British English