1000 Novels Everyone Must Read

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

About this list

The Guardian, 997 Books

Selected by the Guardian’s Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language. Originally published in thematic supplements – love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel – they appear here for the first time in a single list.

Who Voted?
There's not a lot of concrete information about the exact number of critics who voted. If we go by the critics mentioned on many of the summaries of the books, and how many editors at the guardian at the time, I think a safe assumption would be 40 people worked on this list. If anyone has any additional information please let me know.

This list was originally published in 2009 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
750 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
2870 The Information Martin Amis 1995 British English
2854 The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge 1974 British English
8369 According To Queeney Beryl Bainbridge 2001 British English
988 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
2257 A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters Julian Barnes 1989 British English
4308 Augustus Carp, Esq. By Himself Henry Howarth Bashford 1924 British English
151 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
963 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm 1911 British English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
6831 The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett 2007 British English
3021 Queen Lucia E. F. Benson 1920 British English
2442 The Ascent Of Rum Doodle W. E. Bowman 1956 British English
5953 A Good Man In Africa William Boyd 1981 British English
2963 The History Man Malcolm Bradbury 1975 British English
4308 No Bed For Bacon Caryl Brahms, S. J. Simon 1941 British English
3888 Illywhacker Peter Carey 1985 Australian English
4846 A Season In Sinji J. L. Carr 1967 British English
5254 The Harpole Report J. L. Carr 1972 British English
1687 The Hearing Trumpet Leonora Carrington 1974 British English
4308 Mister Johnson Joyce Cary 1939 British English
1165 The Horse's Mouth Joyce Cary 1944 British English
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
4308 The Case Of The Gilded Fly Edmund Crispin 1944 British English
1838 Just William Richmal Crompton 1922 British English
3021 Diary Of A Provincial Lady E. M. Delafield 1930 British English
6162 Slouching Towards Kalamazoo Peter De Vries 1983 American English
277 The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836 British English
1808 Martin Chuzzlewit Charles Dickens 1843 British English
412 Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Denis Diderot 1796 French French
5304 A Fairy Tale Of New York J. P. Donleavy 1973 Irish English
3819 The Commitments Roddy Doyle 1987 Irish English
4308 Ennui Maria Edgeworth 1809 Irish English
775 Cheese Willem Elsschot 1933 Belgian Dutch
641 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 British English
992 Joseph Andrews Henry Fielding 1742 British English
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
4308 Caprice Ronald Firbank 1917 British English
491 Bouvard et Pécuchet Gustave Flaubert 1881 French French
1356 Towards The End Of The Morning Michael Frayn 1967 British English
4308 The Polyglots William Gerhardie 1925 British English
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English
104 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
194 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
4308 Brewster's Millions Richard Greaves 1902 British English
5428 Squire Haggard's Journal Michael Green 1975 British English
1310 Our Man In Havana Graham Greene 1958 British English
3208 Travels With My Aunt Graham Greene 1969 British English
946 The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith 1892 British English
957 The Little World Of Don Camillo Giovanni Guareschi 1948 Italian Italian
1812 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon 2003 British English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
3021 Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House Eric Hodgkins 1946 American English
890 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
566 I Served The King Of England Bohumil Hrabal 1983 Czech Czech
8369 The Lecturer's Tale James Hynes 2001 American English
1183 Mr Norris Changes Trains Christopher Isherwood 1935 British English
8075 The Mighty Walzer Howard Jacobson 1999 British English
3021 Pictures From An Institution Randall Jarrell 1954 American English
782 Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome 1889 British English
257 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
1716 Lake Wobegon Days Garrison Keillor 1985 American English
5261 Death And The Penguin Andrey Kurkov 1996 Ukrainian Russian
4091 The Debt To Pleasure John Lanchester 1996 British English
1233 The History Of Gil Blas Of Santillana Alain-René Lesage 1715 French French
1754 Changing Places David Lodge 1975 British English
6568 Nice Work David Lodge 1988 British English
1378 The Towers Of Trebizond Rose Macauley 1956 British English
3041 England, Their England A. G. Macdonell 1933 British English
3021 Whisky Galore Compton Mackenzie 1947 British English
7588 Memoirs Of A Gnostic Dwarf David Madsen 1995 British English
1431 Cakes And Ale Or, The Skeleton In The Cupboard W. Somerset Maugham 1930 British English
700 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 1978 American English
2416 Bright Lights, Big City Jay McInerney 1984 American English
2438 Puckoon Spike Milligan 1963 Irish English
6361 The Restraint Of Beasts Magnus Mills 1998 British English
4308 Charade John Mortimer 1947 British English
6737 Titmuss Regained John Mortimer 1990 British English
902 Under the Net Iris Murdoch 1954 British English
617 Pnin Vladimir Nabokov 1957 Russian English
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
5090 Fireflies Shiva Naipaul 1970 Trinidadian English
5993 The Sacred Book Of The Werewolf Victor Pelevin 2004 Russian Russian
936 A Void Georges Perec 1969 French French
6846 Three Georges Perec 1991 French French
276 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
5304 My Search For Warren Harding Robert Plunket 1973 American English
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
1678 A Time To Be Born Dawn Powell 1942 American English
691 Excellent Women Barbara Pym 1952 British English
3035 Less Than Angels Barbara Pym 1955 British English
538 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 1959 French French
5258 Solomon Gursky Was Here Mordecai Richler 1989 Canadian English
4644 Alms For Oblivion Simon Raven 1964 British English
241 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 American English
4308 The Westminster Alice Saki 1902 British English
4308 The Unbearable Bassington Saki 1912 British English
4308 Hurrah For St Trinian's Ronald Searle 1948 British English
6248 Great Apes Will Self 1997 British English
3618 Porterhouse Blue Tom Sharpe 1974 British English
3831 Blott On The Landscape Tom Sharpe 1975 British English
4715 Office Politics Wilfrid Sheed 1965 British English
6471 The Belles Lettres Papers Charles Simmons 1987 American English
7588 Moo Jane Smiley 1995 American English
1948 Topper Takes A Trip Thorne Smith 1932 American English
4308 The Adventures Of Ferdinand Count Fathom Tobias Smollett 1753 British English
1792 The Adventures Of Roderick Random Tobias Smollett 1748 British English
1226 The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle Tobias Smollett 1751 British English
679 The Expedition of Humphry Clinker Tobias Smollett 1771 British English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
956 The Girls of Slender Means Muriel Spark 1963 British English
3225 The Driver's Seat Muriel Spark 1970 British English
2412 Loitering With Intent Muriel Spark 1981 British English
1325 A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark 1988 British English
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
9312 White Man Falling Mike Stocks 2006 British English
1903 Handley Cross R. S. Surtees 1843 British English