1,001 books you must read before you die. compiled by over one hundred literary critics worldwide and is made up of novels, short stories, and short story collections.

list | goodreads shelf | tracking since 2007

• one hundred years of solitude, gabriel garcía márquez (1967)
• crime and punishment, fyodor dostoevsky (1866)
• the count of monte cristo, alexandre dumas (1844)
• ↺ the time machine, h.g. wells (1895)
• ↺ the invisible man, h.g. wells (1897)
• around the world in eighty days, jules verne (1872)
• ↺ animal farm, george orwell (1945)
• gulliver's travels, jonathan swift (1726)
• to the lighthouse, virginia woolf (1927)
• the scarlet letter, nathaniel hawthorne (1850)
• the house of the seven gables, nathaniel hawthorne (1851)
• ↺ a christmas carol, charles dickens (1843)
• choke, chuck palahniuk (2001)
• love medicine, louise erdrich (1984)
• wuthering heights, emily brontë (1847)
• north and south, elizabeth gaskell (1855)
• lord of the flies, william golding (1954)
• sense and sensibility, jane austen (1811)
• frankenstein, mary wollstonecraft shelley (1818)
• the virgin suicides, jeffrey eugenides (1993)
• ↺ dr. jekyll and mr. hyde, robert louis stevenson (1886)
• persuasion, jane austen (1817)
• main street, sinclair lewis (1920)
• the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde (1890)
• dracula, bram stoker (1897)
• ↺ the great gatsby, f. scott fitzgerald (1925)
• the razor's edge, w. somerset maugham (1944)
• fear and loathing in las vegas, hunter s. thompson (1971)
• alice's adventures in wonderland, lewis carroll (1865)
• through the looking-glass and what alice found there, lewis carroll (1865)
• brideshead revisted, evelyn waugh (1945)
• invisible man, ralph ellison (1952)
• the death of ivan ilych, leo tolstoy (1886)
• candide, voltaire (1759)
• cakes and ale, w. somerset maugham (1930)
• we, yevgeny zamyatin (1924)
• of human bondage, w. somerset maugham (1915)
• mrs. dalloway, virginia woolf (1925)
• the war of the worlds, h.g. wells (1898)
• aesop's fables, aesop (561)
• heart of darkness, joseph conrad (1899)
• the age of innocence, edith wharton (1920)
• life of pi, yann martel (2001)
• at the mountains of madness, h.p. lovecraft (1931)
• the wind-up bird chronicle, haruki murakami (1994)
• kafka on the shore, haruki murakami (2002)
• 1q84, haruki murakami (2009)
• notes from the underground, fyodor dostoevsky (1864)
• slaughterhouse-five, kurt vonnegut (1969)
• vanity fair, william makepeace thackeray (1847)
• interview with the vampire, anne rice (1976)
• the master and margarita, mikhail bulgakov (1967)
• the handmaid's tale, margaret atwood (1985)
• the call of the wild, jack london (1903)
• oblomov, ivan goncharov (1859)
• casino royale, ian fleming (1953)
• dirk gently's holistic detective agency, douglas adams (1987)
• the long dark tea-time of the soul, douglas adams (1988)
• the yellow wallpaper, charlotte perkins (1892)
• the flamethrowers, rachel kushner (2013)
• the secret agent, joseph conrad (1907)
• under the skin, michel faber (2000)
• solaris, stanisław lem (1961)
• the cider house rules, john irving (1985)
• ↺ the adventures of huckleberry finn, mark twain (1884)
• lolita, vladimir nabokov (1955)
• the sound and the fury, william faulkner (1929)
• get shorty, elmore leonard (1990)
• the hobbit, j.r.r. tolkien (1937)
• the brothers karamazov, fyodor dostoevsky (1880)
• a town like alice, nevil shute (1950)
• the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, mark haddon (2003)
• the remains of the day, kazuo ishiguro (1989)
• the idiot, fyodor dostoevsky (1869)
• neuromancer, william gibson (1984)
• the sun also rises, ernest hemingway (1926)
• the complete sherlock holmes, arthur conan doyle (1930)
• the big sleep, raymond chandler (1939)
• ↺ jane eyre, charlotte brontë (1847)
• the trial, franz kafka (1925)
• the shining, stephen king (1977)
• watchmen, alan moore (1987)
• foundation, isaac asimov (1951)
• on the road, jack kerouac (1957)
• anna karenina, leo tolstoy (1878)
• dead souls, nikolai gogol (1842)
• the goldfinch, donna tartt (2013)
• in the first circle, aleksandr solzhenitsyn (1968)
• city primeval, elmore leonard (1980)
• a tale of two cities, charles dickens (1859)
• ↺ the purloined letter, edgar allan poe (1844)
• ↺ the fall of the house of usher, edgar allan poe (1839)
• ↺ the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, douglas adams (1979)
• ↺ the pit and the pendulum, edgar allen poe (1842)
• the awakening, kate chopin (1899)