So I was thinking about the books that a bookstore employee really should know about, and I started making up this list with one of my co-workers. I was hoping for something succinct, but of course when you start making a book list it's never as short as you think. So here's the 70-ish books a self-respecting bookstore employee "should" know.
1. How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie
2. Crucial Conversations Kerry Patterson
3. Man’s Search for Meaning Victor Frankl
4. Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold
5. Origin of Species Charles Darwin
6. The Numerati Stephen Baker
7. Walden Henry David Thoreau
8. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
9. Great Expectations Charles Dickens
10. Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
11. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
12. Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett
13. For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway
14. No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith
15. War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
16. The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Witches Abroad Terry Pratchett
18. Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville
19. Post-American World Fareed Zakaria
20. Common Sense Thomas Paine
21. The Prince Machiavelli
22. The World is Flat Thomas Friedman
23. Audacity of Hope Barack Obama
24. Bird by Bird Annie Lamott
25. Washington: The Indispensable Man James Thomas Flexner
26. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
27. Dracula Bram Stoker
28. Les Miserables Victor Hugo
29. World History for Dummies
30. The Giver Lois Lowry
31. The Book Thief Markus Zusak
32. Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis
33. Chronicles of Prydain Lloyd Alexander
34. Lincoln: A Photobiography Russell Freedman
35. A Wrinkle in Time Madeleine L’Engle
36. Circle of Quiet Madeleine L’Engle
37. Anne of Green Gables L.M. Montgomery
38. House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne
39. Beowulf Anonymous
40. The Iliad Homer
41. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
42. To the Castle and Back Vaclav Havel
43. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie
44. Last of the Breed Louis L’Amour
45. Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt
46. Hamlet William Shakespeare
47. The Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare
48. Henry V William Shakespeare
49. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
50. Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift
51. The Republic Plato
52. Foundation Isaac Asimov
53. The Color Purple Alice Walker
54. Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman
55. Continuous Harmony Wendell Berry
56. The End of Education Neil Postman
57. Fugitive Pieces Anne Michaels
58. Family J. California Cooper
59. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
60. Tuesdays with Morrie Mitch Albom
61. The Americans: The Colonial Experience Daniel J. Boorstein
62. To Know as we are Known Parker J. Palmer
63. Paradise Lost John Milton
64. A World Lit Only by Fire William Manchester
65. Writing Down the Bones Natalie Goldberg
66. My Grandfather's Blessings Rachel Naomi Remen
67. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
There were a few more, but I forgot which ones I had already taken off. I was trying to keep it to fifty, but now I'm thinking maybe 70 or 75, so it's still a work in progress.