1,000 Books to Read Before You Die

“The ultimate literary bucket list. . . . 948 pages later, you still want more!” —The Washington Post

Celebrate 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 offers an eclectic collection of works—a celebration of the glorious mosaic that is our literary heritage.

Flip it open to any page and be transfixed by a fresh take on a very favorite book. Or come across a title you always meant to read and never got around to. Or, like browsing in the best kind of bookshop, stumble on a completely unknown author and work, and feel that tingle of discovery. There are classics, of course, and unexpected treasures, too. Lists to help pick and choose, like “Offbeat Escapes,” or “A Long Climb, but What a View.”

There are nuts and bolts, too—best editions to read, other books by the author, “if you like this, you’ll like that” recommendations. Add it all up, and in fact there are more than six thousand titles by nearly four thousand authors mentioned—a life-changing list for a lifetime of reading.

“If there’s a heaven just for readers, this is it.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“A invocation of the pleasures to be had from many kinds of books.” —David Denby, staff writer,The New Yorker and author of Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World