1,000 Books to Read Before You Die

In an attempt to branch out and read books that I wouldn’t normally try (I’m very much a science fiction / fantasy sort of reader, with a bit of literary fiction mixed in), I’m utilizing the book “1,000 Books to Read Before You Die” by James Mustich. Sometimes I pick them books completely at random, sometimes I pick ones that just look like fun. Eventually, though, I’d like to read them all.

I figure it’ll take me 15 or 20 years.

While I certainly wouldn’t pick some of these books for my Top 1,000, and while there are certainly books that I think ought to be on this list but aren’t, it serves as a worthwhile goal.

001 – Desert Solitaire – Edward Abbey
002 – Flatland – Edwin A. Abbott
003 – Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
004 – My Dog Tulip – J. R. Ackerley
005 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
006 – The Education of Henry Adams – Henry Adams
007 – Watership Down – Richard Adams
008 – Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
009 – The Oresteia – Aeschylus
010 – Let Us Now Praise Famous Men – James Agee
011 – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – Edward Albee
012 – Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
013 – The Book of Three – Lloyd Alexander
014 – The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
015 – Voices from Chernobyl – Svetlana Alexievich
016 – The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
017 – Skellig – David Almond
018 – A Coffin for Dimitrios – Eric Ambler
019 – Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
020 – Fairy Tales – Hans Christian Andersen
021 – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
022 – The Arabian Nights – Anonymous
023 – Beowulf – Anonymous
024 – Bhagavad Gita – Anonymous
025 – The Bible – Anonymous
026 – The Book of Common Prayer – Anonymous
027 – The Book of Job – Anonymous
028 – The Epic of Gilgamesh – Anonymous
029 – The Sagas of Icelanders – Anonymous
030 – Tao Te Ching – Anonymous
031 – The Clouds – Aristophanes
032 – Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle
033 – Old Herbaceous – Reginald Arkell
034 – Study Is Hard Work – William H. Armstrong
035 – Foundation (The Foundation Trilogy) – Isaac Asimov
036 – Foundation and Empire (The Foundation Trilogy) – Isaac Asimov
037 – Second Foundation (The Foundation Trilogy) – Isaac Asimov
038 – Instead of a Letter – Diana Athill
039 – Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
040 – Aubrey’s Brief Lives – John Aubrey
041 – Confessions – Saint Augustine
042 – Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
043 – Emma – Jane Austen
044 – Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
045 – Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
046 – Persuasion – Jane Austen
047 – Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
048 – Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
049 – Tuck Everlasting – Natalie Babbitt
050 – The Baburnama – Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur

051 – The Poetics of Space – Gaston Bachelard
052 – The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution – Bernard Bailyn
053 – The Birthday Boys – Beryl Bainbridge
054 – The Mezzanine – Nicholson Baker
055 – Growing Up – Russell Baker
056 – Collected Essays – James Baldwin
057 – Slaves in the Family – Edward Ball
058 – The Drowned World – J. G. Ballard
059 – Lost Illusions – Honoré De Balzac
060 – Père Goriot – Honoré De Balzac
061 – The Wild Ass’s Skin – Honoré De Balzac
062 – The Sweet Hereafter – Russell Banks
063 – The Journal of a Disappointed Man – W. N. P. Barbellion
064 – Laughing in the Hills – Bill Barich
065 – The Eye in the Door (The Regeneration Trilogy) – Pat Barker
066 – The Ghost Road (The Regeneration Trilogy) – Pat Barker
067 – Regeneration (The Regeneration Trilogy) – Pat Barker
068 – Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
069 – Peter and Wendy – J. M. Barrie
070 – The Sot-Weed Factor – John Barth
071 – The Narrow Road to the Deep North – Bashō
072 – Samuel Johnson – W. Jackson Bate
073 – The Flowers of Evil – Charles Baudelaire
074 – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum
075 – The Feast of Love – Charles Baxter
076 – Vacuum Diagrams – Stephen Baxter
077 – The Coming of Age – Simone De Beauvoir
078 – Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter – Simone De Beauvoir
079 – The Second Sex – Simone De Beauvoir
080 – Fun Home – Alison Bechdel
081 – Love, Loss, and What I Wore – Ilene Beckerman
082 – Company – Samuel Beckett
083 – Molloy – Samuel Beckett
084 – Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett
085 – The Hills is Lonely – Lillian Beckwith
086 – The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
087 – Madeline – Ludwig Bemelmans
088 – The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett
089 – No Picnic on Mount Kenya – Felice Benuzzi
090 – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – John Berendt
091 – A Fortunate Man – John Berger
092 – The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz – Hector Berlioz
093 – The Diary of a Country Priest – Georges Bernanos
094 – All the President’s Men – Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
095 – The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
096 – The Outermost House – Henry Beston
097 – American Prometheus – Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
098 – The Complete Poems, 1927–1979 – Elizabeth Bishop
099 – Friday Night Lights – H. G. Bissinger
100 – The Emperor’s Last Island – Julia Blackburn

301 – Justine (The Alexandria Quartet) – Lawrence Durrell
302 – Darwin Among the Machines – George Dyson
303 – The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
304 – The Worm Ouroboros – E. R. Eddison
305 – Bright Air, Brilliant Fire – Gerald M. Edelman
306 – The Book of Ebenezer Le Page – G. B. Edwards
307 – A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
308 – Travels with Lizbeth – Lars Eighner
309 – The Immense Journey – Loren Eiseley
310 – Middlemarch – George Eliot
311 – Four Quartets – T. S. Eliot
312 – Founding Brothers – Joseph J. Ellis
313 – Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
314 – Essays and Lectures – Ralph Waldo Emerson
315 – Crazy Salad – Nora Ephron
316 – Praise of Folly – Desiderius Erasmus
317 – The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
318 – Alcestis – Euripides
319 – The Bacchae – Euripides
320 – Medea – Euripides
321 – The Trojan Women – Euripides
322 – A Fan’s Notes – Frederick Exley
323 – The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down – Anne Fadiman
324 – The Chemical History of a Candle – Michael Faraday
325 – Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
326 – As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
327 – Light in August – William Faulkner
328 – The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
329 – A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor
330 – My Brilliant Friend (The Neapolitan Novels) – Elena Ferrante
331 – The Story of a New Name (The Neapolitan Novels) – Elena Ferrante
332 – The Story of the Lost Child (The Neapolitan Novels) – Elena Ferrante
333 – Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (The Neapolitan Novels) – Elena Ferrante
334 – Coming of Age in the Milky Way – Timothy Ferris
335 – QED – Richard P. Feynman
336 – The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling – Henry Fielding
337 – Time and Again – Jack Finney
338 – The Art of Eating – M. F. K. Fisher
339 – The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
340 – Tender Is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
341 – Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald
342 – Harriet the Spy – Louise Fitzhugh
343 – Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
344 – Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
345 – From Russia with Love – Ian Fleming
346 – Brazilian Adventure – Peter Fleming
347 – Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
348 – The Civil War – Shelby Foote
349 – Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
350 – The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford

351 – Independence Day – Richard Ford
352 – Flour Water Salt Yeast – Ken Forkish
353 – A Passage to India – E. M. Forster
354 – The Day of the Jackal – Frederick Forsyth
355 – A Dictionary of Modern English Usage – H. W. Fowler
356 – The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
357 – The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
358 – My Brilliant Career – Miles Franklin
359 – Flashman – George MacDonald Fraser
360 – My Father’s Fortune – Michael Frayn
361 – The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud
362 – The Feminine Mystique – Betty Friedan
363 – The Poetry of Robert Frost – Robert Frost
364 – Critical Path – R. Buckminster Fuller
365 – The Recognitions – William Gaddis
366 – A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest J. Gaines
367 – The Great Crash, 1929 – John Kenneth Galbraith
368 – The Spare Room – Helen Garner
369 – Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
370 – The Glass Palace – Amitav Ghosh
371 – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbon
372 – Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
373 – A Mass for the Dead – William Gibson
374 – Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
375 – Howl and Other Poems – Allen Ginsberg
376 – The Little Virtues – Natalia Ginzburg
377 – Passing the Time in Ballymenone – Henry Glassie
378 – Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol
379 – Lord of the Flies – William Golding
380 – Darwin’s Dreampond – Tijs Goldschmidt
381 – Oblomov – Ivan Goncharov
382 – The Goncourt Journal – Edmond de Goncourt
383 – There Is a World Elsewhere – F. González-Crussi
384 – The Panda’s Thumb – Stephen Jay Gould
385 – Personal History – Katharine Graham
386 – The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
387 – Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant – Ulysses S. Grant
388 – The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
389 – Good-Bye to All That – Robert Graves
390 – Autobiography of a Face – Lucy Grealy
391 – The Dead of the House – Hannah Green
392 – The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
393 – The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
394 – The Third Man – Graham Greene
395 – Grimm’s Tales for Young and Old – Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
396 – The Firm – John Grisham
397 – Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman
398 – Time and the Art of Living – Robert Grudin
399 – The Little World of Don Camillo – Giovanni Guareschi
400 – Hiroshima Diary – Michihiko Hachiya

401 – I Was a Stranger – Sir John Winthrop Hackett
402 – The All of It – Jeannette Haien
403 – The Best and the Brightest – David Halberstam
404 – String Too Short to Be Saved – Donald Hall
405 – A Drinking Life – Pete Hamill
406 – The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
407 – A Romantic Education – Patricia Hampl
408 – Hunger – Knut Hamsun
409 – A Sorrow Beyond Dreams – Peter Handke
410 – 84, Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff
411 – Sleepless Nights – Elizabeth Hardwick
412 – Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
413 – The Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris
414 – Forests – Robert Pogue Harrison
415 – Act One – Moss Hart
416 – The Essential Haiku – Robert Hass
417 – The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
418 – Tales and Sketches – Nathaniel Hawthorne
419 – Adam’s Task – Vicki Hearne
420 – Blue Highways – William Least Heat-Moon
421 – Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert A. Heinlein
422 – Something Happened – Joseph Heller
423 – Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
424 – A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
425 – In Our Time – Ernest Hemingway
426 – The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
427 – Dune – Frank Herbert
428 – Histories – Herodotus
429 – Dispatches – Michael Herr
430 – Zen in the Art of Archery – Eugen Herrigel
431 – All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot
432 – My Past and Thoughts – Alexander Herzen
433 – The Glass Bead Game – Hermann Hesse
434 – An Infamous Army – Georgette Heyer
435 – Kon-Tiki – Thor Heyerdahl
436 – The Destruction of Lord Raglan – Christopher Hibbert
437 – The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
438 – Goodbye, Mr. Chips – James Hilton
439 – A Rage in Harlem – Chester Himes
440 – The Mouse and His Child – Russell Hoban
441 – Alan Turing: The Enigma – Andrew Hodges
442 – Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House – Eric Hodgins
443 – Gödel, Escher, Bach – Douglas R. Hofstadter
444 – Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
445 – One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji – Katsushika Hokusai
446 – The Holmes-Laski Letters – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
447 – Dr. Johnson and Mr. Savage – Richard Holmes
448 – Footsteps – Richard Holmes
449 – The Iliad – Homer
450 – The Odyssey – Homer

451 – The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins – Gerard Manley Hopkins
452 – The Odes of Horace – Horace
453 – Great River – Paul Horgan
454 – Ten Years in the Tub – Nick Hornby
455 – Rogue Male – Geoffrey Household
456 – We Die Alone – David Howarth
457 – World of Our Fathers – Irving Howe
458 – A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes
459 – The Fatal Shore – Robert Hughes
460 – Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
461 – The Autumn of the Middle Ages – Johan Huizinga
462 – Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
463 – Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
464 – In the Vineyard of the Text – Ivan Illich
465 – The World According to Garp – John Irving
466 – The Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood
467 – The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
468 – The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
469 – Life Among the Savages – Shirley Jackson
470 – The Death and Life of Great American Cities – Jane Jacobs
471 – Beyond a Boundary – C. L. R. James
472 – Cultural Amnesia – Clive James
473 – The Aspern Papers – Henry James
474 – The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
475 – The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James – M. R. James
476 – A Taste for Death – P. D. James
477 – The Selected Letters of William James – William James
478 – The Varieties of Religious Experience – William James
479 – The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind – Julian Jaynes
480 – Heat and Dust – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
481 – Harold and the Purple Crayon – Crockett Johnson
482 – A Johnson Reader – Samuel Johnson
483 – A False Spring – Pat Jordan
484 – Dubliners – James Joyce
485 – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
486 – Ulysses – James Joyce
487 – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
488 – Memories, Dreams, Reflections – C. G. Jung
489 – The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
490 – The Complete Stories – Franz Kafka
491 – The Trial – Franz Kafka
492 – The Boys of Summer – Roger Kahn
493 – When French Women Cook – Madeleine Kamman
494 – Andersonville – MacKinlay Kantor
495 – The Liars’ Club – Mary Karr
496 – The Perfect Stranger – P. J. Kavanagh
497 – Palm-of-the-Hand Stories – Yasunari Kawabata
498 – The Greek Passion – Nikos Kazantzakis
499 – Letters of John Keats – John Keats
500 – The Face of Battle – John Keegan

501 – The Secret of the Old Clock – Carolyn Keene
502 – A Dresser of Sycamore Trees – Garret Keizer
503 – The Story of My Life – Helen Keller
504 – Part of Our Time – Murray Kempton
505 – A Boy at the Hogarth Press – Richard Kennedy
506 – Talking Like the Rain – X. J. Kennedy
507 – The Pound Era – Hugh Kenner
508 – On the Road – Jack Kerouac
509 – The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard – Søren Kierkegaard
510 – Kilvert’s Diary – Francis Kilvert
511 – Why We Can’t Wait – Martin Luther King Jr.
512 – 11/22/1963 – Stephen King
513 – Carrie – Stephen King
514 – The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
515 – Just So Stories for Little Children – Rudyard Kipling
516 – Old House of Fear – Russell Kirk
517 – Death of My Aunt – C. H. B. Kitchin
518 – The Oldest Dead White European Males – Bernard Knox
519 – From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – E. L. Konigsburg
520 – Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer
521 – A Hole Is to Dig – Ruth Krauss
522 – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas S. Kuhn
523 – The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
524 – Angels in America – Tony Kushner
525 – A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
526 – Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
527 – The Princess of Clèves – Madame de Lafayette
528 – The Dwarf – Pär Lagerkvist
529 – Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri
530 – Notes on a Cowardly Lion – John Lahr
531 – The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
532 – Endurance – Alfred Lansing
533 – Sons and Lovers – D. H. Lawrence
534 – Gardening for Love – Elizabeth Lawrence
535 – Independent People – Halldór Laxness
536 – The Spy Who Came In from the Cold – John le Carré
537 – A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. Le Guin
538 – To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
539 – Cider with Rosie – Laurie Lee
540 – Another Self – James Lees-Milne
541 – Two Sought Adventure – Fritz Leiber
542 – The Cyberiad – Stanislaw Lem
543 – Friends in High Places – Donna Leon
544 – LaBrava – Elmore Leonard
545 – Zibaldone – Giacomo Leopardi
546 – The Book of Ages – Jill Lepore
547 – The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
548 – The Grass Is Singing – Doris Lessing
549 – Re: Colonised Planet 5: Shikasta – Doris Lessing
550 – The Gentleman in Trollope – Shirley Robin Letwin

551 – Tristes Tropiques – Claude Lévi-Strauss
552 – Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
553 – If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
554 – Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin
555 – A Grief Observed – C. S. Lewis
556 – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
557 – The Journals of Lewis and Clark – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
558 – Liar’s Poker – Michael Lewis
559 – Voices of the Old Sea – Norman Lewis
560 – Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
561 – Between Meals – A. J. Liebling
562 – Einstein’s Dreams – Alan Lightman
563 – Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings – Abraham Lincoln
564 – Venice for Pleasure – J. G. Links
565 – Complete Stories – Clarice Lispector
566 – The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle – Hugh Lofting
567 – The Call of the Wild – Jack London
568 – The Art of the Personal Essay – Phillip Lopate
569 – Arctic Dreams – Barry Lopez
570 – Man Meets Dog – Konrad Lorenz
571 – The Case of Charles Dexter Ward – H. P. Lovecraft
572 – Betsy-Tacy – Maud Hart Lovelace
573 – Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
574 – The Way Things Are – Lucretius
575 – The Bourne Identity – Robert Ludlum
576 – The Story of My Teeth – Valeria Luiselli
577 – Five Days in London – John Lukacs
578 – Adventures on the Wine Route – Kermit Lynch
579 – The Undertaking – Thomas Lynch
580 – The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters – George Lyttelton and Rupert Hart-Davis
581 – Leo Africanus – Amin Maalouf
582 – The Towers of Trebizond – Rose Macaulay
583 – Anybody Can Do Anything – Betty MacDonald
584 – Epitaph of a Small Winner – Joaquim María Machado de Assis
585 – The Prince – Niccolò Machiavelli
586 – Whisky Galore – Compton Mackenzie
587 – Eastern Approaches – Fitzroy Maclean
588 – Confessions of a Philosopher – Bryan Magee
589 – The Armies of the Night – Norman Mailer
590 – The Executioner’s Song – Norman Mailer
591 – Kaputt – Curzio Malaparte
592 – In the Freud Archives – Janet Malcolm
593 – A Book of One’s Own – Thomas Mallon
594 – The Voices of Silence – André Malraux
595 – Goodbye, Darkness – William Manchester
596 – Hope Against Hope – Nadezhda Mandelstam
597 – Ongoingness – Sarah Manguso
598 – The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
599 – A Place of Greater Safety – Hilary Mantel
600 – Mystery Train – Greil Marcus

601 – The Infatuations – Javier Marías
602 – West with the Night – Beryl Markham
603 – One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
604 – The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel – Don Marquis
605 – The Roots of Civilization – Alexander Marshack
606 – Life of Pi – Yann Martel
607 – A Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin
608 – The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte – Karl Marx
609 – Nicholas and Alexandra – Robert K. Massie
610 – Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin
611 – A Genius in the Family – Hiram Percy Maxim
612 – Ring of Bright Water – Gavin Maxwell
613 – A Year in Provence – Peter Mayle
614 – The Road – Cormac McCarthy
615 – Make Way for Ducklings – Robert McCloskey
616 – Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
617 – The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
618 – Truman – David McCullough
619 – Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
620 – Plagues and Peoples – William H. McNeill
621 – Oranges – John McPhee
622 – The Rainbabies – Laura Krauss Melmed
623 – Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
624 – The Piazza Tales – Herman Melville
625 – The Metaphysical Club – Louis Menand
626 – A Mencken Chrestomathy – H. L. Mencken
627 – On the Shoulders of Giants – Robert K. Merton
628 – The Seven Storey Mountain – Thomas Merton
629 – The First Day on the Somme – Martin Middlebrook
630 – Autobiography of John Stuart Mill – John Stuart Mill
631 – A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller Jr.
632 – Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
633 – Black Spring – Henry Miller
634 – The House at Pooh Corner – A. A. Milne
635 – Winnie-the-Pooh – A. A. Milne
636 – Paradise Lost – John Milton
637 – Little Bear – Else Holmelund Minarik
638 – A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
639 – Up in the Old Hotel – Joseph Mitchell
640 – Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
641 – Hons and Rebels – Jessica Mitford
642 – The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
643 – House Made of Dawn – N. Scott Momaday
644 – Essays – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
645 – Anne of Green Gables – L. M. Montgomery
646 – Stormbringer – Michael Moorcock
647 – Judgment Night – C. L. Moore
648 – History: A Novel – Elsa Morante
649 – The Haunted Bookshop – Christopher Morley
650 – Parnassus on Wheels – Christopher Morley

651 – The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt – Edmund Morris
652 – Pax Britannica – Jan Morris
653 – Beloved – Toni Morrison
654 – Ill Met by Moonlight – W. Stanley Moss
655 – My First Summer in the Sierra – John Muir
656 – The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddhartha Mukherjee
657 – The Hunger Angel – Herta Müller
658 – Selected Stories, 1968–1994 – Alice Munro
659 – The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
660 – The Tale of Genji – Lady Murasaki Shikibu
661 – The Sea, the Sea – Iris Murdoch
662 – The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
663 – Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
664 – Speak, Memory – Vladimir Nabokov
665 – Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi
666 – A House for Mr. Biswas – V. S. Naipaul
667 – A Beautiful Mind – Sylvia Nasar
668 – The Women of Brewster Place – Gloria Naylor
669 – A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush – Eric Newby
670 – The Reckoning – Charles Nicholl
671 – Merry Hall – Beverley Nichols
672 – Portrait of a Marriage – Nigel Nicolson
673 – The Birth of Tragedy – Friedrich Nietzsche
674 – Ringworld – Larry Niven
675 – Mutiny on the Bounty – Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
676 – Dakota – Kathleen Norris
677 – Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
678 – The Little Red Chairs – Edna O’Brien
679 – At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
680 – Mrs. Adams in Winter – Michael O’Brien
681 – The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
682 – Complete Stories – Flannery O’Connor
683 – The Habit of Being – Flannery O’Connor
684 – Collected Stories – Frank O’Connor
685 – Are You Somebody? – Nuala O’Faolain
686 – Into the Heart of Borneo – Redmond O’Hanlon
687 – Long Day’s Journey into Night – Eugene O’Neill
688 – Dreams from My Father – Barack Obama
689 – The Book of Tea – Kakuzo Okakura
690 – The Famished Road – Ben Okri
691 – Tell Me a Riddle – Tillie Olsen
692 – The Origins of European Thought About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate – R. B. Onians
693 – War in Val D’Orcia – Iris Origo
694 – 1984 – George Orwell
695 – An Age Like This – George Orwell
696 – As I Please – George Orwell
697 – In Front of Your Nose – George Orwell
698 – My Country Right or Left – George Orwell
699 – Metamorphoses – Ovid
700 – The Village of Waiting – George Packer

701 – The Gnostic Gospels – Elaine Pagels
702 – The Cosmic Code – Heinz R. Pagels
703 – My Father’s Glory (Memoirs of a Provençal Childhood) – Marcel Pagnol
704 – My Mother’s Castle (Memoirs of a Provençal Childhood) – Marcel Pagnol
705 – The Portable Dorothy Parker – Dorothy Parker
706 – France and England in North America – Francis Parkman
707 – Pensées – Blaise Pascal
708 – Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
709 – Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
710 – Kiss the Girls – James Patterson
711 – Medieval in LA: A Fiction – Jim Paul
712 – Gormenghast (The Gormenghast Trilogy) – Mervyn Peake
713 – Titus Alone (The Gormenghast Trilogy) – Mervyn Peake
714 – Titus Groan (The Gormenghast Trilogy) – Mervyn Peake
715 – Book Lust – Nancy Pearl
716 – The Diary of Samuel Pepys – Samuel Pepys
717 – Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
718 – Most of the Most of S. J. Perelman – S. J. Perelman
719 – Giving Up the Gun – Noel Perrin
720 – A Reader’s Delight – Noel Perrin
721 – The Beast in the Nursery – Adam Phillips
722 – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig
723 – The Book of the City of Ladies – Christine de Pizan
724 – Collected Dialogues – Plato
725 – The Bogey Man – George Plimpton
726 – Letters of Pliny the Younger – Pliny the Younger
727 – Plutarch’s Lives – Plutarch
728 – Poetry and Tales – Edgar Allan Poe
729 – The Travels of Marco Polo – Marco Polo
730 – The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter – Katherine Anne Porter
731 – The World of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
732 – The Wicked Pavilion – Dawn Powell
733 – Heisenberg’s War – Thomas Powers
734 – A Glastonbury Romance – John Cowper Powys
735 – The House of Life – Mario Praz
736 – History of the Conquest of Mexico – William H. Prescott
737 – A Palpable God – Reynolds Price
738 – Clockers – Richard Price
739 – The Captive (In Search of Lost Time) – Marcel Proust
740 – The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time) – Marcel Proust
741 – The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time) – Marcel Proust
742 – Sodom and Gomorrah (In Search of Lost Time) – Marcel Proust
743 – Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time) – Marcel Proust
744 – Time Regained (In Search of Lost Time) – Marcel Proust
745 – Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time) – Marcel Proust
746 – The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
747 – Eugene Onegin – Alexander Pushkin
748 – Excellent Women – Barbara Pym
749 – Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
750 – Old Glory – Jonathan Raban

751 – Gargantua and Pantagruel – François Rabelais
752 – Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
753 – Sparkle and Spin – Ann and Paul Rand
754 – Citizen – Claudia Rankine
755 – Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
756 – The List of Books – Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish
757 – Period Piece – Gwen Raverat
758 – The Long Walk – Slavomir Rawicz
759 – Mumbo Jumbo – Ishmael Reed
760 – Village School – Miss Reed
761 – Tender at the Bone – Ruth Reichl
762 – All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
763 – Lenin’s Tomb – David Remnick
764 – A Judgement in Stone – Ruth Rendell
765 – Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
766 – Interview with the Vampire – Anne Rice
767 – Selected Poetry – Rainer Maria Rilke
768 – Illuminations – Arthur Rimbaud
769 – Midnight in Sicily – Peter Robb
770 – Gilead – Marilynne Robinson
771 – Hunger of Memory – Richard Rodriguez
772 – The Tuscan Year – Elizabeth Romer
773 – The Walls Came Tumbling Down – Henriette Roosenburg
774 – Explaining Hitler – Ron Rosenbaum
775 – Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
776 – American Pastoral – Philip Roth
777 – The Ghost Writer – Philip Roth
778 – The Medical Detectives – Berton Roueché
779 – Classic Crimes – W. N. Roughead
780 – Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
781 – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J. K. Rowling
782 – The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
783 – Guys and Dolls – Damon Runyon
784 – Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
785 – The Stones of Venice – John Ruskin
786 – The Longest Day – Cornelius Ryan
787 – Home – Witold Rybczynski
788 – Captain Blood – Rafael Sabatini
789 – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks
790 – All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville-West
791 – The Dragons of Eden – Carl Sagan
792 – The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
793 – Memoirs – Duc de Saint-Simon
794 – The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
795 – Light Years – James Salter
796 – Lost in Place – Mark Salzman
797 – Poems – Sappho
798 – No Exit – Jean-Paul Sartre
799 – The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston – Siegfried Sassoon
800 – The Complete Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi

801 – Landscape and Memory – Simon Schama
802 – Saint-Exupéry – Stacy Schiff
803 – Forms of Devotion – Diane Schoemperlen
804 – The Last of the Just – André Schwarz-Bart
805 – The Emigrants – W. G. Sebald
806 – Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak
807 – The Golden Gate – Vikram Seth
808 – The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara
809 – Henry IV, Part 1 – William Shakespeare
810 – Henry IV, Part 2 – William Shakespeare
811 – Henry V – William Shakespeare
812 – Julius Caesar – William Shakespeare
813 – King Lear – William Shakespeare
814 – Macbeth – William Shakespeare
815 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare
816 – Othello – William Shakespeare
817 – Richard II – William Shakespeare
818 – Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare
819 – The Sonnets – William Shakespeare
820 – The Tempest – William Shakespeare
821 – Hamlet – William Shakespeare
822 – Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters, 1874–1950 – George Bernard Shaw
823 – Pygmalion – George Bernard Shaw
824 – Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
825 – The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
826 – Berlin Diary – William L. Shirer
827 – The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon – Sei Shōnagon
828 – Bread and Wine – Ignazio Silone
829 – City – Clifford D. Simak
830 – Maigret and the Man on the Bench – Georges Simenon
831 – The Collected Stories – Isaac Bashevis Singer
832 – The Three Golden Keys – Peter Sis
833 – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
834 – Sailing Alone Around the World – Joshua Slocum
835 – Artful – Ali Smith
836 – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
837 – I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith
838 – Polar Star – Martin Cruz Smith
839 – A Simple Plan – Scott Smith
840 – Topper – Thorne Smith
841 – White Teeth – Zadie Smith
842 – The Expedition of Humphry Clinker – Tobias Smollett
843 – Longitude – Dava Sobel
844 – River of Shadows – Rebecca Solnit
845 – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
846 – The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
847 – Antigone – Sophocles
848 – Oedipus at Colonus – Sophocles
849 – Oedipus the King – Sophocles
850 – Aké – Wole Soyinka

851 – Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
852 – The Complete Maus – Art Spiegelman
853 – Corinne, or Italy – Madame de Staël
854 – The Valleys of the Assassins – Freya Stark
855 – Japanese Inn – Oliver Statler
856 – The Man Who Loved Children – Christina Stead
857 – A Woman, a Man, and Two Kingdoms – Francis Steegmuller
858 – Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
859 – Abel’s Island – William Steig
860 – The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
861 – The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
862 – Travels with Charley – John Steinbeck
863 – After Babel – George Steiner
864 – The Red and the Black – Stendhal
865 – Quicksilver – Neal Stephenson
866 – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman – Laurence Sterne
867 – A Child’s Garden of Verses – Robert Louis Stevenson
868 – Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
869 – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
870 – Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
871 – Letters of a Woman Homesteader – Elinor Pruitt Stewart
872 – Dracula – Bram Stoker
873 – Fer-de-Lance – Rex Stout
874 – Lost Boy, Lost Girl – Peter Straub
875 – Alice James: A Biography – Jean Strouse
876 – Morgan: American Financier – Jean Strouse
877 – Sophie’s Choice – William Styron
878 – The Twelve Caesars – Suetonius
879 – Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
880 – Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
881 – The Quest for Corvo – A. J. A. Symons
882 – Map: Collected and Last Poems – Wisława Szymborska
883 – The Annals (Histories of Rome) – Tacitus
884 – The Histories (Histories of Rome) – Tacitus
885 – Fame and Obscurity – Gay Talese
886 – This One Summer – Mariko and Jillian Tamaki
887 – The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
888 – The Secret History – Donna Tartt
889 – The Surprise of Cremona – Edith Templeton
890 – The Daughter of Time – Josephine Tey
891 – Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
892 – How to Tell When You’re Tired – Reg Theriault
893 – The Great Railway Bazaar – Paul Theroux
894 – Arabian Sands – Wilfred Thesiger
895 – Religion and the Decline of Magic – Keith Thomas
896 – The Lives of a Cell – Lewis Thomas
897 – On Growth and Form – D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson
898 – Lark Rise to Candleford – Flora Thompson
899 – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
900 – Eloise – Kay Thompson

901 – Walden – Henry David Thoreau
902 – The History of the Peloponnesian War – Thucydides
903 – The Thurber Carnival – James Thurber
904 – Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number – Jacobo Timerman
905 – Célestine – Gillian Tindall
906 – Her Smoke Rose Up Forever – James Tiptree Jr.
907 – Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville
908 – The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
909 – The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
910 – Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
911 – The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
912 – War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
913 – The Sea and the Jungle – H. M. Tomlinson
914 – Small Talk at Wreyland – Cecil Torr
915 – The Great Good Thing – Roderick Townley
916 – Centuries of Meditations – Thomas Traherne
917 – Garibaldi and the Thousand – George Macaulay Trevelyan
918 – The Hermit of Peking – Hugh Trevor-Roper
919 – The Collected Stories – William Trevor
920 – The Warden – Anthony Trollope
921 – Within the Context of No Context – George W. S. Trow
922 – The Guns of August – Barbara W. Tuchman
923 – Presumed Innocent – Scott Turow
924 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
925 – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
926 – Letters from the Earth – Mark Twain
927 – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant – Anne Tyler
928 – Life in Code – Ellen Ullman
929 – Kristin Lavransdatter – Sigrid Undset
930 – The Maples Stories – John Updike
931 – The Letters of Vincent van Gogh – Vincent van Gogh
932 – The Dying Earth – Jack Vance
933 – Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects – Giorgio Vasari
934 – Burr: A Novel – Gore Vidal
935 – The Aeneid – Virgil
936 – Candide, or Optimism – Voltaire
937 – Elizabeth and Her German Garden – Elizabeth von Arnim
938 – Italian Journey – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
939 – The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
940 – Faust – Wolfgang von Goethe
941 – Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
942 – Girl in Hyacinth Blue – Susan Vreeland
943 – Holy Land – D. J. Waldie
944 – The Color Purple – Alice Walker
945 – The Compleat Angler – Izaak Walton
946 – Among Others – Jo Walton
947 – The Boxcar Children – Gertrude Chandler Warner
948 – The Element of Lavishness – Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell
949 – Beautiful Swimmers – William W. Warner
950 – All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren

951 – Up from Slavery – Booker T. Washington
952 – The Double Helix – James D. Watson
953 – The Loved One – Evelyn Waugh
954 – A Coffin for King Charles – C. V. Wedgwood
955 – Simone Weil: An Anthology – Simone Weil
956 – The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells
957 – The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty – Eudora Welty
958 – Boggs: A Comedy of Values – Lawrence Weschler
959 – Black Lamb and Grey Falcon – Rebecca West
960 – The Hot Rock – Donald E. Westlake
961 – The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
962 – Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White
963 – The Once and Future King – T. H. White
964 – The Making of the President 1960 – Theodore H. White
965 – The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead
966 – Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman
967 – Night – Elie Wiesel
968 – Kaddish – Leon Wieseltier
969 – Collected Poems 1943–2004 – Richard Wilbur
970 – The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
971 – Little House in the Big Woods – Laura Ingalls Wilder
972 – The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
973 – Stoner – John Williams
974 – A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
975 – Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
976 – Lincoln at Gettysburg – Garry Wills
977 – Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls – Edmund Wilson
978 – Naturalist – Edward O. Wilson
979 – April 1865 – Jay Winik
980 – Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams – Lynne Withey
981 – Pigs Have Wings – P. G. Wodehouse
982 – Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
983 – The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
984 – The Common Reader – Virginia Woolf
985 – A Moment’s Liberty – Virginia Woolf
986 – Orlando – Virginia Woolf
987 – To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
988 – Prelude and Other Poetry – William Wordsworth
989 – Native Son – Richard Wright
990 – The Invention of Nature – Andrea Wulf
991 – The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
992 – Zoom at Sea (The Zoom Trilogy) – Tim Wynne-Jones
993 – Zoom Away (The Zoom Trilogy) – Tim Wynne-Jones
994 – Zoom Upstream X, Y, Z (The Zoom Trilogy) – Tim Wynne-Jones
995 – The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X
996 – Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
997 – Swallowing Clouds – A. Zee
998 – Within This Wilderness – Feenie Ziner
999 – Germinal – Émile Zola
1000 – A Part of Myself – Carl Zuckmayer

That’s the list.

Sometimes I look at it and feel energized by the prospect of reading all of these. Other times I feel as if I have fallen into a grain silo and am slowly being suffocated by soybeans. Both responses, I think, are valid.