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
145 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
14232 Quicksilver Neal Stephenson 2003 American English
15902 The Haunted Bookshop Christopher Morley 1919 American English
1513 The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor 1982 American English
5862 Poems And Prose Gerald Manley Hopkins 1918 British English
11009 Mystery Train Greil Marcus 1975 American English
4871 Heat and Dust Ruth Prawer Jhabvala 1975 Indian English
8356 Tracks Robyn Davidson 1980 Australian English
8523 Ring Of Bright Water Gavin Maxwell 1960 British English
3058 LaBrava Elmore Leonard 1983 American English
932 The Clouds Aristophanes -423 Greek Ancient greek
2613 Book of Common Prayer Thomas Cranmer 1549 British English
356 Germinal Émile Zola 1885 French French
15902 Pigs Have Wings P. G. Wodehouse 1952 British English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
1068 The Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton 1948 American English
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
1557 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard 1974 American English
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
14232 Hunger of Memory Richard Rodriguez 1982 American English
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
313 Meditations Marcus Aurelius 161 Roman Greek
285 Oresteia Aeschylus -458 Greek Ancient greek
2618 The Neapolitan Novels Elena Ferrante 2011 Italian Italian
8560 Beautiful Swimmers William Warner 1976 American English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
13560 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Anne Fadiman 1997 American English
336 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
148 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
1618 The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford 1945 British English
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
282 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
1972 The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides 1993 American English
2203 The Story of My Life Helen Keller 1903 American English
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
2619 The Mezzanine Nicholson Baker 1988 American English
6831 The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett 2007 British English
1697 The Stone Diaries Carol Shields 1993 Canadian English
1589 Tarka the Otter Henry Williamson 1927 British English
899 Stoner John Williams 1965 American English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
108 Walden Henry David Thoreau 1854 American English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
770 The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2016 American English
472 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
11002 Naturalist E. O. Wilson 1994 American English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
1476 Flatland Edwin A. Abbott 1884 British English
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
15902 Little Fur Family Margaret Wise Brown 1946 American English
1144 A Month In The Country J. L. Carr 1980 British English
2349 Bulfinch's Mythology Thomas Bulfinch 1855 British English
1730 The Mouse And His Child Russell Hoban 1967 American English
976 Rogue Male Geoffrey Household 1939 British English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
4705 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter 1965 American English
900 The Poems of Sappho Sappho -569 Greek Ancient greek
14102 The Boxcar Children Gertrude Chandler Warner 1942 American English
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
17131 Abel's Island William Steig 1976 American English
2237 Ringworld Larry Niven 1970 American English
388 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
526 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake 1950 British English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
3186 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
624 The Histories of Herodotus Herodotus -450 Greek Ancient greek
3155 Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin 1955 American English
14717 Nobody Knows My Name James Baldwin 1961 American English
17131 No Name In The Street James Baldwin 1972 American English
14984 The Devil Finds Work James Baldwin 1976 American English
14232 The Eye in the Door Pat Barker 1993 British English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
133 Confessions Augustine 397 Roman Latin
507 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1826 American English
2307 The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins 1976 British English
122 Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 Italian Italian
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
2414 The Stars My Destination Alfred Bester 1956 American English
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
1173 Little, Big John Crowley 1981 American English
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
2667 The Songlines Bruce Chatwin 1987 British English
17131 How Proust Can Change Your Life Alain de Botton 1997 British English
14984 Skellig David Almond 1998 British English
1728 The Voyage of the Beagle Charles Darwin 1839 British English
3015 Friday Night Lights H. G. Bissinger 1990 American English
377 The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907 American English
639 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
1901 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
1609 The Drowned World J. G. Ballard 1962 British English
13560 The Path to Power Robert Caro 1982 American English
6616 The Poetics Of Space Gaston Bachelard 1958 French French
1935 Autobiography Benvenuto Cellini 1728 Italian Italian
1583 The Civilization Of The Renaissance In Italy Jacob Burckhardt 1860 Swiss German
263 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italian
432 Lost Illusions Honoré de Balzac 1837 French French
3588 The First Man Albert Camus 1994 French French
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
2339 Master of the Senate Robert Caro 2002 American English
6248 Parting the Waters Taylor Branch 1988 American English
14198 Nova Samuel R. Delany 1968 American English
456 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men James Agee 1941 American English
14232 Means Of Ascent Robert Caro 1990 American English
15902 The Masks Of God Joseph Campbell 1959 American English
5862 The Book Of The Courtier Baldassare Castiglione 1528 Italian Italian
1422 The Sot-Weed Factor John Barth 1960 American English
14853 Memoirs Of A Dutiful Daughter Simone de Beauvoir 1958 French French
2798 The Anatomy of Melancholy Robert Burton 1621 British English
576 Complete Poems Elizabeth Bishop 1969 American English
15902 Their Finest Hour Winston Churchill 1949 British English
877 The Cherry Orchard Anton Chekhov 1904 Russian Russian
979 The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1922 British English
3088 The Marriage Of Cadmus And Harmony Roberto Calasso 1988 Italian Italian