1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List

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

About this list

1,000 Books to Read Before You Die(Book), 969 Books

A list written by James Mustich, a bookseller, editor, and writer. Here's the publisher's description:

Celebrate the pleasure of reading and the thrill of discovering new titles in an extraordinary book that’s as compulsively readable, entertaining, surprising, and enlightening as the 1,000-plus titles it recommends.

Covering fiction, poetry, science and science fiction, memoir, travel writing, biography, children’s books, history, and more, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die ranges across cultures and through time to offer an eclectic collection of works that each deserve to come with the recommendation, You have to read this. But it’s not a proscriptive list of the “great works”—rather, it’s a celebration of the glorious mosaic that is our literary heritage.

This list was originally published in 2018 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
271 The Awakening Kate Chopin 1899 American English
250 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
14894 Archy And Mehitabel Don Marquis 1927 American English
120 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 American English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
2080 A Little Princess Frances Hodgson Burnett 1905 British English
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
357 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
13790 Make Way For Ducklings Robert McCloskey 1941 American English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
14166 The Secret Of The Old Clock Carolyn Keene 1930 American English
14726 Little Bear Else Holmelund Minarik 1957 American English
987 Harriet the Spy Louise Fitzhugh 1964 American English
350 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
791 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
1649 Cat's Eye Margaret Atwood 1988 Canadian English
428 Death Of A Salesman Arthur Miller 1949 American English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
661 Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice 1976 American English
1014 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter 1902 British English
894 Rosemary's Baby Ira Levin 1967 American English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
1688 Carrie Stephen King 1974 American English
599 A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams 1947 American English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
995 Dombey and Son Charles Dickens 1846 British English
1352 The Andromeda Strain Michael Crichton 1969 American English
1661 A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare 1595 British English
691 Excellent Women Barbara Pym 1952 British English
365 Eugene Onegin Alexander Pushkin 1833 Russian Russian
1048 The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy 1984 American English
12553 Histoire de Babar Jean de Brunhoff 1931 French French
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
2424 Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer 1997 American English
549 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
1676 Time and Again Jack Finney 1970 American English
2909 A Taste For Death P. D. James 1986 British English
669 Beowulf Unknown 1000 Unknown Old english
2240 Flashman George MacDonald Fraser 1969 British English
2121 Julius Caesar William Shakespeare 1623 British English
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
2705 My Brilliant Career Miles Franklin 1901 Australian English
444 The Man Who Was Thursday G. K. Chesterton 1908 British English
1324 A Judgement In Stone Ruth Rendell 1977 British English
1776 Childhood's End Arthur C. Clarke 1953 British English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
800 The Loved One Evelyn Waugh 1948 British English
552 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
738 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan 1989 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
9073 Alexander Hamilton Ron Chernow 2004 American English
17130 Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me Eric Carle 1986 American English
1109 Othello William Shakespeare 1603 British English
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
1973 The Invisible Man H. G. Wells 1897 British English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
284 The Princess of Cleves Madame de La Fayette 1678 French French
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
1654 O Pioneers! Willa Cather 1913 American English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
1142 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian English
421 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
849 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
803 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
557 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
5360 The Portable Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker 1944 American English
1879 Tuck Everlasting Natalie Babbitt 1975 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
15903 Letters Of A Woman Homesteader Elinore Pruitt Stewart 1914 American English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
15903 My Dog Tulip J. R. Ackerley 1956 British English
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
2578 Complete Poems E. E. Cummings 1960 American English
3148 All the President's Men Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein 1974 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
152 The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli 1532 Italian Italian
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
2132 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick 1962 American English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
264 The Epic Of Gilgamesh Unknown -2100 Multiple Akkadian
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
1229 Songs of Innocence and Experience William Blake 1789 British English
1610 The Hours Michael Cunningham 1998 American English
142 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett 1930 American English
1277 A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes 1929 British English
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
615 Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary M. R. James 1904 British English
558 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Alexander Brown 1970 American English
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
278 A Wizard Of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin 1968 American English
395 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
225 Fairy Tales and Stories Hans Christian Andersen 1835 Danish Danish
322 Household Tales Brothers Grimm 1812 German German
9261 Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Roz Chast 2014 American English
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
14232 Pattern Recognition William Gibson 2003 American English