Dr. Peter Boxall's "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 edition)"

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Each work of literature listed here is a seminal work key to understanding and appreciating the written word. These works have been handpicked by a team of international critics and literary luminaries, including Derek Attridge (world expert on James Joyce), Cedric Watts (renowned authority on Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene), Laura Marcus (noted Virginia Woolf expert), and David Mariott (poet and expert on African-American literature), among some twenty others. (Description from Amazon.com)

This is a community list. You can contribute, edit, or help maintain it by adding it to your lists. Please do not remove or add titles that will change this list from how it appears in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die edited by Peter Boxall with an introduction by Peter Ackroyd.

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  1. 551.
  2. 552.
    Cry, the Beloved Country (Oprah's Book Club)
    by Alan Paton

    Drag me to re-order


  4. 554.
    The Victim (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

    Drag me to re-order


  5. 555.
    Exercises in Style
    by Raymond Queneau

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  6. 556.
    If This Is a Man (Everyman's Library Classics)
    by Primo Levi

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  7. 557.
    Under the Volcano: A Novel (Perennial Classics)
    by Malcolm Lowry

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  8. 558.
    The Path to the Spiders' Nests: Revised Edition
    by Italo Calvino

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  9. 559.
    The Plague
    by Albert Camus

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  10. 560.
    ?
    Back
    by Henry Green

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  11. 561.
    Titus Groan (Gormenghast Trilogy)
    by Mervyn Peake

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  12. 562.
    The Bridge on the Drina (Phoenix Fiction Series)
    by Ivo Andric

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  13. 563.
    Brideshead Revisited
    by Evelyn Waugh

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  14. 564.
    Animal Farm
    by George Orwell

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  15. 565.
    Cannery Row
    by John Steinbeck

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  16. 566.
    The Pursuit of Love
    by Nancy Mitford

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  17. 567.
    Loving (A novel by Henry Green)
    by Henry Green

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  19. 569.
    Christ Stopped at Eboli : The Story of a Year
    by Carlo Levi

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  20. 570.
    The Razor's Edge
    by W. Somerset Maugham

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  21. 571.
    Transit.
    by Anna Seghers

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  22. 572.
    Jorge Luis Borges: Ficciones (BCP Spanish Texts)
    by Jorge Luis Borges

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  23. 573.
    Dangling Man (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

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  24. 574.
    The Little Prince

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  25. 575.
    Caught
    by Henry Green

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  26. 576.
    The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel
    by Hermann Hesse

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  27. 577.
    Embers
    by Sandor Marai

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  28. 578.
    Go Down, Moses
    by William Faulkner

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  29. 579.
    Outsider (Everyman's Library Classics)
    by Albert Camus

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  30. 580.
    ?
    In Sicily
    by Elio Vittorini

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  31. 581.
    The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story About the Hard Life
    by Flann O'Brien

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  32. 582.
    The Living and the Dead (Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by Patrick White

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  33. 583.
    Hangover Square
    by Patrick Hamilton

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  34. 584.
    Between the Acts (Harvest Book)
    by Virginia Woolf

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  35. 585.
    The Hamlet
    by William Faulkner

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  36. 586.
    Farewell, My Lovely
    by Raymond Chandler

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  37. 587.
    For Whom the Bell Tolls
    by Ernest Hemingway

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  38. 588.
    Native Son (Perennial Classics)
    by Richard A. Wright

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  39. 589.
  40. 590.
    The Tartar Steppe
    by Dino Buzzati

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  41. 591.
    ?
    Party Going
    by Henry Green

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  42. 592.
    The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition)
    by John Steinbeck

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  43. 593.
    Finnegans Wake (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by James Joyce

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  44. 594.
    At Swim-Two-Birds (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series)
    by Flann O'Brien

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  45. 595.
    Coming Up for Air (Harvest Book)
    by George Orwell

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  46. 596.
    Goodbye to Berlin. (Lernmaterialien)
    by Christopher Isherwood

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  47. 597.
    Tropic of Capricorn
    by Henry Miller

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  48. 598.
    Good Morning, Midnight
    by Jean Rhys

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  49. 599.
    The Big Sleep
    by Raymond Chandler

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  50. 600.
    ?
    After the death of Don Juan
    by Sylvia Townsend Warner

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This is a community list. You can contribute, edit, or help maintain it by adding it to your lists.
Created by starlagurl on Mar 27, 2006.
 

Comments

Pages: Pages: 1 2 … 5 6 7 8 9 10 12

Perlle
East Hampton

Should be OK now — 3 years ago

The list was missing #868. I added Alice in Wonderland because it was missing from the list. Note: Through the Looking Glass is at #854, but that is not the same as Alice in Wonderland. I’m sure if there was any confusion there or not, but I thought I’d point it out.

Jun 26, 05:50AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

wisepig
Cambridge

REPEAT: Alice in Wonderland — 3 years ago

That was the only repeat I saw. Deleting one of the versions of Alice in Wonderland would bring the total to 1001 from 1002.

Jun 25, 10:24PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

Mindi T
West Virginia

Untitled — 3 years ago

I believe that the list has repeats in a few spots. I noticed that a couple books were repeated. It could just be my imagination, but someone might want to double check.

Jun 13, 11:41PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

penguinmdh
Pittsburgh

The Order is Once Again Correct — 3 years ago

I believe the order is correct. I checked the first 500 book by book and spot checked the last 500. All of the ordering errors seem to be in the first four and last two pages.

To match the source list, I added the following:
1. Underworld by Don DeLillo at 96
2. On Love by Alain de Botton at 139.
3. Tarka the Otter at 687

I deleted Essays in Love which did not apprear on the source list.

I also broke Things(414) and A Man Asleep (405) by Georges Perec into two entries to allow them to be checked off individually.

Jun 07, 05:03AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

gauloises

Untitled — 3 years ago

I love this list … but why is it incomplete? Am I missing something?

May 15, 05:54AM | 2 comments | Reply to this

rangutan
München

Change the title again? — 3 years ago

I’m a bad ‘novel’ reader because too much Shakespeare stuff was forced horribly on me when I was a child. I’ve achieved 1% of the list at age 40 and with better motion picture quality, reading always less, so estimate to be through the this list in about 1200 years. Also, there is so much of the real world to explore and experience, better than reading about the dreams, fantasies and illusions of others, who would really want to read most of these?

There are just too many good books in the world to make such a list any sense, and these only the english ones! This list seems to be a potpourri of only the very intellectual stuff and very little about humour or adventure (eg. James A. Michener) or say Science Fiction (eg. “Dune”) or say non-fiction like “Memories of a Game Ranger”. How about adding the worlds #1 seller: “The Bible” to the list?

The list should be correctly reamed: “1001 Books You may Read if you Choose to Die Lonely”.

:- (
R’Rudi

May 14, 06:34PM | 4 comments | Reply to this

vaal

self delusion — 3 years ago

I’m going to fool myself that I’m making progress on this gargantuan list by reading some of the shorter titles: The Yellow Wallpaper, July’s People.

Clarissa and Parade's End -- hmm... maybe when I retire...

Even if I never finish all (half?) the books on this list, it certainly reminds me of so many that I’ve intended to read but that have been gathering dust on my bookshelves.

May 01, 08:50AM | 2 comments | Reply to this

starlagurl
Ottawa

The list is semi-correct — 3 years ago

This list is semi-correct, it has all the right books, just in the wrong order. The list is ordered by date, so the order isn’t a big deal, just a stupid hassle that I am obsessing over.

Here is the list typed out
http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.22845/Books

Apr 30, 03:57PM | 9 comments | Reply to this

vaal

oops — 3 years ago

Cranford is by Elizabeth Gaskell

Apr 30, 03:33PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

starlagurl
Ottawa

No deal. — 3 years ago

This list is totally ruined. I tried to reorder it, (even though I said I wouldn’t) and it went all weird again. Please fix it robot co-op!

Apr 17, 07:16AM | 0 comments | Reply to this


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