1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

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

About this list

The Book, 1001 Books

A book edited by Peter Boxall, and written by over 100 hundred international critics.

This list was originally published in 2006 and was added to this site about 7 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
3324 Impressions of Africa Raymond Roussel 1910 French French
1061 Fantômas Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre 1911 French French
490 Ethan Frome Edith Wharton 1911 American English
2401 The Charwoman's Daughter James Stephens 1912 Irish English
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
492 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell, Peter Miles 1914 British English
499 Platero Juan Ramón Jiménez 1914 Spanish Spanish
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
1486 Locus Solus Raymond Roussel 1914 French French
1487 Kokoro Natsume Sōseki 1914 Japanese Japanese
344 The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan 1915 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
1236 Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories Ryunosuke Akutagawa 1915 Japanese Japanese
1911 Under Fire Henri Barbusse 1916 French French
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
1669 The Underdogs Mariano Azuela 1915 Mexican Spanish
872 Pallieter Felix Timmermans 1916 Belgian Dutch
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
594 Growth of the Soil Knut Hamsun 1917 Norwegian Norwegian
1220 The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West 1918 British English
3324 Tarr Wyndham Lewis 1918 British English
969 Storm of Steel Ernst Jünger 1920 German German
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
564 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
1611 Crome Yellow Aldous Huxley 1921 British English
2527 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
256 Babbitt Sinclair Lewis 1922 American English
605 Claudine Colette 1900 French French
3324 Life and Death of Harriett Frean May Sinclair 1922 British English
1560 Forest of the Hanged Liviu Rebreanu 1922 Romanian Romanian
163 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
2547 The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings 1922 American English
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
2555 Amok Stefan Zweig 1922 Austrian German
1127 The Devil in the Flesh Raymond Radiguet 1923 French French
147 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
321 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
3324 The Green Hat Michael Arlen 1924 British English
1167 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Anita Loos 1925 American English
720 The Professor's House Willa Cather 1925 American English
2541 The Artamonov Business Maxim Gorky 1925 Russian Russian
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
213 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
1108 Chaka Thomas Mofolo 1925 South African Sesotho
912 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein 1925 American English
251 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie 1926 British English
1332 One, No One and One Hundred Thousand Luigi Pirandello 1926 Italian Italian
1314 Under Satan's Sun Georges Bernanos 1926 French French
159 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek 1921 Czech Czech
1516 The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel 1926 Norwegian Norwegian
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
2446 Blindness Henry Green 1926 British English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
565 Amerika Franz Kafka 1927 Czech German
1061 The Case of Sergeant Grischa Arnold Zweig 1927 German German
1589 Tarka the Otter Henry Williamson 1927 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
1582 Quicksand Nella Larsen 1928 American English
760 Decline and Fall Evelyn Waugh 1928 British English
1024 Some Prefer Nettles Junichiro Tanizaki 1929 Japanese Japanese
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
755 The Well of Loneliness Radclyffe Hall 1928 British English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
1347 Story of the Eye Georges Bataille 1928 French French
3324 Retreat Without Song Shahan Shahnur 1929 Armenian Armenian
449 Les Enfants Terribles Jean Cocteau 1929 French French
201 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
1219 The Time of Indifference Alberto Moravia 1929 Italian Italian
1179 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
3324 I Thought of Daisy Edmund Wilson 1929 American English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
437 Passing Nella Larsen 1929 American English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
142 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett 1930 American English
2547 Her Privates We Frederic Manning 1929 Australian English
3324 The Apes of God Wyndham Lewis 1930 British English
3324 Monica Saunders Lewis 1930 British Welsh
3324 Insatiability Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1930 Polish Polish
252 The Waves Virginia Woolf 1931 British English
3324 To the North Elizabeth Bowen 1932 British English
660 The Thin Man Dashiell Hammett 1934 American English
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
3324 The Return of Philip Latinowicz Miroslav Krleža 1932 Croatian Croatian
199 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
1595 The Forbidden Kingdom Jan Jacob Slauerhoff 1932 Dutch Dutch
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
2385 Viper’s Tangle François Mauriac 1932 French French
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
775 Cheese Willem Elsschot 1933 Belgian Dutch
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
3324 A Day Off Storm Jameson 1933 British English
642 Testament Of Youth Vera Brittain 1933 British English
395 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
497 Murder Must Advertise Dorothy L. Sayers 1933 British English
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
519 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
727 The Street of Crocodiles Bruno Schulz 1934 Polish Polish
1221 Thank You, Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse 1934 British English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
469 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain 1934 American English
2360 On the Heights of Despair Emil Cioran 1934 Romanian Romanian
1516 The Bells of Basel Louis Aragon 1934 French French
625 The Nine Tailors Dorothy L. Sayers 1934 British English