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
14897 The Long Walk Slavomir Rawicz 1956 Polish English
5862 Selected Poetry Rainer Maria Rilke 1902 German German
11000 The Ghost Writer Philip Roth 1979 American English
3821 Lenin's Tomb David Remnick 1993 American English
1281 Mumbo Jumbo Ishmael Reed 1972 American English
15903 Village School Miss Read 1955 British English
17130 Explaining Hitler Ron Rosenbaum 1998 American English
505 The Quran Unknown 610 Arabic Arabic
2632 Old Glory Jonathan Raban 1981 British English
14232 Midnight In Sicily Peter Robb 1996 Italian English
1359 Illuminations Arthur Rimbaud 1886 French French
15903 Period Piece Gwen Raverat 1952 British English
17130 The Medical Detectives Berton Roueché 1980 American English
17130 List Of Books Frederic Raphael 1981 British Unknown
15903 Classic Crimes William Roughead 1951 Scottish English
17130 The Tuscan Year Elizabeth Romer 1984 British English
15903 Sparkle And Spin Ann Rand 1957 American English
5862 The Stones Of Venice John Ruskin 1851 British English
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
15903 The Walls Came Tumbling Down Henriette Roosenburg 1957 Dutch English
1987 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks 1985 British English
713 The Killer Angels Michael Shaara 1974 American English
954 Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw 1913 British English
9754 The Dragons of Eden Carl Sagan 1977 American English
865 The Pillow Book Sei Shōnagon 1002 Japanese Japanese
2719 The Sagas Of Icelanders Örnólfur Thorsson 1000 Icelandic Old norse
1344 The Emigrants W. G. Sebald 1992 German German
14897 The Longest Day Cornelius Ryan 1959 American English
3022 Captain Blood Rafael Sabatini 1922 British English
17130 Landscape And Memory Simon Schama 1995 British English
15903 Berlin Diary William L. Shirer 1941 British English
12249 The Golden Gate Vikram Seth 1986 Indian English
1197 Light Years James Salter 1975 American English
15903 All Passion Spent Vita Sackville-West 1931 British English
1796 Collected Stories Isaac Bashevis Singer 1982 Polish English
17130 Home Witold Rybczynski 1986 Canadian English
832 The Last Of The Just André Schwarz-Bart 1959 French French
1409 No Exit Jean Paul Sartre 1944 French French
17130 Lost In Place Mark Salzman 1995 American English
15903 The Memoirs Of George Sherston Siegfried Sassoon 1928 British English
17130 Saint Exupery Stacy Schiff 1994 American English
2506 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
17130 Forms Of Devotion Diane Schoemperlen 1998 Canadian English
17130 Collected Letters George Bernard Shaw 1972 British English
2901 City Clifford D. Simak 1952 American English
17130 Polar Star Martin Cruz Smith 1989 American English
2669 Sailing Alone Around the World Joshua Slocum 1900 Canadian English
2167 Bread And Wine Ignazio Silone 1936 Italian Italian
15903 Maigret And The Man On The Boulevard Georges Simenon 1953 Belgian French
17130 Artful Ali Smith 2012 British English
17130 The Three Golden Keys Petr Sis 1994 Czech English
5381 Longitude Dava Sobel 1995 American English
13519 Travels with Charley John Steinbeck 1962 American English
206 The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1973 Russian Russian
3146 A Simple Plan Scott Smith 1993 American English
3135 Ake Wole Soyinka 1981 Nigerian English
17130 After Babel George Steiner 1975 British English
17130 River Of Shadows Rebecca Solnit 2003 American English
14169 The Valleys of the Assassins Freya Stark 1934 British English
15903 Japanese Inn Statler, Oliver. 1961 American English
7019 Corinne Madame de Staël 1807 French French
17130 A Woman, A Man, And Two Kingdoms Francis Steegmuller 1991 American English
585 Tao Te Ching Lao Tsu -300 Chinese Classical chinese
14171 A Child's Garden Of Verses Robert Louis Stevenson 1885 American English
1257 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
17130 This One Summer Mariko Tamaki 2014 Canadian English
1180 Annals Cornelius Tacitus 109 Roman Latin
147 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
1834 Histories Cornelius Tacitus 100 Roman Latin
17130 Alice James Jean Strouse 1980 American English
17130 Map Wislawa Szymborska 2016 Polish Polish
16620 Fame And Obscurity Gay Talese 1970 American English
15903 The Surprise Of Cremona Edith Templeton 1954 British English
596 The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides -410 Greek Ancient greek
1588 The Guns of August Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1962 American English
14232 Lost Boy Lost Girl Peter Straub 2003 American English
229 Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville 1835 French French
7925 Letters From The Earth Mark Twain 1962 American English
3195 The Lives of a Cell Lewis Thomas 1974 American English
2460 Lark Rise To Candleford Flora Thompson 1945 British English
5424 Religion And The Decline Of Magic Keith Thomas 1971 British English
17130 Her Smoke Rose Up Forever James Tiptree Jr. 1990 American English
5371 Arabian Sands Wilfred Thesiger 1959 British English
17130 The Great Good Thing Roderick Townley 2001 American English
1506 Selected Stories William Trevor 1992 Irish English
10450 Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number Jacobo Timerman 1981 Argentinian Spanish
15903 The Sea And The Jungle H. M. Tomlinson 1912 British English
17130 Hermit Of Peking Hugh Trevor-Roper 1976 British English
2369 On Growth and Form D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson 1917 British English
14984 Within The Context Of No Context George W. S. Trow 1980 American English
5862 Centuries, Poems, And Thanksgivings Thomas Traherne 1903 British English
10814 Life In Code Ellen Ullman 2017 American English
17130 Holy Land D. J. Waldie 1996 American English
17130 Celestine Gillian Tindall 1995 Celestine English
13771 Garibaldi And The Thousand, May 1860 George Macaulay Trevelyan 1907 British English
17130 How To Tell When You're Tired Reg Theriault 1995 American English
15903 Small Talk At Wreyland Cecil Torr 1918 British English
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
906 Up from Slavery Booker T. Washington 1901 American English
6197 Girl in Hyacinth Blue Susan Vreeland 1999 American English
304 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
7684 Among Others Jo Walton 2011 British English
1919 The Dying Earth Jack Vance 1950 American English
7670 The Letters Of Vincent Van Gogh Vincent van Gogh 1914 Dutch Dutch
1326 The Compleat Angler Izaak Walton 1653 British English
15903 Elizabeth And Her German Garden Elizabeth von Arnim 1898 German English
515 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
5862 France And England In North America Francis Parkman 1865 American English
17130 The Element Of Lavishness William Maxwell 2000 American English
15903 The Trial Of Charles I C. V. Wedgwood 1964 British English
14019 The Maples Stories John Updike 2009 American English
17130 Kaddish Leon Wieseltier 1998 Kaddish English
17130 Simone Weil Simone Weil 1986 French French
17130 Boggs Lawrence Weschler 1999 British English
17130 Zoom At Sea Tim Wynne-Jones 1983 Canadian English
1379 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
7047 The Making of the President, 1960 Theodore White 1961 American English
2157 The Hot Rock Donald E. Westlake 1970 American English
17130 Dearest Friend Lynne Withey 1981 American English
10068 New And Collected Poems Richard Wilbur 1988 American English