Encompassing fiction, poetry, science and science fiction, memoir, travel writing, biography, children’s books, history, and more, moves across cultures and through time to present an eclectic collection of titles, each described with the special enthusiasm readers summon when recommending a book to a friend. The expected pillars are here, including Jane Austen and Toni Morrison, Virgil, Dante, Dickens and Tolstoy, Franz Kafka and Simone de Beauvoir—their works made fresh through the author’s animated essays. Established classics are joined by new and unexpected choices like and . , . The result is a treasury of essential reading for expansive tastes. The book’s alphabetical listing by last name results in the serendipity of juxtaposition—Cormac McCarthy’s next to Robert McCloskey’s , John le Carré next to Ursula K. Le Guin next to Harper Lee. Following each entry are rich endnotes that include publication dates and preferred editions, other books by the same author, related books to try, and listings of worthy adaptations, including movies and audiobooks. In total, more than six thousand titles by thirty-five hundred authors are recommended. A Miscellany of Special Lists at the end of the book offers the reader surprising entry points into the collection, such as “Books to Read in a Sitting,” including by Natalia Ginzburg and by Graham Greene, and “Offbeat Escapes,” including Freya Stark’s and Felice Benuzzi’s . For the truly dedicated reader, “A Long Climb, but What a View”—a perfect way to describe those mountainous texts we long to scale, such as Proust’s and Shelby Foote’s . An insightfully curated personal compendium that will inspire hours of browsing and a lifetime of reading, celebrates the gorgeous mosaic that is our literary heritage.