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BO OKS
READ
TO
A LIFE-CHANGING LIST
BEFORE
YOU DIE
d
JAMES MUSTICH
with Margot Greenbaum Mustich, Thomas Meagher,
and Karen Templer
workman publishing • new york
Copyright © 2018 by James Mustich
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically,
or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the publisher.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5235-0445-9
Design by Janet Vicario
Photo research by Aaron Clendening
Author photo by Trisha Keeler Photography
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Printed in China
First printing September 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The only advice, indeed, that one
person can give another about reading
is to take no advice, to follow your own
instincts, to use your own reason, to
come to your own conclusions. If this
is agreed between us, then I feel at
liberty to put forward a few ideas and
suggestions because you will not allow
them to fetter that independence which
is the most important quality that a
reader can possess.
—Virginia Woolf, “How Should One Read a Book?”
d
To my parents, Annette and Jim Mustich,
for a thousand and one books and
the home that held them.
To Emma and Iris,
so they might explore the landscape
in which their father found his way.
To Margot Greenbaum Mustich,
whose intellect and diligence have ensured this book a life,
and whose love has enriched mine.
And to the memory of Peter Workman,
whose inspiration engendered this volume
and countless others.
d
Contents
Introduction
In the Company of Books ..........................................................................................ix
How the Book Is Organized .......................................................................................xi
A ..................................................2 N .............................................. 579
Edward Abbey to Jane Austen Vladimir Nabokov to Kathleen Norris
B ................................................. 37 O ............................................... 592
Natalie Babbitt to A. S. Byatt Barack Obama to Ovid
C ................................................ 119 P, Q .......................................... 612
Roberto Calasso to Will Cuppy George Packer to the Qur’an
D ...............................................192 R .............................................. 655
Lorenzo Da Ponte to George Dyson Jonathan Raban to Witold Rybczynski
E .............................................. 243 S .............................................. 688
Umberto Eco to Frederick Exley Rafael Sabatini to Wislawa Szymborska
F ............................................... 263 T ................................................770
Anne Fadiman to R. Buckminster Fuller Tacitus to Anne Tyler
G .............................................. 304 U, V ......................................... 816
William Gaddis to Giovanni Guareschi Ellen Ullman to Susan Vreeland
H, I ........................................... 342 W .............................................. 829
Michihiko Hachiya to Kazuo Ishiguro D. J. Waldie to Tim Wynne-Jones
J ............................................... 404 X, Y, Z .................................... 876
Shirley Jackson to Norton Juster Malcolm X to Carl Zuckmayer
K .............................................. 425 Acknowledgments ....................883
Franz Kafka to Tony Kushner
A Miscellany
of Special Lists ......................... 885
L ............................................... 458
General Index ...........................889
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos to
George Lyttelton 1,000 Books Checklist .............. 936
Permissions ...............................946
M ............................................. 506
Photo Credits ........................... 947
Amin Maalouf to Robert Musil
ix
Introduction
In the Company of Books
caught the reading bug as a child from my commentary on scores of titles every three
mother, who is still, at eighty-nine, the most weeks to hundreds of thousands of readers
constant reader I know. As library hound, across the United States.
student, English major, aspiring writer, and In the early 2000s, Peter Workman—
then, and enduringly, bookseller, I surrounded founder of Workman Publishing and to me
myself with books, which spontaneously both mentor and friend—and I began talk-
sprouted and grew into piles ing about the book you are now
in whatever room I inhabited. reading. Over the course of many
Parenthood only compounded book-soaked conversations, the
the circumstance, and the house idea of 1,000 Books to Read Before
I share with my wife, Margot, You Die took shape. Again fate
remains filled with the picture had pointed my simple desire
books, chapter books, and YA to be immersed in written words
novels that accompanied our two toward a new destination. It
daughters on their journey to turned out to be farther away
adulthood. Books are everywhere than either of us thought—the
I look, and I like it that way; I sus- book has been fourteen years
pect you share something of the in the making, and I regret
feeling, or you wouldn’t have that Peter is not alive to see it
picked up this one. published.
Naturally enough, one of my first jobs Any exercise in curation provokes ques-
was working at the local bookstore in Briarcliff tions of discernment, epistemology, and even
Manor, New York, that had fed so many of philosophy that can easily lead to befuddle-
my fledgling literary enthusiasms. There I ment, and in the case of books, since they are
unpacked shipments from publishers, stocked carriers of such varied knowledge in them-
front-of-store displays with new releases, selves, it can be paralyzing. A book about 1,000
and found room for backlist titles on the books could take so many different shapes. It
always crammed shelves. I learned to listen could be a canon of classics; it could be a his-
to customers and, eventually, to make useful, tory of human thought and a tour of its signifi-
interesting, and potentially life-changing rec- cant disciplines; it might be a record of popular
ommendations. That last hyphenated adjec- delights (or even delusions). But the crux of the
tive may sound grandiose, but as Roger Mifflin, difficulty was a less complicated truth: Readers
the protagonist of Christopher Morley’s The read in so many different ways, any one stan-
Haunted Bookshop, puts it, steadfast booksell- dard of measure is inadequate. No matter their
ers are missionaries who seek “to spread good pedigree, inveterate readers read the way they
books about, to sow them on fertile minds, to eat—for pleasure as well as nourishment, indul-
propagate understanding and a carefulness of gence as much as education, and sometimes for
life and beauty.” transcendence, too. Hot dogs one day, haute
With that mission in mind, in 1986 I cuisine the next.
cofounded a mail-order catalog called A Keeping such diversity of appetite in
Common Reader, and spent the next two mind, and hoping to have something to satisfy
decades running that venture, which, luckily every kind of reading yen, I wanted to make
for me, consisted of writing about books old 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die expansive in
and new, of every subject and style. Supported its tastes, encompassing revered classics and
by a small band of colleagues, I managed to commercial favorites, flights of escapist enter-
grow the enterprise until we were mailing rich tainment and enlightening works of erudition.
