101 Books to Read Before You Die
August 26, 2024
The average American reads 12 books a year, and unfortunately, we won’t be able to read all the books in the world. Consider the amount of books published every year in this country alone, the number of books you might even want to read again. It’s taxing to imagine how finite our time with books really is. But if you’ve come to this page, you most likely want to do something about it. You want to read the books that will stay with you forever. Luckily we’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of 101 books to read before you die:
Books to Read Before You Die
1) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878)
“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece set in 19th-century Russia pulls you into the worlds of Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin. The classic, epic novel, once described as “flawless” by Dostoevsky, depicts the burden of individual will in the midst of unpredictable social change, politics and theology.
2) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird stands the test of time by still starting conversations around race, bigotry, virtue and forgiveness across America. If you read this novel years ago, it’s worth revisiting to see why it joins the list of best books to read before you die.
3) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien left an indelible legacy in the genre of epic fantasy with his trilogy. Start with The Fellowship of the Ring if you haven’t done so already. Names like Frodo, Gandalf, Sauron and Bilbo Baggins might never leave you.
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
4) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”
Although Margaret Atwood wrote this frightening dystopian classic set in the future, there are eerily familiar scenes that make you question our world today. A society ruled by gender discrimination, jeopardizing individual freedom. The consequences are painfully evident and ever-present from the moment you stop reading and look around.
5) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.”
Perhaps you’ve seen the film and TV adaptations before you even read the book. Whether you have Colin Firth or Matthew Macfadyen forever imprinted as Mr. Darcy in your mind, reading this eternal classic of English literature is a must. Jane Austen’s 19th-century story centered on the five Bennet sisters will have you reflecting on your own family, social constructs and love.
Continue down the list below to discover more books to read before you die:
6) Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
“Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
7) Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
8) Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871)
“Blameless people are always the most exasperating.”
9) 1984 by George Orwell (1949)
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
10) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die
11) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)
“It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”
12) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
“[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.”
13) Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (2000)
“I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
14) Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
15) Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (2009)
“Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
16) Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)
“Maladies, poorly interpreted, can’t be cured.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
17) The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965)
“Every morning when I wake up, now, I regard it as having another borrowed day.”
18) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)
“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”
19) Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)
“What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same.”
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die
20) East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952)
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
21) Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016)
“We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth?”
22) The Age of Innocence by Edith Warton (1920)
“Each time you happen to me all over again.”
23) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)
“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
24) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
25) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
“Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
26) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1985)
“If we wish to know about a man, we ask ‘what is his story–his real, inmost story?”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
27) The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (2006)
“Imagine it: Every meal would connect us to the joy of living and the wonder of nature.”
28) Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953)
“There are people in the world for whom “coming along” is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.”
29) The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die
30) The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)
“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.
31) My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (2011)
“Her quickness of mind was like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite.”
32) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)
“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
33) Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1603)
“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”
34) The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
35) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die
36) Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)
“It wasn’t only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.”
37) Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
“She burned too bright for this world.”
38) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
39) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
40) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003)
“For you, a thousand times over.”
41) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (2001)
“It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.”
42) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die
43) Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”
44) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)
“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”
45) Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001)
“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
46) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
47) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1846)
“It’s necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
48) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1321)
“If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.”
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
49) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866)
“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
50) All About Love by bell hooks (1999)
“But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”
51) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2004)
“This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.
Discover the next 50 top books to read before you die
- Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956)
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (1979)
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
- A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980)
- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein (1974)
- The Shining by Stephen King (1977)
- Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (2016)
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965)
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
- The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (1992)
- Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (1996)
- A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988)
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000)
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
- Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (1970)
- Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)
- The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1947)
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
- Love Medicine by Louise Eldrich (1984)
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez (1985)
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)
- There There by Tommy Orange (2018)
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)
- Tenth of December by George Saunders (2013)
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (2013)
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997)
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (2017) (Now a hit show)
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016)
- I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb (1998)
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
- 2666 by Roberto Bolaño (2008)
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
- The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2003)
- Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2020)
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013)
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2009)
(Continued) Books to Read Before You Die
- The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (2010)
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017)
- Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe (2019)
- The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt (2000)
- Evicted by Matthew Desmond (2016)
- The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)
Books to Read Before You Die (Continued)
- The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (2005)
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (2015)
- Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (2020)
- Erasure by Percival Everett (2001)
Top books to read before you die – Final Thoughts
Millions and millions of books exist around the world. It’s hard to imagine that we’ll never know all of them, all of their unique characters and storylines, all of their worlds to immerse, lose, or find ourselves in. But given the time we have now, while it strikes us as infinite, why not start somewhere to invigorate your own reading journey? The list above shows 101 books to read before you die, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Who’s to stop you from reading as much as you can?
The real question is: what are the books you want to read while you’re still alive?
Top books to read before you die – Additional Resources
