"1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"

Submitted by ukaunz on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 12:59

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Books

2000s
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Saturday – Ian McEwan
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
The Sea – John Banville
The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Master – Colm Tóibín
Vanishing Point – David Markson
The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Colour – Rose Tremain
Thursbitch – Alan Garner
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Islands – Dan Sleigh
Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Unless – Carol Shields
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
Shroud – John Banville
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Youth – J.M. Coetzee
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
Platform – Michael Houellebecq
Schooling – Heather McGowan
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
Fury – Salman Rushdie
At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
Under the Skin – Michel Faber
Ignorance – Milan Kundera
Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
City of God – E.L. Doctorow
How the Dead Live – Will Self
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
Pastoralia – George Saunders
1900s
Timbuktu – Paul Auster
The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
Another World – Pat Barker
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Great Apes – Will Self
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
Underworld – Don DeLillo
Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
American Pastoral – Philip Roth
The Untouchable – John Banville
Silk – Alessandro Baricco
Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
The Information – Martin Amis
The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
Land – Park Kyong-ni
The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
Disappearance – David Dabydeen
The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
Complicity – Iain Banks
On Love – Alain de Botton
What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
A Heart So White – Javier Marias
Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Indigo – Marina Warner
The Crow Road – Iain Banks
Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
Jazz – Toni Morrison
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
Arcadia – Jim Crace
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
Mao II – Don DeLillo
Typical – Padgett Powell
Regeneration – Pat Barker
Downriver – Iain Sinclair
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
Wise Children – Angela Carter
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Amongst Women – John McGahern
Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
Like Life – Lorrie Moore
Possession – A.S. Byatt
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
A Disaffection – James Kelman
Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
Moon Palace – Paul Auster
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
London Fields – Martin Amis
The Book of Evidence – John Banville
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
Libra – Don DeLillo
The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
Foe – J.M. Coetzee
The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
The Cider House Rules – John Irving
A Maggot – John Fowles
Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
Contact – Carl Sagan
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
White Noise – Don DeLillo
Queer – William Burroughs
Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
Legend – David Gemmell
Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
Shame – Salman Rushdie
Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
La Brava – Elmore Leonard
Waterland – Graham Swift
The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Newton Letter – John Banville
On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
The Names – Don DeLillo
Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
Broken April – Ismail Kadare
Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Rites of Passage – William Golding
Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
Shikasta – Doris Lessing
A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
The World According to Garp – John Irving
Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
Yes – Thomas Bernhard
The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
The Shining – Stephen King
Dispatches – Michael Herr
Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
The Public Burning – Robert Coover
Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
Grimus – Salman Rushdie
The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
Fateless – Imre Kertész
Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
High Rise – J.G. Ballard
Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
Dead Babies – Martin Amis
Correction – Thomas Bernhard
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
A Question of Power – Bessie Head
The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
Crash – J.G. Ballard
The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
Sula – Toni Morrison
Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
The Breast – Philip Roth
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
G – John Berger
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
Rabbit Redux – John Updike
The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
The Ogre – Michael Tournier
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
Troubles – J.G. Farrell
Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
Them – Joyce Carol Oates
A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
Chocky – John Wyndham
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
The Joke – Milan Kundera
No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
Trawl – B.S. Johnson
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Magus – John Fowles
The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Things – Georges Perec
The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
Herzog – Saul Bellow
V. – Thomas Pynchon
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Graduate – Charles Webb
Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
The Collector – John Fowles
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
How It Is – Samuel Beckett
Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Rabbit, Run – John Updike
Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
The End of the Road – John Barth
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
The Bell – Iris Murdoch
Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
Voss – Patrick White
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
Homo Faber – Max Frisch
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
Justine – Lawrence Durrell
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
The Floating Opera – John Barth
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
The Story of O – Pauline Réage
A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
Watt – Samuel Beckett
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Junkie – William Burroughs
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Rebel – Albert Camus
Molloy – Samuel Beckett
The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
The Third Man – Graham Greene
The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
The Victim – Saul Bellow
Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
The Plague – Albert Camus
Back – Henry Green
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
Loving – Henry Green
Arcanum 17 – André Breton
Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
Transit – Anna Seghers
Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Caught – Henry Green
The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
Embers – Sandor Marai
Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
The Outsider – Albert Camus
In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
The Hamlet – William Faulkner
Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Native Son – Richard Wright
The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
Party Going – Henry Green
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
Murphy – Samuel Beckett
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Years – Virginia Woolf
In Parenthesis – David Jones
The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
Independent People – Halldór Laxness
Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
England Made Me – Graham Greene
Burmese Days – George Orwell
The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
A Day Off – Storm Jameson
The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
The Waves – Virginia Woolf
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
Passing – Nella Larsen
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
Living – Henry Green
The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
Quartet – Jean Rhys
Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
Quicksand – Nella Larsen
Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
Nadja – André Breton
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
Amerika – Franz Kafka
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Blindness – Henry Green
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Counterfeiters – André Gide
The Trial – Franz Kafka
The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
Cane – Jean Toomer
Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
Amok – Stefan Zweig
The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
Summer – Edith Wharton
Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
Howards End – E.M. Forster
Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
Martin Eden – Jack London
Strait is the Gate – André Gide
Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
The Iron Heel – Jack London
The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
Mother – Maxim Gorky
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Young Törless – Robert Musil
The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
The Golden Bowl – Henry James
The Ambassadors – Henry James
The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
The Immoralist – André Gide
The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
1800s
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
What Maisie Knew – Henry James
Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Born in Exile – George Gissing
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
News from Nowhere – William Morris
New Grub Street – George Gissing
Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
Hunger – Knut Hamsun
The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
She – H. Rider Haggard
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
Germinal – Émile Zola
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
Nana – Émile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Red Room – August Strindberg
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Drunkard – Émile Zola
Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Erewhon – Samuel Butler
Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Silas Marner – George Eliot
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Max Havelaar – Multatuli
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
Adam Bede – George Eliot
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
Villette – Charlotte Brontë
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
1700s
Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
The Nun – Denis Diderot
Camilla – Fanny Burney
The Monk – M.G. Lewis
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
Justine – Marquis de Sade
Vathek – William Beckford
The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
Cecilia – Fanny Burney
Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Evelina – Fanny Burney
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
Candide – Voltaire
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
Amelia – Henry Fielding
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
Fanny Hill – John Cleland
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
Pamela – Samuel Richardson
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
Pre-1700
Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
Aithiopika – Heliodorus
Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

Author Comments:

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die: A Comprehensive Reference Source, Chronicling the History of the Novel
Preface by Peter Ackroyd, General Editor Peter Boxall
ISBN 1-84403-417-8

Editor's note: This list has become a spam honey pot. I set the comments to "Read only" for an indefinite period to break the cycle - jw

n2lect2el02/15/2006

Cool. Thanks for posting this. I can't wait to see what else is on the list.

Slothrop3302/15/2006

This book is not even out yet; how do you know what is in it?? It looks great!

ukaunz02/16/2006

It showed up on the "new releases" shelf at my local library, I don't know if they somehow got an advanced copy or something? Beats me!

ukaunz02/16/2006

I should be finished soon... probably next week. Hope you can wait until then!

queneau11/08/2006

By any chance has anyone got the dates of publication for all the books on this list? Or the decade if not the actual date?

regius100006/19/2008

Do you read " Do Not Kiss Isabel by Sergiu Somesan" ?
http://www.amazon.com/Not-Kiss-Isabel-Sergiu-Somesan/dp/9738855098/ref=s...

lbangs02/24/2006

Wow! A thousand thanks for taking the time to type and to post this. I've ordered the book, but it does not arrive in America until early March, so this makes for a tasty appetizer!

Thanks!

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

ukaunz02/24/2006

No problems. BTW, if anyone spots a typo, please let me know so I can fix it!

alyxstarr02/24/2006

I've only spotted two:
U.S.A. – Dos Passos should be U.S.A. - John Dos Passos
Emina - Jane Austen should be Emma - Jane Austen (I'm guessing)

Great job, and thanks!

ukaunz02/27/2006

Hi alyxstarr, thanks for the heads up. It should definitely be Emma by Jane Austen, not sure how I managed to type Emina.

John Dos Passos was listed as Dos Passos (twice) in the book "1001 Books You Must Read...", so that's how I typed it up, but it seems strange not to give the author's full name.

Anyway, they've both been fixed!

MaxCastle02/24/2006

I've been meaning to type this list up for weeks; I'm really grateful that you've saved me the trouble. :)

Only spotted a couple of typos: it should be Finnegans Wake (no apostrophe); Jeckyll and Hyde should be Jekyll and Hyde; and Momento Mori should be Memento Mori.

ukaunz02/27/2006

Thanks MaxCastle, have fixed those typos you spotted.

rleigh04/20/2007

Shouldn't it be The Stranger by Albert Camus?

n2lect2el02/24/2006

Thanks so much for typing this in--it's just the kind of thing that I live for.

n2lect2el02/24/2006

Other typos: When I made my checklist of the ones I'd read, I changed Joyce Carol Oates' them to Them (with a capital T) and Burroughs' The Naked Lunch to Naked Lunch (without the the).

ukaunz02/27/2006

I think that's how they were listed in the book, so that's how I typed it. It actually states in the "1001 Books..." that "them" was published with no capital T, but I've changed it to Them as it looks strange being the only one not capitalised. I looked up The Naked Lunch and you're right, so I changed that one too. Thanks!

reign_heir07/06/2006

I believe "Slaughterhouse Five" should be listed as "Slaughterhouse-five"

Also, "childhood" should be capitalized in "W, or the Memory of Childhood"

Should "Kidnapped" be "Kidnapped!"

EdmondDantes03/24/2008

"Kidnapped!" is correct, but "Slaughterhouse-Five" can be spelled either way, to the best of my understanding.

puR07/08/2006

No Dante? For what reason?

gavroche08/16/2006

Probably because Dante's books were written as epic poetry? And this list focuses on novels.

gemorgan12/02/2006

Well then what the frick, cuz Ovid's Metamorphoses is definitely NOT a novel. How does that qualify for this list and not others in poetic format such as Dante's Divine Comedy; or for that matter, Homer's works, or John Milton's Paradise Lost, or Virgil's The Aeneid??

All of these are much more worthy of being read than 90 percent of the others . . . I just don't see how they can be excluded if Ovid makes the cut.

Caelica07/19/2007

Seriously. What about Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Virgil, Boccaccio, Langland, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Malory, etc. etc. etc.

tbsdy01/26/2008

It's 1001 books you must read before you die. Not 100,001 books you must read before you die. And the general editor, Peter Boxall, wrote that "the final list, including all the novels that one must read and excluding all the ones that it is safe to leave unread, could of course never be drawn up... [nevertheless] at the same time, the limits that the number upon me are cruel and narrow. One thousand and one is after all such a small number, given the extent of the subject matter."

rjb06/12/2008

I'm sorry, but I will eat my own pancreas with a vichyssoise fork before I admit that "Interview with a Vampire" is more worthy of appearance on this poxy list than the "Canterbury Tales" or the "Decameron". And I'm sure Jeanette Winterson thinks she's better than Homer, but I respectfully disagree.

chamuda06/17/2008

Thank you! You made me laugh so hard I think I've dislodged my own pancreas!
kudos to you!

HMoseley06/21/2008

People need to know this is basically a list of prose novels.

I realize that Ovid and perhaps a handful of others on the list wrote in verse. I don't know why the list compiler chose to include Ovid and not Homer, but there you go. In any list, there are contradictions.

luney4tunes8809/22/2010

shakespeare didn't write books. he wrote plays.

misscurly12/12/2007

Isn't Beowulf also a poem?
It's in there

davidm8207/28/2006

Thomas Keneally wrote Schindler's List, not Schindler's Ark

gavroche08/16/2006

Stephen Spielberg directed the movie, Schindler's List, which was based on the book, Schindler's Ark, by Thomas Keneally.

It is certainly probable that editions of the book were published after the movie with the titlechange.

misscurly12/12/2007

You can find the book under both titles. I think the notes on that one says something about in Europe it's called one thing, and in North America the other. A couple of novels are like that.
A Picture/Portrait of Dorian Grey/Gray is another example from the top of my head

tbsdy01/26/2008

Not true. It was originally published as Schindler's Ark.

MelissaJane08/29/2006

"Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely" should be "Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly."

annabanana09/03/2006

on a related theme, a mate of mine put the contents of the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" on Excel; the beauty of it being that you can add columns for your friends, and then run it so you can see whose seen the most, who hasn't seen essential films, and lots of other slightly-geeky fun! does anyone want a copy? not sure if there's a way i could go about attaching it here.

ukaunz09/04/2006

I'd be interested in that. Check my profile for my email address and send it to me if the offer is still good :)

MauroFilicor05/23/2008

I would love to have one!

Mauro

email: mulberryfields@gmail.com

bertie09/04/2006

I bought this book recently and in my opinion the editors have made a huge mistake. This is too much a list of great novelists and too little a list of great novels. What I mean is that they have included too many second-rated works by authors of great novels and omitted a lot of great novels by unmentioned novelists. Some authors are grossly over-represented - J.G. Ballard, for example, has seven novels listed.

ukaunz09/05/2006

I did actually notice that some authors seemed to have their entire catalogue listed, which in a way is a waste of space on a list like this!

Angie10/12/2006

Mmmmmm, too many anglos, what about Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Cervantes, ... ?

jobman2u10/20/2006

As usual with any list there is going to be furious debate on the inclusions and exclusions.

MissWatusi10/21/2006

I didn't notice any E.F. Benson of the Queen Lucia fame. He rocks. Hope this helps.

petia10/25/2006

I agree that thios list is kinda biased.
A lot of good writers are left out.

=))) Probably the critics never even read them.
What a shame!

tbsdy01/26/2008

Wow, that's making a massive assumption Petia. In actual fact, that book was compiled by Peter Boxall, but reviewed by over 70 contributors, all experts in their field.

I suspect that Mr Boxall has read far more widely than 1001 books - after all, he needed to select from a vast pool of existing literature. Ergo sum he has read far more than 1001 novels.

I'm assuming that he had the opposite problem: he had to work out what to leave out of the list and what to keep in. The list is, in point of fact, a vast survey of the novel from 4 BCE to 2005.

I think a far more interesting question is: what books would he have had to have cut to have included other books you believe should be in the list?

tbsdy01/26/2008

Cervantes is in the list.

bgfentif6109/29/2011

Gabriel Garcia Marquez IS included: Love in the Time of Cholera, Autumn of the Patriarch and One Hundred Years of Solitude

But I miss Ismail Kadare ;)

best regards,
produktproben

NateD10/24/2006

I know it's easy to nitpick such a list, but c'mon ... where's Bernard Malamud?? (The Fixer should not be forgotten.) Where's Mailer?? (The Naked and the Dead: Best WWII novel.) Where's James Jones?? (From Here to Eternity: 2nd best WWII novel.) Only one Mark Twain? Only one Jack Kerouac? I know that Jack doesn't have much literary respect, but he's darn sure superior to Elmore Leonard (3 entries) and all those Hitchhiker's Guide sequels.

Ah, but plenty of the likes of Ian McEwan and J.M. Coetzee and Martin Amis. I mean, they're good and all, but ...

Although I will say that I'm impressed with the boldness of listing Stephen King in such company.

plbeard05/24/2008

Norman Mailer, yes--one of the major novelists in any language in the second half of the 20th century.
Why five examples of Toni Morrison, four of J.C. Oates, three of Updike, and zero of Mailer? Very odd.
I'd go against the grain of the popularity of his first novel and suggest The Deer Park (1955) and The Executioner's Song (1979).

petia10/25/2006

Hey guys,
The name of the author of the book #73 in the list is Slavenka Drakulic.

asper10/25/2006

no 'voyage au bout de la nuit' ?? no one Celine's ??
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

scrawlspacer10/05/2007

See #648.

JEK11/04/2006

Did I miss it or is 1984 missing from this list?JEK

alpy03/06/2007

on 547 nineteen Eighty-four

feigningintr04/10/2009

It's not on the list, and I'm SHOCKED. One of the greatest books ever written.

corry00011/28/2006

Does anyone happen to have this list in Excel format?

Arukiyomi10/25/2007

you can download the automated spreadsheet for recording progress with these books at
Arukiyomi's blog

kihaku12/06/2006

can anyone list out about 100 books out of these 1001. jst to make sure we get hold of the best of the best.

kihaku12/06/2006

ukaunz, is there any way you can list out around 100 out of 1001....from 1800's-2000..just to make sure i get hold of the best of the best.

tbsdy01/26/2008

The problem you have there is that the task at hand is subjective. If we picked out 100 books, you might have missed 100 amazing books in the meantime.

Personally, I recommend that you read Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables, To Kill and Mockingbird and War and Peace.

Cannot bring myself to read any of Satre's novels - far too base, and even criminal. Neither can I bring myself to read American Psycho.

windykitten05/13/2009

they are "criminal"?? wtf. "far too base" please... I mean you can think whatever you want about it, but use some adjectives that make sense.

JANUVA04/03/2007

Hey, you are very English-written-novels-sided. You are forgetting one of the best books ever written: El túnel (the tunnel) by the Argentine genius Ernesto Sabato. A must read!
Greetings from Costa Rica!

misscurly09/30/2007

The person who posted this list didn't create it; it is actually taken from a published book. THe book is really interesting; it explains why each selection is important to read, without giving away the plot.

Also, this isn't an English-only list. I would say about half of the selections are not originally English; off the top of my head I know there are many of the major Russian, German and French novels listed, and I'm sure there are also major selections from other languages and countries.

costas04/03/2007

A Publisher from Greece (Kastaniotis) claims that one of their books is listed in this book. The title of the book is "The Dog's Mother" and the writer Pavlos (or Paul) Matessis. I don't see it in the list. Why so? (Answer to Costas Armeftis)

tbsdy01/26/2008

I own this book, and "The Dog's Mother" is not on the list. Neither is Pavlos Matessis. He did win the 2002 Giuseppe Acerbi Literary Prize for this novel, however.

jwasilewsky04/24/2007

1984 is listed as number 547, George Orwell.
Instead of numerically the numbers are written out in words. It was required high school reading, and okay. Perhaps I should revisit it now as an adult.

Catalyst04/26/2007

Mm, you should. I love that book, but I pretty much love any novel that even hints at being about a dystopian society.

I've read 1.69% of the list. Makes me feel like I need to read much, much more.

Goodbar08/10/2007

Greetings all, just registered and looking for inspiration as I'm about to purchase my chunk of "Holiday Fiction" - I've rented a small farmhouse in a small village named Poix de Picardie, just East of Amiens in Northern France. I think it fitting that I loose myself in a WW1, or WW2 story. I've read Songbird and thought it was class. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Merci!

meisa_pastel09/10/2007

There's no one book that comes from Indonesian writer. I think Pramoedya Ananta Toer has many wonderful books known as "The Buru of quartet". Because of those books, he had ever become one of candidates accepting international nobel. It has translated in many languages. It's international works.

cbutler146705/24/2008

I think the comments to this list are as interesting as the list itself. I just requested the first book in the Buru Quartet from my local library.

Didn't find E.M.Forster's "Passage to India" on the list - it's on my Top 10.

Also, is there a copy of the list in alphabetical order by author?

CButler

not-just-yet05/25/2008

FWIW, "Passage to India" is at #708.

I made the sorted list for you; once it passes the moderator it should be at

http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.34082

(with name "1001 books you must read before you die, alphabetical by author")

jakewrites10/03/2007

thank you--very useful to have this list in digital form, although I also own and use the book

one typo that might be corrected: the author of 'Blind Man with a Pistol' is Chester Himes, not Hines

misscurly12/12/2007

Is everyone advocating for their own country's writers in these discussions?

revcaro03/01/2008

Please, The Forsyte SagA by John Galsworthy....not "Sage"

EdmondDantes03/24/2008

Possible typo: Isn't "The Count of Monte-Cristo" supposed to be "The Count of Monte Cristo"? Probable it's both ways.

montin03/27/2008

I have bought the book and use the list a lot. I have seen the edition in French and it has a different choice, with more authors from around the world (including many mentioned by other discussions). I have compiled (from the French edition) in Excel about 200 additional titles not on this list (Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, etc.). If anyone is interested, we could share.

xaulo05/14/2008

Im really interested! can you send it to my mail or post it? Thanks!
xaulo@yahoo.com

ktmceneaney05/23/2008

Some random recommendations:
Tale of Genji, the very first novel and perhaps the greatest ever written.
Shusako Endo, Deep River and Scandal
Toer, Prameodya Ananta, The Buru Quartet
Dasi, Osamu,No Longer Human
Prose, Francine, The Peaceable Kingdom
Booth, Alan, The Roads to Sata
Fergusson, Will, Hokkaido Highway Blues
Coover, Robert , Briar Rose
Higgins, Aidan, Balcony of Europe
Wall, Mervyn, Leaves for the Burning
Lavin, Mary, Selected Stories
O'Connor, Frank, Collected Stories
Richards, Alun, Selected Stories
Powys, John Cooper, Autobiography and Weymouth Sands
Ilf and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs
Himes, Chester, The Quality of Hurt
Denby, David, The Catacombs
Reed, Ishmael, The Free-Lance Pallbearers and The Terrible Twos
McClanahan, Ed, Famous People I Have Known
Leskov, Nikolai, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Tynyanov, Yuri, Lieutenant Kije
Shukshin, Vasily, Stories from a Siberian Village
Dovlatov, Sergi, The Suitcase and Ours
Murphy, Delia, Eight Feet in the Andes
Moore, Tim, Continental Drifter
Carter, Angela, The Bloody Chamber
Androvic, Ivo, Bridge on the Drina
Tully, Jim, Beggars of Life
The Journey to the West
Mo Yan, The Republic of Wine
Zola, Emile, The Earth and The Abbe Moure's Sin
Dick, Philip K, The Laughing Policeman
Cather, Willa, My Antonia
Sommerville and Ross, The Real Charlotte
Saroyan,Wiiliam, Not Dying
Klima, Ivan, Love and Garbage
Steiner,George, After Babel
Moore, Geroge, Hail and Farewell
Watson, Ian, Chekhov's Journey
Jen, Gish, Mona in the Promised Land
Kerouac, Jack, The Dharma Bums and Orpheus Remembered
Ha Jin, Ocean of Words
Abbey, Edward, The Monkey Wrench Gang
Voinovitch, Vladimir, The Extraorianry life and Adventures of Private Chonkin
Moore, Brain, An Answer from Limbo
Becett, Three Novels
O'Brian, Flann, The Third Policeman
Kavanagh, Patrick, The Green Fool
O'Flaherty, Liam, The Black Soil
Least-Heat Moon, Blue Highways
Bowen, Elizabeth, The Last September
Rhys, Jean, Collected Short Stories
Freeling,Nicholas, Love in Amsterdam
McGahern, John, Collected Stories
Kadohata, Cynthia, The Floating World
Shen Congwen, Imperfect Paradise
Kenzaburo Oe, A Personal Matter
Oda Sakunosuke, Stories of Osaka Life
Kamata, Suzanne, The Broken Bidge
Davidson, Cathy, 36 Views of Mount Fuji
Hong Ying, Daughter of the River
Hessler, Peter, River Town
Guanlong Cao, The Attic
O'Brien, Kate, Mary Lavelle
Houellebecq, Michael, The Elementary Particles
Keneally, Thomas, To Asmara
Burgess, Anthony, The Doctor is Sick
Martinson, Harry, Aniara
MacGill, Children of the Dead End and Lanty Hanlon
Gorky, Maxim, My Childhood
Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain
du Maurier, Daphne, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte
Bodenheim, Maxwell, Replenishing Jessica
Hamill, Pete, Loving Women
Constant, Benjamin, Adolphe
Altick, Richard, The Scholar Adventurers
Collins, James, Sixpence House
Pessoa, Fernando, The Book of Disquietude
Thomson, David, Woodbrook
Fletcher, Martin, Almost Heaven
Howells, Wiliam, The Rise of Silas Lapham
Twain, Mark, The Guilded Age
Dos Passoss, Three Soldiers
Bulgakov, Mikail, The Master and the Margaritta
Simon, Claude, The Road to Flanders
Graves, Robert, Count Belisarius
Stuart, Francis, Black List Section H
Berrigan, Daniel, To Dwell in Peace
Clarke, Austin, A Penny in the Clouds
Poers, J. F., Collected Stories
Berberova, Nina, The Italics are Mine
Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope
Cao Xingjian, Soul Mountain
Rushby, Kevin, Eating the Flowers of Paradise
Kennedy, William, Quinn's Book and Roscoe
Rexroth, Kenneth, An Autobiographical Novel
Lenz, Sigfreid, Selected Stories
Jackson, Kenneth, Invisible Forms
Hubbell, Susan, A Country Year
Dilliard, Annie, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Bierce, Ambrose, In the Midst of War
Briusov, Valerii, The Fiery Angel
Pelevin, Victor, Homo Zapiens
Shalamov, Varlam, Kolyma Taels
Zinoviev, Aleksandr,The Yawning Heights
Zoshchenko, Mikhail, Collected Stories
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

These are all great reads. I suppose I could go on, but I've got to get back to the book I'm writing. k.mceneaney@yahoo.com

silvia08/21/2008

Well, I'm Italian and I'd want to know why Dante's "Divina Commedia", "Ludovico Ariosto's works, "I Promessi Sposi" by Alessandro Manzoni and other important Italian authors are not in the list, but Luigi Pirandello and Italo Calvino...

raktabhmahes10/11/2008

Please tell me how do you find these reads (they comprise a few Indian wriitngs too!):
Category
Book Author
Management
M1 Marketing Management Bowdy and Peter
M2 Financial Management
(i) Khan & Jain
(ii) T.M. Pandey
M3 Management of Information Systems Griffin
M4 Management
M5 Mathematics for Business Studies Dr. J.K.Thukral
M6 You Inc. Hedges
M7 Iacocca An Autobiography Lee Iacocca
M8 Straight from the Gut Jack Welch
M9 Knowledge Management Strategies Microsoft
M10 Business making skills Simon
M11 Architect of Quality Juran
M12 Management Peter Drucker

English Literature
E1 Atlas shrugged Ayn Rand
E2 Fountainhead Ayn Rand
E3 Eools Die Maria Puzo
E4 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
E5 Half a Life V.S. Naipaul
E6 Harry Potter
(a) and the order of phoenix
(b) and the chamber of secrets J.K. Rowling
(c) and the prisoner of Azbakan
E7 Five point Someone Chetan Bhagat
E8 Goddess of small things Arundhati Roy
E9 To Sir, with love E.H.Braithwaite
E10 David Copperfield
E11 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
E12 Oliver Twist
E13 Tale of Two Cities
E14 Lord of the flies William Golding
E15 Haiku for lovers Manu Bazzane
E15 The Canterbury Tales Chaucer
E16 The Beloved Anarchist by P.R Taikad
E17 She Rider Hoggard
E18 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
E19 For from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
E20 The Trumpet Major Thomas Hardy
E21 One Hundred Years of solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
E23 Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence
E24 Mother Maxim Gorky
E25 The Artamanovs Maxim Gorky
E26 Dead souls Maxim Gorky
E27 Anna Karenina Vol 1 & 2 Count Lev Tolstoy
E28 Notes from the Underground House Dostoyevski
E29 Short Stories Chekov
E30 Lady Windermere’s Fan Oscar Wilde
E31 Death of Dr. Faustus Christopher Marlowe
E32 Short Novels & Stories Anton Chekov
E33 Gone with the Wind Margeret Mitchelle
E34 Pygmalion G.B. Shaw
E36 Candida G.B. Shaw
E37 Decline and Fall of Roman Empire Gibbon
E38 Uneasy Money P.G. Woodehouse
E39 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
E40 Silas Marner George Eliot
E41 A Circle in Time Jean Walton
E42 The Portrait of a Crack V. Finnel
E43 Poetry Thomas Gunn
E44 Selected Essays Steven Rawlinson
E45 The Great Remakes of Nature J.V.Michurina
E46 Life’s Handicap Rudyard Kipling
E47 Wings of Death Toyoll
E48 Stories Mikhail Sholokes
E49 The Devil’s Alternative Fredrick Forsyth
E50 Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne
E51 Zamindar V. Fitzegerald
E52 Father’s & Sons Ivan Turgenev
E53 A nest of the Gentry Ivan Turgenev
E54 Henry IV Part I William Shakespeare
E55 The lovely Bones Alice Sebold
E55 The American Leslie Walter
E56 Rising Tides Nora Roberts
E57 Middle March George Eliot
E58 The seventh secret Truing Wallace
E59 The Fire and Rain Girish Karnad
E60 The Fall Make Richard Gordon
E61 A stranger in the Mirror Sidney Sheldon
E62 The Prodigal Daughter Jeffery Archer
E63 The City of Joy Dominique Lapierre
E64 The Diary of a young Girl Anne Frank
E65 Adam Bede George Eliot
E66 When Eight Bells Toll Alistair Maclean
E67 The Idiot Fyoder Dostoyesky
E68 The Winters Tale William Shakespeare

Polity and Sociology
PS1 The Poverty of Philosphy Karl Marx
PS2 Articles and Speeches
PS3 About Lenin Lenin
PS4 On Imperialism & Imperialists – 2
PS5 Selected works 1 & 2
PS6 Down Pages from a Life of Struggle Yuri Akestine
PS7 The British Cooperative Movement Jack Bailey
PS8 My Experiment with truth M.K. Gandhi
PS9 When freedom is menaced Lal Bahadur Shashtri
PS11 Geopolitical Relations & Regional Cooperation Dr. K. Gopal
PS12 H.P.S. Menon A Tribute by (Edited) Menon
PS15 Six Essays in Cooperative Sociology Andre Beteille
PS16 The USSR and Developing Countries Progress Publishers
PS17 The Glowing legend of Sri Syed S. Ziaurahman
PS18 Society and the Environment of a Soviet
PS19 Nations Rise and Fall – Why.
PS20 A short History of the world H. G. Wells
PS20 Socialist Bulgaria
PS21 Selected Works 1 & 2 Marx & Engels
PS22 The Road to Communism
PS23 The Children who sleep by the River Debbie Taylor
PS24 The Making of India’s Foreign Policy J. Bandhhopadhaya
PS25 The International working class movement
PS26 Ireland and the Irish Question Marx and Engels
PS27 Maxim Gorky
PS31 The first Indian war of Independence Marx & Engels
PS32 Marshal of the Soviet Union G. Zhukov
PS34 Das Capital Karl Marx
PS35 Communist Manifest Karl Marx
PS36 Indian Constitution D.D. Basu
PS37 History Romilla Thaper

Economy, Psychology, Philosophy and others
MISC1Macro Economics Dhingra
MISC2When you sell that counts Donald L. Cossidy
MISC3Making money on the stock market S.S.Graubl
MISC4A Manual of foreign exchange Pither
MISC5Indian Economy survey
MISC6The interpretation of dreams Sigmund Freud
MISC7I’m OK – You’re OK Thomas A. Harris M.D.
MISC8Over the Top Zig Ziglar
MISC9Get set go Swati-Shailesh Lodha
MISC14Science of self realization
MISC17The secret of Janmyoga
MISC18Thus spoke Zarathustra Frederick Nietzsche
MISC19The way of Power Sohan Blifield
MISC21Rise of the modern West Minakshi Phukan
MISC22Workbook of History.
MISC31The Third Eye T. Lobsang Rampa
MISC32The Yoga of a Yogi T. Krishnamacharya
MISC33Science, Religion and Peace S.N. Prasad, Suman Shukla
MISC34India-Vietnam Relations Ganesh Sharma
MISC35Corporate laws and Social practice G. K. Kapoor
MISC36The Universal History of Numbers Georges Ifrah
MISC37The Evolution of Khasi Music Lakynshai Syiem
MISC38Let us Create a New India in the
21st century M. Ganeshan
MISC39Nationalist Movement in South India M.S.R. Anjaneyuvulu
MISC40Powerful Media Words K. Khaja Mohideen
MISC41J. Krishnamurthy demystified Kalidas Joshi
MISC42Stars speak Fortune in our hands K.S. Mangesh Kumar
MISC43The Everyday Politics of Labour Geert De Neve
MISC44Social Democracy in Practice
MISC45Socialist International Pradip Bose
MISC46Beyond Shirdi K. Venkataraman
MISC47Buddhist Centers of Orissa B. Bandhopadhyay
MISC48What happens to Gods and demons H. N. Verma
MISC49Cultural Tourism Management Vishwas Mehta
MISC50Walking the Tightrope Rehana Ahmed
MISC51The Great Mortality John Kelly
MISC52The lost dreams Mohd. Salim
MISC53Nobel Prize Winners in Pictures-
1901-2003
MISC54The Rama Saga P. K. Pandeya
MISC52Essentials of Buddhism and Jainism K. N. Neelkandan
MISC53Identity and Image Management Rajendra Ghuje
MISC54Promising Professions Mamta Ghuje
MISC55Brand-wise Leveraging People
MISC56To Build Powerful Brands Jyothi Menon
MISC57Advanced Accounting V. K. Saxena
MISC58Mahashwetha Sudha Murthy
MISC59Majority People's Right for
MISC60Preferential Participation Jawahar Nessan
MISC61Cancer Made me Kasthuri Sreenivasan
MISC62Forget Kathmandu- An
Entry for Democracy Manjushree Thapa
MISC63Folklore, Public Sphere and Civil Society M.D. Muthukumarswamy, Molly Kaushal
MISC64Energizing Rural Development
through Panchayats Bibek Debray, P.D. Kaushik
MISC65Without a Second Sheela Balaji
MISC66Dalits, Land and Dignity V. B. Rawat
MISC67Prevention of Blindness T. Selvaraju
MISC68I want my son back Uma Eyyunni
MISC69Understanding Islam Frithjof Schuon
MISC70A matter of taste Nilanjan S. Roy
MISC71Dreams and their interpretation made easy Dr. Francis Menezes
MISC72India and Japan- Blossoming a
new understanding Rajaram Panda, Yoo Fukuzawa
MISC73The 8th Habit: From effectiveness
to greatness Stephen R. Covey
MISC74The Marketing White Book 2003-2004 Businessworld
MISC75The Intelligent Investors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd

Bookworm910/19/2008

I prefer this list of yours. The grand list posted seemed to be lacking.

Amonavis12/08/2008

Really? That many economics and management books? This list IS lacking, but at least it attempts to pinpoint books that speak about something larger than just getting ahead in the corporate world. When someone in his old age is nearing death I doubt he's going to think "Oh, I wish I had read 'Management of Information Systems'" or "I'd better read another economics textbook."

I agree with some of your other picks and like your inclusion of books from outside the Western world, but The Da Vinci Code and Atlas Shrugged...don't really have a whole lot of substance. Especially the Da Vinci Code. In a few years no one will be talking about this book anymore because the characters are two-dimensional and the plot is ridiculous. As for Atlas Shrugged, people will probably be talking about this for a long time. But that is not to say that it is a good book. Ayn Rand writes bad prose--a fact which should alone exclude her from the list--but her philosophy is annoyingly preachy and sophomoric. Unfortunately most people feel the need to trudge through her ridiculously long books and make believe they LIKE her vile philosophy in order to come off as an intellectual. I once did too. But most real intellectuals (those that are university-affiliated) dismiss her novels and philosophy.

peppery05/24/2008

I would welcome a copy of your list. How can we go about this?

pharden4240@05/25/2008

i'm only trying to get a copy of the list

peppery05/24/2008

If your list is still available, I would love to have it. Can you send it to me? peppery76@yahoo.com Thanks!

lwallace7305/24/2008

Montin--

I'd like to see your French edition list in Excel. Thanks

montin06/23/2008

My list is on-line at
http://membres.lycos.fr/chmontin/documents/
And is called liste 1001 français.xls
Under construction, watch that space !
montin@coditel.net

shadygrove05/23/2008

All 6 Jane Austens seems a little slavish. Leaving off Northanger Abbey would leave room for another worthy book.
No Barbara Pym? Even if you think novels have to be about anomie and dreariness, it might be helpful in sorting them out, to have an idea of their oppsite.
And if they had to scrape up poetry, fables & whatever to have any list at all for pre-1700, why leave out Tale of Genji?

dm1000305/23/2008

let's remember it reflects a british literary taste. waterstone, an english bookstore, put out a list of the best fiction of the century in 2000 and it included some odd and unfamilar stuff. "crome yellow" by huxley never gets mentioned in the states and it was the best book of it's publishing year. an american version would be at least 30% different i'd bet.

Slothrop3305/23/2008

Your list is linked to a NYTimes article today!

karasik05/23/2008

Nothing by Louise Erdrich? Are you kidding?

freic3905/24/2008

I'm pleased to see many of my favorites but was hoping to see
the Nobel Prize Winner Sigrid Undseth for her wonderful trilogy
Kristin Lavransdatter.

beatriz05/24/2008

More typos: Under "The Princess of Clèves," "MadelAine" should be "MadelEine"; FrançoisE Rabelais should be François (he was not a woman). Sorry to be picky but if people actually go looking for these authors, they should have the correct spelling handy.

jenner05/25/2008

Any good librarian would help anyone find an author if it's just a matter of an "a" v. an "e" or an accent mark. I wouldn't worry so much about it.

lukemw05/26/2008

one big issue with the list: why is beowulf not included?

rjb06/12/2008

And not just Beowulf! Why are only 13 books written before 1700 included in the list? Are we to assume that the entire period between the invention of writing and the birth of Aphra Behn were a mere waste of labour? Fie! Where are Chaucer, Dante, and Bocaccio? Where Homer and Aeschylus? Where Gilgamesh? Where Shakespeare? Where the Bible?

This whole exercise is so mind-bogglingly stupid that it makes me want to fling my computer out the window in speechless rage.

Gaspard06/14/2008

The idea of a list is fine but why then leave out George Bernard Shaw or Tanizaki ?
You could have done Great Detective stories or All-fiction or had a documentary section.
Does anybody out there have the courage to do a Great Authors list and just give one or two names of books ? In that cas I would love to see it and find out what i've missed. The idea of one or two names of books is just so as to sound intelligent in the bookshop.
Thanks in advance

HMoseley06/25/2008

Why leave out George Bernard Shaw?

Apparently, Shaw was omitted because drama was omitted.

Shaw wrote plays. Note the absence of Shakespeare, O'Neill, Ibsen, Tennessee Williams, Durrenmatt, and other major dramatists.

trionon07/14/2008

some seriously odd omissions....for instance why is "Mother" by Gorky so significant but no mention of his epic "Life of Klim Samgin"? Where is Pushkin's "Evgeny Onegin" for that matter, other acclaimed past and modern Russian (and Soviet) works such as Ilf & Petrov's "12 Chairs" and "Little Golden Calf", Ludmila Ulitskaya's "Kukotsky's Case" and "Sonechka"... Far too generous with Jane Austen but I'd much rather see in that list "Constant Nymph" by Margaret Kennedy, "Falling" by EJ Howard, "Half Broken Things" and "Puccini's Ghost" by Morag Joss. Why no mention "Three in a Boat" by JK Jerome? Where is Dante's "Divine Comedy", Moliere, Homer's "Iliad", Shakespeare???? Is "Murder of Roger Ackroyd" really the best of Agatha Christie, how about "Ten Little Niggers" (before the PC madness)? I would also like to include "Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, "Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" by Sue Townsend, Thomass Moore's "Utopia", Checkov's "Bet", works by Akunin, C.S. Lewis...to name a few

banquo08/31/2008

I'd reccomend Roberto Bolaño, Herman Broch, Fernando Vallejo, Par Lagerqvist, Gombrowicz, Milosz, Pamuk, Montherlant, Malraux...not to mention others that are out of the list

tobyhubner10/14/2008

I recently found this book in the American Library in Paris. But I quickly put it down. Why? Because missing from their list is ANY book by Jim Harrison, the American author, and arguably the greatest living American writer. But then I understood. Boxall and Ackroyd are Brits. And we know about the Brits don't we, especially their writers, who have to be SO clever and load EVERY sentence with such cleverness that the books become unreadable cuteness. Except Le Carre. Note Boxall's "new" book, Den DeLillo and The Possibility of Fiction. Is that typical Brit clever incomprehensible nonsense? I rest my case.

Nance12/31/2008

I don't understand the choice of Labyrinths AND Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges. I mean, in Wikipedia they say Labyrinths is an anthology that contain the most famous works of Ficciones and El Aleph. Then why in the 1001 list not put Ficciones and El Aleph OR only Labyrinths?

Escaped Goat01/07/2009

I guess at the end of the day everyone has their own taste and no one will ever be happy with the final list. From what I gather the aurthor is british and the list has most likley stemed from years of reading based on his own reading and most likely study. I for example am 22year old Australian female, I failed english in grade 10 and left school in the early part of grade 11. I would have on my own list of must read books, which would include books that i have already read, for example most books by John Marsden an excellent australian writer for teenagers, and many works by Nicholas Sparkes. Any book (novel) that takes the reader out of their own world and makes them feel like they are in another would be a must for me. However I would have to say that most of these books do not differ from a bar of soap to me personally on the basis that i have never heard of them. so I imagine that the book from which this list was derived is quite esential in the fact that it tells you why it was picked and most likely gives you a brief outline of the plot. I however have not much intension of reading quite that many books in my life time. However from the list I may draw up a list of my own and try to focus on those. I think that perhaps the problem many readers have with this list and the lack of their particularly favorite writers is that less of the books they have already read are on the list and therefore they they have read a smaller percentage of the 1001 books you must read before you die, than they had hoped. Personally I believe that the person who has read all 1001 books would be a fearsome sight to see for sure.

azrael31401/19/2009

I like this list, and there are a lot of great books on it, but there seem to be an inordinate amount of books from the 1900's. I mean 715 out of the 1001 books to read before you die seems just a bit much.

mgt02/11/2009

There is now a website for the book (as well as the other 1001s), so feel free to visit the forum and continue the discussions there:
www.1001beforeyoudie.com

Too much Philip Roth? Too much Coetzee? Did we get Houellebecq's date of birth wrong? Why is Houellebecq in the book in the first place?
Or, have any suggestions for books to add to an updated edition?
Make a suggestion, or just have a rant about the all of the missing classics...

AngelofMusic03/21/2009

Why isn't Frankenstein included?!

kenavl10/08/2009

Frankenstein is on the list. It is #931.

Cossy07/15/2009

This is a great list and I've barely made a dent in it. One thing that makes me nervous, however, is the listing of The Shining by Stephen King. That might be one of his worst books. I wonder if the author of this list felt inclined to include The Shining because it inspired such a fantastic movie. Unfortunately, Stanley Kubrik even stated that The Shining was a lousy book and he made the movie only because he liked the imagery so much. Also, Interview With A Vampire? That book was really cheesy.

Ionut10/03/2009

Great list indeed, but, at the first glance, I don't see anywhere Goethe - Faust and Dante - Divine Comedy. These books should be in the top of the "must read"s

theotherworldly10/07/2009

Hi, I think it's "Ada or Ardor" for the Vladimir Nabokov novel, and it's "Blue of Noon" by Georges Bataille. Thanks for the list, it's fantastic because it gives me a direction as to the new stuff -- I've been stuck in the 1900s for a realy long time.

lawniemower12/24/2009

I am offically going to try to read as many of these as a i can.

jlk7e12/26/2009

I agree that leaving out the Tale of Genji is just totally ridiculous. In addition, all the classic Chinese novels have also been excluded - Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber, Water Margin, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms should all be on the list, in my view. And modern Japanese novels also seem rather under-represented. Where are Abe, Tanizaki, and Kawabata?

The poetry and fables thing is also rather weird. If you're going to include poems, wouldn't the Iliad and the Odyssey, which actually tell stories that are arguably novelistic (especially the Odyssey) make a lot more sense than the Metamorphoses, which is just a series of loosely connected stories from mythology in verse?

Some of the selections for later authors are also odd - including "The Monastery" for Scott but excluding "Waverley" and "The Heart of Midlothian"? Including "Castle Richmond" for Trollope but excluding "Barchester Towers" and "The Way We Live Now"? "Martin Chuzzlewit" but not "The Pickwick Papers"?

I'd add that any list of 1001 novels "you must read before you die" should really not be comprised of 40% novels from the last 40 years. If there's anything that's clear from a review of literary history, it's that our judgment of what's going to last is often quite bad.

The Telegraph's 1900 list of the best novels of all time should be illustrative of this - writers with multiple books on the list include William Harrison Ainsworth, James Grant, Charles Kingsley, Charles Lever, Samuel Lover, Bulwer Lytton, Captain Marryat, Charles Reade, Michael Scott, and G. J. Whyte-Melville, several of whom I've never even heard of. For Dickens they include The Old Curiosity Shop and Martin Chuzzlewit, but not David Copperfield, Bleak House, or Great Expectations. The only Trollope novel is Orley Farm. There's three by Thackeray, but no Vanity Fair. For George Eliot, they only have Scenes of Clerical Life, not even a novel. Wuthering Heights is missing, and no Stevenson, Hardy, James. Their selection of non-British novels is even worse - they have Anna Karenina, but no War and Peace, nothing by Dostoyevsky or any other Russian writer. For the French, no Stendhal, no Zola, no Flaubert. Basically, the list did not stand the test of time at all. And that was an attempt to do 100 novels, and included several books from before the nineteenth century, when one would think critical taste would have hardened a bit more. This list is of 1000, and half of them are from the last 50 years. Does anybody think that even 10% of the books they list from that period are really going to have any staying power? What are the chances that "Everything Is Illuminated," "The Pigeon," and "The Swimming Pool Library" are really going to stand up better than such not-included works as Pickwick Papers, Barchester Towers, and Waverley, which have all remained popular for a century and a half or more? Or, for that matter, than the Tale of Genji and the Chinese classics, which have been around even longer? Obviously, a book like this shouldn't just be a boring list of universally recognized classics. But, even so, the balance seems wrong.

Another irritating thing is the lack of short story collections. Somehow they have two by Borges, but can't see fit to include Dubliners or In Our Time. Hands up everybody who thinks Colm Toibin's "The Heather Blazing" is more important than Dubliners or that Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke" is more important than any or all Hemingway short story collections. To say nothing of Hawthorne and Chekhov - the former is only represented by his novels, and the latter not at all. Also, if you're allowed to include collections, why do we have three separate Poe short stories as distinct entries? Why not combine them into "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" or "Collected Stories" and make room for two other books?

Anyway, a lot of this is nit-picking - coming up with a list of 1000 books that will satisfy everyone is impossible, and I commend the book's authors for trying.

FeedingtheDragon12/29/2009

Hamlet - first and foremost. If there is a single work in literature that one should read to be "cultured" it is Hamlet.
Snow by Orhan Pamuk - which, in my opinion, is one of the finest books of the decade. It is a beautiful and tragic composition.
Gilead by Marilynn Robinson...the book won here a Pulitzer Prize...it's a gorgeous book.
There is nothing by Richard Russo, and no body has mentioned Richard Russo, which is a shame. Empire Falls, especially, which also won a Pulitzer.
-Sure, the Pulitzer certainly isn't a keynote, objective look at "literary merit" but it does *help*
Where the hell are:
-Alice In Wonderland
-Chronicles of Narnia
-Dune
-Ender's Game
-His Dark Materials
-Kite Runner
-The Prince
-The Republic

I could go on and on. I'm sure there are lots of books on the list that don't deserve to be there, also?

I certainly don't see any sort of objectivity. I would rank Ulysses near the top of the list...it's one of the finest novels ever written. How is this list organized? What qualifications were used in selection and placement? The author of said book needs to examine literature a little more. Or maybe I just don't understand "good books."

lukeprog01/12/2010

ukaunz,

It seems this is the most popular list on Listology! How many views does it have?

Marquee01/12/2010

lolwtf.

even in my drunken state I can find that out.

WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE A BOT.

ukaunz02/04/2010

Wow!!! I'm amazed at the popularity of this list. Most people do realise I didn't "write" it, right? I just typed it up from the book. A "bibliography" was included in the author's note, but maybe some people miss it? Anyway, thanks for all your comments! I haven't visited this site in AGES so it was quite amazing for me to see how often the list is visited/cloned/quoted - even a NY Times mention? (or did they just mention the book?). Personally, I don't think I'll read many of the books on the list. It would be interesting to compile one from the comments people have left.

P.S. I don't know if I'll ever have time to fix the typos, but thanks for spotting them.

mike k04/22/2010

this list gives the impression that must read material only originates from the west.
So unfortunate that people who have a literary era identified with their work,namely the BOOM such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Ernesto Sabato are not included. Too bad for those people that look at these sorts of lists to actually find good books.

Zagzaga04/28/2010

This list meets my expectations.
Thanks to all who spent their time on it. And to the one who posted.
Will be back as soon as I read them all. See you all in 10-15 years.

Arukiyomi05/02/2010

hey all... been following some of the more recent comments. Firstly, ukaunz's list here is from the original 1st edition of the list published in 2006. Many of the concerns some of you have voiced that the list is biased to WASP writers were dealt with in the 2008 release when 282 of these books were replaced to make it more authoritative of world literature.

In March 2010, a third edition was released. 11 books were added/removed, all published in the last 2 years.

ukaunz was my inspiration: from the list here, I created a spreadsheet to help you track your progress with the list. This has been downloaded well over 40,000 times!

In late March 2010, I released a brand new v4 of this spreadsheet to coincide with the 3rd edition of the book. To get yours, head to http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?page_id=1806

bugnotme05/17/2010

One book I think is a nice addition to this fantastic list is Pop-splat, by South African author Ian Martin.
It is one of the few books I've ever read that really made me think and completely changed my view of society and how the world operates. Surprising, given the deceptively simple story: a wealthy businessman is murdered in yet another Johannesburg hijacking. The disturbed son thinks something fishy is on the go and decides to investigate. This precipitates a violent, over-the-top but also funny hell-ride across the country.
Sure, the narrative is entertaining and the book is easy to read as it's saturated with sick humour and violence. But on another level it is jam-packed with so many ideas that after I put the book down I spent a week digesting it all. Martin challenges everything from SUV drivers to religious fanatics to private schools and overpopulation. A lot of the ideas are subtly blended into the action in a comical way. For instance, during a violent break-in Martin uses the opportunity to attack snobbish art connoisseurs, calling a Madonna and Child painting 'Prostitute with baboon fetus.'
It's a weird combination - over-the-top, Quentin Tarantino-like thrills with world-changing ideas. But it really works.
To get an idea of the tone of the book, this is what the dedication says: "This book is dedicated to the youth in the hope they will reject the crappy values of their parents."
You can also get excerpts and the first chapter here: www.pop-splat.co.za

Arukiyomi06/01/2010

pop-splat ain't on the list... this comment is bogus...

adamabbott03/07/2011

There are two spelling mistakes in the first paragraph on the webpage. Doesn't bode well.

MeghanKate8707/12/2010

I actually am on a mission to watch all of the movies in the 1001 Movies book, the 5th edition. If you want to check out my blog please feel free! http://meliestowright.blogspot.com/ It has been only a few months and I know it's a slow start but getting through the silent films seems to be a killer. I am watching them in the order they are in, in the book.

bugnotme09/07/2010

Of course Pop-splat isn't on the list but would make a nice addition to it. If it was up to me I'd put it up there with 'Choke' as Chuck and Ian are similar authors.

Nimbette201/31/2011

Okay, so I have read 4.3% of the books on the list and if I read 30 a year to get to the 1001...I will be 69 years old (32 years from now) by the time I am done - yikes!

I am very disappointed Tale of Genji is not on here. It is first novel turned classic. Also, the Bible even if you are not Christian..it still is an interesting read. Phantom of the Opera,Camilla (the vampire novel), The Good Earth, Chronicles of Narnia.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was a creative genius if you ever read all his series. Tarzan has 25 books, which are great. BUT, no mention of his Barsoom (MARS) series...I love, love it and has its merits.

With so much literature floating around how can you really pin down a list and have everyone agree with it? We all like so many different things.

I also see the new 2010 list does have some updates to it.

Nimbette202/02/2011

Hi Georg12 = which ones have you read? Just curious.
Camilla above I meant Carmilla...first female vampire novel and a classic also.

aramini02/02/2011

Okay, I've read about 230 of these and I have to say there's a lot of repetition and some downright bad books on there, like listing multiple Adams stuff (Dirk Gently) multiple Beckett things that all have the same banal philosophy, and multiple Rabbit Updike books.

Having said that good list but we need the collected Shakespeare on there! And since SFnal type works like Peake and even Ballard are on there, its unforgivable that Gene Wolfe's Sun books are not on there, books better and more literate and carefully constructed than 228 of the other books on here I have read. Thank God Tristram Shandy is there, and Mishima, but Wolfe really really has to be there if such curmudgeonly unimpressive speculative porn fiction like Crash is.

listologylisa04/20/2011

Btw I also can recommend the following 4 books:

Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

All of them are really good reads to, sometimes it takes a while to get into the matter but they are very good.

simple00705/24/2011

simply good and very nice article.. Great share Many thanks

eriflame06/08/2011

WHERE IS HARRY POTTER?

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"1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"

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