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
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
3038 The Snow Goose Paul Gallico 1941 British English
2910 Ruth Elizabeth Gaskell 1853 British English
1228 Strait is the Gate André Gide 1909 French French
2330 Sunset Song Lewis Grassic Gibbon 1932 Scottish English
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
1179 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
176 The End of the Affair Graham Greene 1951 British English
755 The Well of Loneliness Radclyffe Hall 1928 British English
674 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy 1874 British English
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
1867 The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy 1887 British English
602 The Go-Between L. P. Hartley 1953 British English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
1096 The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard 1980 Australian English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
3021 An Infamous Army Georgette Heyer 1937 British English
4308 Regency Buck Georgette Heyer 1935 British English
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
1013 Green Mansions W. H. Hudson 1904 British English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
1611 Crome Yellow Aldous Huxley 1921 British English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
261 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
789 The Piano Teacher Elfriede Jelinek 1983 Austrian German
1553 Beauty and Sadness Yasunari Kawabata 1964 Japanese Japanese
786 The Far Pavilions Mary Margaret Kaye 1978 British English
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
4308 Moon Over Africa Pamela Kent 1955 British English
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
210 Dangerous Liaison Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 French French
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
3021 The Echoing Grove Rosamond Lehmann 1953 British English
4308 The Weather In The Streets Rosamond Lehmann 1936 British English
1167 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Anita Loos 1925 American English
1666 Zami Audre Lorde 1982 American English
3105 Foreign Affairs Alison Lurie 1984 American English
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
2463 The Silent Duchess Dacia Maraini 1990 Italian Italian
452 A Heart So White Javier Marias 1992 Spanish Spanish
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
2639 The Child in Time Ian McEwan 1987 British English
1047 The Egoist George Meredith 1879 British English
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
1231 Patience And Sarah Isabel Miller 1969 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
1618 The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford 1945 British English
1208 Love in a Cold Climate Nancy Mitford 1949 British English
1532 Arturo's Island Elsa Morante 1957 Italian Italian
1160 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 1987 Japanese Japanese
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
5483 The Painter Of Signs R. K. Narayan 1976 Indian English
1731 Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin 1977 French English
2114 All Souls' Day Cees Nooteboom 1998 Dutch Dutch
644 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje 1992 Canadian English
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
489 Manon Lescaut Abbe Prevost 1731 French French
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
2395 Maurice Guest Henry Handel Richardson 1908 Australian English
503 Pamela Samuel Richardson 1740 British English
332 Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748 British English
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
186 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
4308 Ali And Nino Kurban Said 1937 Azerbaijani German
1197 Light Years James Salter 1975 American English
717 A Sport and a Pastime James Salter 1967 American English
975 The Reader Bernhard Schlink 1995 German German
4308 The Reluctant Orphan Sara Seale 1947 British English
1009 Love Story Eric Segal 1970 American English
2354 Enemies, A Love Story Isaac Bashevis Singer 1972 American Yiddish
2454 By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept Elizabeth Smart 1945 Canadian English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
8075 The Map Of Love Ahdaf Soueif 1999 Egyptian English
2628 Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann 1966 American English
1552 Waterland Graham Swift 1983 British English
3101 Diary Of A Mad Old Man Junichiro Tanizaki 1961 Japanese Japanese
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
4869 Music and Silence Rose Tremain 1999 British English
1061 First Love Ivan Turgenev 1860 Russian Russian
2387 Breathing Lessons Anne Tyler 1988 American English
2273 The Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler 1985 American English
7897 The Night Watch Sarah Waters 2006 British English
1341 The Graduate Charles Webb 1963 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
1106 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
3041 East Lynne Ellen Wood 1861 British English
611 Revolutionary Road Richard Yates 1961 American English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
2464 Non Stop Brian Aldiss 1958 British English
361 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
1261 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood 2000 Canadian English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
3420 In The Country Of Last Things Paul Auster 1987 American English
1609 The Drowned World J. G. Ballard 1962 British English
841 Crash J. G. Ballard 1973 British English
8699 Millennium People J. G. Ballard 2003 British English
1210 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 1984 British English
3483 Consider Phlebas Iain Banks 1987 Scottish English
3819 Weaveworld Clive Barker 1987 British English
4636 Darkmans Nicola Barker 2007 British English
5958 The Time Ships Stephen Baxter 1995 British English
4202 Darwin's Radio Greg Bear 1999 American English
702 Vathek William Beckford 1786 British French
2413 The Stars My Destination Alfred Bester 1956 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English