100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Amazon.com (UK), 100 Books

Amazon UK editors select 100 books that they deem "essential".

This list was originally published in 2014 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1014 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter 1902 British English
165 Winnie the Pooh A. A. Milne 1926 British English
1377 Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 1964 British English
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
1987 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks 1985 British English
1160 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 1987 Japanese Japanese
633 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John le Carré 1974 British English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
1461 Oranges are not the only Fruit Jeanette Winterson 1985 British English
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
65 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift 1726 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
414 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot 1860 British English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
294 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
808 Watchmen Alan Moore 1986 American, British English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
528 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick 1968 American English
1289 A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin 1996 American English
892 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 2003 Afghan English
890 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
641 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 British English
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
570 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
644 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje 1992 Canadian English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
549 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
878 The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 1998 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
13335 Last Orders Graham Swift 1996 British English
2218 The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes 2011 British English
1674 London Fields Martin Amis 1989 British English
683 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
1077 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee 1959 British English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
495 Casino Royale Ian Fleming 1953 British English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
219 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 1938 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
423 Murder on the Orient Express Agatha Christie 1934 British English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
1819 Carry On, Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse 1925 British English
3233 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
13941 London Peter Ackroyd 2000 British English
13941 Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson 1995 American English
5411 Bad Science Ben Goldacre 2008 British English
3593 The Gruffalo Julia Donaldson 1999 British English
3094 We're Going on a Bear Hunt Michael Rosen 1989 British English
2426 The Tiger Who Came to Tea Judith Kerr 1968 British English
15897 The Enchanted Wood Enid Blyton 1939 British English
17117 The Worst Witch Jill Murphy 1974 British English
6130 The Story of Tracy Beaker Jacqueline Wilson 1991 British English
2283 Goodnight Mister Tom Michelle Magorian 1981 British English
6890 Artemis Fowl Eoin Colfer 2001 Irish English
9063 Stormbreaker Anthony Horowitz 2000 British English
2170 Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman 2001 British English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
14983 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas John Boyne 2006 Irish English
1741 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Sue Townsend 1982 British English
4978 The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal 2010 British English
1210 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 1984 British English
3820 The Commitments Roddy Doyle 1987 Irish English
14232 Knots and Crosses Ian Rankin 1987 British English
2192 American Gods Neil Gaiman 2001 British English
1626 The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett 1983 British English
2208 Trainspotting Irvine Welsh 1993 Scottish English
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
2189 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson 2005 Swedish Swedish
6081 Dissolution C. J. Sansom 2003 British English
2275 Long Walk To Freedom Nelson Mandela 1994 South African English
903 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
6577 Venice Jan Morris 1960 British English
2307 The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins 1976 British English
6843 A History of the World in 100 Objects Neil MacGregor 2010 British English