Bookstore Book List

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.