A list book that is not just a list book.
This one is different from others, in that the editors have taken Shakespeare's 'seven ages of man' speech as their umbrella and commissioned many insightful articles and critic's choices on topics related to those ages. For instance, under birth we get 'Innocence', childhood - school stories, rock 'n' roll in adolescence, war under adulthood, culinary delights in middle age, grumpy old men in old age, and Biography under death.
These are just a flavour of the essays, lists and shorter articles by a fine group of writers including novelists, critics, essayists, journalists, etc, that made this book a delight to dip into, and I've made many discoveries from it. ( )

Only true book addicts can find joy in books about books. While this book does list the advertised 1000 books, it also is chock full of related trivia and insightful essays. ( )