Gardners 1,000 Books To Read Before You Die

Get lost in an eclectic and extraordinary book about one thousand great books, compulsively readable, entertaining, surprising, and enlightening as the 1,000-plus volumes it recommends.

The expected literary pillars – Dante, Proust, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Woolf, Joyce, Kafka – are included and made completely fresh in animated essays by author and experienced bookseller James Mustich. Musitch also includes unexpected titles – from Harold and the Purple Crayon to Fun Home, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to Tell Me a Riddle. His incomparable writing – lively, informed, erudite yet with an undisguised enthusiasm – make these titles completely essential.

A range of eras and genres appear: Aeschylus is here, and so is Nancy Drew, Herman Melville, and Edwidge Danticat. The alphabetical listing by last name results in the joy of juxtaposition – Grimm next to Grisham, Clarice Lispector followed by Hugh Lofting – prompting a rich appreciation for the gorgeous mosaic that is our literary heritage, whether poetry, science fiction, memoir, travel writing, biography, children’s literature, the novel. 

This book is an uncommon celebration of the craft of writing and the joy felt in the act of reading.

• Hardback
• 960 pages, full-colour photos and illustrations throughout
• 24.5 x 18.6 x 4.9 cm