Great reference books for what to read next!

"The Top Ten" includes summaries of 544 books--each of which is considered to be among the ten greatest books ever written by at least one leading writer. In addition to each writer's Top Ten List, the book features Top Ten Lists tabulated from their picks, including:

• The Top Ten Books of All Time
• The Top Ten Books by Living Writers
• The Top Ten Books of the Twentieth Century
• The Top Ten Mysteries
• The Top Ten Comedies

Already sparking debate, "The Top Ten" will help readers answer the most pressing question of all: What should I read next?

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
by Boxall, Peter 

For discerning bibliophiles and readers who enjoy unforgettable classic literature, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is a trove of reviews covering a century of memorable writing. Each work of literature featured here is a seminal work key to understanding and appreciating the written word.The featured 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.Addictive, browsable, knowledgeable--1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die will be a boon companion for anyone who loves good writing and an inspiration for anyone who is just beginning to discover a love of books. Each entry is accompanied by an authoritative yet opinionated critical essay describing the importance and influence of the work in question. Also included are publishing history and career details about the authors, as well as reproductions of period dust jackets and book designs

The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them
by Coady, Roxanne, Johannessen, Joy

With the goal of promoting literacy (and with proceeds going to the Read to Grow Foundation), here are 65 spirited testaments to the transformative power of reading from 65 distinguished contributors, as compiled by bookseller Roxanne Coady and editor Joy Johannessen.
Books change lives, and if you have any doubts on that score, you need only dip into this joyous celebration of reading by 65 people who have distinguished themselves in various fields, from sports, to cooking, to journalism and the arts. In brief and lively essays, the contributorsa wrestlers, actors, singers, monks, Nobel Prize winners, chefs, politicians, writersatell about the single book that changed the way they see themselves and the world around them.

A sampling of contributors includes: Elizabeth Berg on "The Catcher in the Rye"; Harold Bloom on "Little, Big"; Steven Brill on "The Making of the President, 1960"; Da Chen on "The Count of Monte Cristo"; Maureen Corrigan on "David Copperfield"; Nelson DeMille on "Atlas Shrugged"; Tomie dePaola on "Kristin Lavransdatter"; Anita Diamant on "A Room of Oneas Own"; Linda Fairstein on "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"; Sebastian Junger on "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"; Wally Lamb on "To Kill a Mockingbird"; John McCain on "For Whom the Bell Tolls"; Lisa Scottoline on "Angelaas Ashes"; Susan Vreeland on "To Kill a Mockingbird"; and many more. . . .

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books
(Vintage)
by Corrigan, Maureen

"It's not that I don't like people," writes Maureen Corrigan in her introduction to "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading," "It's just that there always comes a moment when I'm in the company of others--even my nearest and dearest--when I'd rather be reading a book." In this delightful memoir, Corrigan reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life--from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan's love for a good story shines.

Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason
by Pearl, Nancy

What to read next is every book lover's greatest dilemma. Nancy Pearl comes to the rescue with this wide-ranging and fun guide to the best reading new and old. Pearl, who inspired legions of litterateurs with "What If All (name the city) Read the Same Book," has devised reading lists that cater to every mood, occasion, and personality. These annotated lists cover such topics as mother-daughter relationships, science for nonscientists, mysteries of all stripes, African-American fiction from a female point of view, must-reads for kids, books on bicycling, "chick-lit," and many more. Pearl's enthusiasm and taste shine throughout.

How Reading Changed My Life
by Quindlen, Anna

In the national bestseller, "How Reading Changed My Life", Anna Quindlen writes, "There was waking and there was sleeping. And then there were books". Quindlen is not alone in her passion for books. Here she explores what many of us feel (but may not be able to articulate quite as beautifully): The power of great literature to take us on adventures far from our everyday lives, to bring people into our homes we wouldn't ordinarily meet, and to comfort, inspire, educate, and delight us. Everyone who loves to read will want to share Quindlen's warm-hearted musings.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
by Prose, Francine

Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose.

In "Reading Like a Writer," Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov and discovers why their work has endured. She takes pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's "Middlemarch," She looks to John Le Carre for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue, to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail, and to James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield for clever examples of how to employ gesture to create character. She cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted.

Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, "Reading Like a Writer" will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading
by Nelson, Sara

Sometimes subtle, sometimes striking, the interplay between our lives and our books is the subject of this unique memoir by well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" Sara Nelson. From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and enough infectious enthusiasm to make a passionate reader out of anybody.

Ex Libris
by Fadiman, Anne

Anne Fadiman is--by her own admission--the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of "Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice.
This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony--Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, "Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.