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
2537 Clear Light of Day Anita Desai 1980 Indian English
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
2320 Rituals Cees Nooteboom 1980 Dutch Dutch
5254 Geur der droefenis Alfred Kossmann 1980 Dutch Dutch
5016 Broken April Ismail Kadare 1978 Albanian Albanian
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
471 Waiting for the Barbarians J. M. Coetzee 1980 South African English
3086 Summer in Baden-Baden Leonid Tsypkin 1980 Russian Russian
1977 House with the Blind Glass Windows Herbjørg Wassmo 1981 Norwegian Norwegian
3504 Heavy Wings Jie Zhang 1981 Chinese Chinese
1081 The War of the End of the World Mario Vargas Llosa 1981 Peruvian Spanish
1166 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
686 Rabbit Is Rich John Updike 1981 American English
1745 Couples, Passersby Botho Strauß 1981 German German
1852 July's People Nadine Gordimer 1981 South African English
2511 On the Black Hill Bruce Chatwin 1982 British English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
3809 A Pale View of Hills Kazuo Ishiguro 1982 British English
3809 Wittgenstein's Nephew Thomas Bernhard 1982 Austrian German
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
1067 A Boy's Own Story Edmund White 1982 American English
1021 If Not Now, When? Primo Levi 1982 Italian Italian
200 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
2005 Baltasar and Blimunda José Saramago 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
1120 The Sorrow of Belgium Hugo Claus 1983 Belgian Dutch
789 The Piano Teacher Elfriede Jelinek 1983 Austrian German
1743 Life & Times of Michael K J. M. Coetzee 1983 South African English
1552 Waterland Graham Swift 1983 British English
3057 LaBrava Elmore Leonard 1983 American English
1113 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
5477 Fado Alexandrino António Lobo Antunes 1983 Portuguese Portuguese
2598 The Witness Juan José Saer 1983 Argentinian Spanish
1947 Shame Salman Rushdie 1983 British English
750 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
988 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
5582 Professor Martens' Departure Jaan Kross 1984 Estonian Estonian
2481 Blood and Guts in High School Kathy Acker 1978 American English
5477 Larva Julián Ríos 1983 Spanish Spanish
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
893 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
1210 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 1984 British English
5582 Democracy Joan Didion 1984 American English
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
1242 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
1569 Empire of the Sun J. G. Ballard 1984 British English
2884 The Busconductor Hines James Kelman 1984 British English
2850 Dictionary of the Khazars Milorad Pavic 1984 Serbian Serbian
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
2917 Legend David Gemmell 1984 British English
5582 The Young Man Botho Strauß 1984 German German
1318 Love Medicine Louise Erdrich 1984 American English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
3925 Half of Man is Woman Zhang Xianliang 1985 Chinese Chinese
5652 Reasons to Live Amy Hempel 1985 American English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
1551 Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd 1985 British English
511 Perfume Patrick Suskind 1985 German German
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
2352 Contact Carl Sagan 1985 American English
2221 Simon and the Oaks Marianne Fredriksson 1985 Swedish Swedish
2482 The Cider House Rules John Irving 1985 American English
1889 Annie John Jamaica Kincaid 1985 Antiguan English
5652 The Parable of the Blind Gert Hofmann 1985 German German
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
4264 Ancestral Voices Etienne van Heerden 1986 South African Afrikaans
2616 The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman Andrzej Szczypiorski 1986 Polish Polish
2396 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi 1986 Italian Italian
808 Watchmen Alan Moore 1986 American, British English
1271 Extinction Thomas Bernhard 1986 Austrian German
3068 An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro 1986 British English
2075 The Memory of Fire Trilogy Eduardo Galeano 1982 Uruguayan Spanish
2801 The Old Devils Kingsley Amis 1986 British English
2812 Matigari Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 1987 Kenyan Gikuyu
3111 Anagrams Lorrie Moore 1986 American English
5743 The Lost Language of Cranes David Leavitt 1986 American English
5743 Taebaek Sanmaek Jo Jung-rae 1986 South Korean Korean
2859 A Ballad for Georg Henig Viktor Paskov 1987 Bulgarian Bulgarian
3056 The Enigma of Arrival V. S. Naipaul 1987 British English
1912 World's End T. C. Boyle 1987 American English
4409 The Pigeon Patrick Suskind 1987 German German
3941 Of Love and Shadows Isabel Allende 1984 Chilean Spanish
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
2492 All Souls Javier Marias 1989 Spanish Spanish
910 The New York Trilogy Paul Auster 1985 American English
5949 Black Box Amos Oz 1987 Israeli Hebrew
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
2068 The Black Dahlia James Ellroy 1987 American English
5949 The Afternoon of a Writer Peter Handke 1987 Austrian German
3236 The Radiant Way Margaret Drabble 1987 British English
3122 Kitchen Banana Yoshimoto 1988 Japanese Japanese
3108 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Douglas Adams 1987 British English
5949 Cigarettes Harry Mathews 1987 American English
746 Nervous Conditions Tsitsi Dangarembga 1988 Zimbabwean English
6123 The First Garden Anne Hébert 1988 Canadian French
2061 The Last World Christoph Ransmayr 1988 Austrian German
1561 Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey 1988 Australian English
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
3010 Wittgenstein's Mistress David Markson 1988 American English
3078 Paradise of the Blind Dương Thu Hương 1988 Vietnamese Vietnamese
1217 Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco 1988 Italian Italian
6208 Gimmick! Joost Zwagerman 1989 Dutch Dutch
6123 Obabakoak Bernardo Atxaga 1988 Spanish Basque
6123 Inland Gerald Murnane 1988 Australian English
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
1367 Like Water For Chocolate Laura Esquivel 1989 Mexican Spanish
2287 The History of the Siege of Lisbon José Saramago 1989 Portuguese Portuguese
2590 The Trick Is to Keep Breathing Janice Galloway 1989 British English
3406 The Great Indian Novel Shashi Tharoor 1989 Indian English
2419 The Melancholy of Resistance László Krasznahorkai 1989 Hungarian Hungarian
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
1674 London Fields Martin Amis 1989 British English
3185 Moon Palace Paul Auster 1989 American English
2310 Sexing the Cherry Jeanette Winterson 1989 British English
3382 Like Life Lorrie Moore 1990 American English
1050 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi 1990 British English
3386 The Shadow Lines Amitav Ghosh 1988 Indian English
6208 The Midnight Examiner William Kotzwinkle 1989 American English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English