Website Enquiries: +27 11 798 0111 (8.30am to 5pm SAST)
About usCorporate SalesAffiliatesStoresEventsNewsNewsletters |  FanaticsContact usHelpHome
Free shipping to any store in South Africa or when you spend R400 or more
GO Advanced Search
Fiction
Books of Africa
Philosophy Religion & Esoteric
Computing
Biography & History
Science & Nature
Reference
Business
Arts & Crafts
Childrens Books
Afrikaans
Sport & Leisure
Health Self Help & Psychology
Cookery
Garden & Home
Travel
Buy gift vouchers
Competitions
Fanatics
The List
Homebru
The Children's Best Books Guide
One Club Prize
2008's Bestsellers
Top 10 for 10 Years
Current Top Ten
Award Winners
Author Interviews
Featured Authors
Book Club
EAN?
We have a newsletter to suit your needs. Stay informed about new offerings and the latest books. read more
Register with us
Find a book
Order a book
Shipping methods and costs
Tracking an Order
Forgotten password
Return a book


101 Books to Read Before You Die

The creation of the novel has unlocked a world as extra-ordinary as the millions of hearts and minds that have shaped it. To celebrate, Exclusive Books unveiled the Exclusive Books 101 Books To Read Before You Die list at the 2007 Cape Town Book Fair. The books that made the list are the books you’ve read, and re-read, books which define eras, created friends instead of characters, entertained generations and have become legends of literature.

Selecting the 101 Books To Read Before You Die was no simple task. That’s why we consulted the experts. You. Exclusive Books Fanatics members across South Africa were given the opportunity to vote for their 10 favourite fiction titles from any time in their life. The nomination period lasted for two weeks and we received over 35000 votes!

Congratulations to the Fanatics members who won our fantastic prizes in the lucky draw from the votes received:
Mia von Scha (Johannesburg): 1st Prize: A luxurious weekend for two to the Cape Town Book Fair.
Tracy Swart (East London): 2nd Prize: All titles from the Exclusive Books "101 Books to Read Before You Die" list.
Nina Frank (Johannesburg): 3rd Prize: Her choice of 50 titles from the Exclusive Books "101 Books to Read Before You Die" list.

The 101 best novels of all time, as voted for by Exclusive Books customers:

  1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
  2. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
  3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
  4. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
  5. The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
  6. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
  7. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
  8. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
  9. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
  10. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
  11. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
  12. Spud - John van de Ruit
  13. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
  14. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
  15. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
  16. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
  17. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
  18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
  19. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
  20. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
  21. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  22. Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
  23. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
  24. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
  25. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
  26. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
  27. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
  28. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
  29. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
  30. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  31. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
  32. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
  33. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
  34. Atonement - Ian McEwan
  35. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
  36. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
  37. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
  38. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
  39. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
  40. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  41. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  42. I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb
  43. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
  44. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
  45. War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy
  46. Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel
  47. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
  48. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  49. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
  50. Possession - A. S. Byatt
  51. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
  52. The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
  53. Chocolat - Joanne Harris
  54. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
  55. Q & A - Vikas Swarup
  56. Dune - Frank Herbert
  57. Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
  58. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
  59. River God - Wilbur Smith
  60. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
  61. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
  62. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
  63. Mort - Terry Pratchett
  64. Crime and Punishment - Feodor Dostoyevsky
  65. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
  66. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
  67. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
  68. The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
  69. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
  70. The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
  71. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
  72. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
  73. The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
  74. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
  75. Animal Farm - George Orwell
  76. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
  77. Watership Down - Richard Adams
  78. Magician - Raymond E Feist
  79. Middlemarch - George Eliot
  80. The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth
  81. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
  82. The Magus - John Fowles
  83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
  84. Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk
  85. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
  86. The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
  87. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
  88. The Beach House - James Patterson
  89. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
  90. Kringe in 'n Bos - Dalene Matthee
  91. The World according to Garp - John Irving
  92. Northen Lights - Phillip Pullman
  93. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
  94. Shades - Marguerite Poland
  95. Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
  96. Fiela se kind - Dalene Matthee
  97. Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner
  98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
  99. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
  100. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
  101. Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne
0 items
R 0.00
Invictus
  1. Invictus
  2. Eclipse
  3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  4. Breaking Dawn
  5. The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest
  6. Committed
  7. The Girl who Played with Fire
  8. Outlier
  9. Do You Think You're Clever
  10. Twilight

Privacy  /  Disclaimer  /  Copyright