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
183 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
3033 Novel on Yellow Paper Stevie Smith 1936 British English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
148 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
4402 This Sporting Life David Storey 1960 British English
530 The Red Room August Strindberg 1879 Swedish Swedish
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
492 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell, Peter Miles 1914 British English
852 The Last Chronicle of Barset Anthony Trollope 1867 British English
703 The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope 1875 British English
243 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain 1876 American English
977 Couples John Updike 1968 American English
1849 Z Vassilis Vassilikos 1967 Greek Greek
1216 Billy Liar Keith Waterhouse 1959 British English
2208 Trainspotting Irvine Welsh 1993 Scottish English
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
1220 The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West 1918 British English
217 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
356 Germinal Émile Zola 1885 French French
1065 La Bête humaine Émile Zola 1890 French French
6737 Silver Stallion Junghyo Ahn 1990 Korean Korean
2200 Death Of A Hero Richard Aldington 1929 British English
6361 Master Georgie Beryl Bainbridge 1998 British English
4308 Darkness Falls From The Air Nigel Balchin 1942 British English
1569 Empire of the Sun J. G. Ballard 1984 British English
849 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
4442 A Long Long Way Sebastian Barry 2005 Irish English
4308 Fair Stood The Wind For France H. E. Bates 1944 British English
3575 Carrie's War Nina Bawden 1973 British English
355 The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño 1998 Chilean Spanish
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
6087 An Ice Cream War William Boyd 1982 British English
4517 When The Wind Blows Raymond Briggs 1982 British English
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
493 Auto Da Fé Elias Canetti 1935 Bulgarian German
2278 One of Ours Willa Cather 1922 American English
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
367 Journey to the West Wu Cheng'en 1592 Chinese Chinese
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
4410 Sharpe's Eagle Bernard Cornwell 1981 British English
4308 The History Of Pompey The Little Francis Coventry 1751 British English
552 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
69 Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe 1719 British English
3388 Bomber Len Deighton 1970 British English
925 Deliverance James Dickey 1970 American English
4308 Three Soldiers John Dos Passos 1921 American English
2372 South Wind Norman Douglas 1917 British English
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
1015 Justine Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
4999 The Bamboo Bed William Eastlake 1969 American English
663 The Siege of Krishnapur J. G. Farrell 1973 British English
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
2923 The African Queen C. S. Forester 1935 British English
708 Captain Hornblower R.N. C. S. Forester 1937 British English
2240 Flashman George MacDonald Fraser 1969 British English
1877 Cold Mountain Charles Frazier 1997 American English
3817 The Beach Alex Garland 1996 British English
2517 Rites of Passage William Golding 1980 British English
1682 Asterix the Gaul Rene Goscinny 1959 French French
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
4308 Count Belisarius Robert Graves 1938 British English
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
3838 De Niro's Game Rawi Hage 2006 Canadian English
696 King Solomon's Mines H. Rider Haggard 1885 British English
896 She H. Rider Haggard 1887 British English
1520 The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 British English
4466 Covenant With Death John Harris 1961 British English
7588 Enigma Robert Harris 1995 British English
159 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek 1921 Czech Czech
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
2457 The Prisoner Of Zenda Anthony Hope 1894 British English
892 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 2003 Afghan English
1277 A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes 1929 British English
816 The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia Samuel Johnson, Abraham Raimbach, Robert Smirke 1759 British English
688 From Here to Eternity James Jones 1951 American English
1114 Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1955 American English
4164 Confederates Thomas Keneally 1979 Australian English
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
8097 Day A. L. Kennedy 2007 British English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
212 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler 1940 British German
1181 The Painted Bird Jerzy Kosinski 1965 Polish English
1021 If Not Now, When? Primo Levi 1982 Italian Italian
230 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
1708 The Guns Of Navarone Alistair MacLean 1957 British English
751 All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy 1992 American English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
4308 The Mark Of Zorro Johnston McCulley 1919 American English
623 Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry 1985 American English
413 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer 1948 American English
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
4402 Fortunes Of War Olivia Manning 1960 British English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
4308 The Children Of The New Forest Frederick Marryat 1847 British English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
1376 Tales of the South Pacific James A. Michener 1947 American English
2316 The Cruel Sea Nicholas Monsarrat 1951 British English
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
2363 The Sorrow Of War Bao Ninh 1990 Vietnamese Vietnamese
921 Master and Commander Patrick O'Brian 1969 British English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
2433 The Scarlet Pimpernel Baroness Emmuska Orczy 1905 British English
819 Burmese Days George Orwell 1934 British English
634 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 American English
4644 The Valley Of Bones Anthony Powell 1964 British English
4765 The Soldier's Art Anthony Powell 1966 British English
4931 The Military Philosophers Anthony Powell 1968 British English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
3040 Baron Munchausen's Narrative Of His Marvelous Travels And Campaigns In Russia Rudolf Erich Raspe 1785 German German
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
3034 The Crab With The Golden Claws Hergé 1941 Belgian French
3067 Tintin In Tibet Hergé 1960 Belgian French