Read this before that

Ideally, I suppose we'd all be reading the 1,001 chronologically from oldest to newest, to fully get a sense of the historical context and interrelations of stories, etc.

But, I've been around here long enough to know most of us aren't reading that way.

So, what 1,001 books inform or pay homage to other 1,001 books?

For instance, I'm listening to The Art of Fielding, a 2012 addition, and I *really* wish I had known that familiarity with characters from Moby-Dick would enrich the newer novel.

Ditto for Infinite Jest and Hamlet (even though Hamlet is not on the list, I'd recommend reading or refreshing before IJ).

What are other non-serial 1,001 books that are dependent upon or enriched by having read another story?

I'd recommend Ficciones before House of Leaves. They have a certain kinship.

Apart from sequels by the same authors (e.g. The Hobbit before Lord of the Rings), books that help understand later novels include Jane Eyre before Wide Sargasso Sea, and Mysteries of Udolpho before Northanger Abbey. I read the later books first in both cases and would have got more from them had I read the earlier books first.

Read Mrs Dolloway before The Hours first comes to mind, but I'll think of more later. Good threat!

Read Fanny Burney before Jane Austen. Even better, read neither.

For Le Carre, reading the novels from the list in chronological order might help... or it might not depending on your ability to hold multiple confusing plotlines together!

Great Expectations (Dickens) before Jack Maggs, by Peter Carey.

Howard's End by EM Forster before On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, before Foe, by JM Coetzee.

. .. . before Jane Austen. Even better, read neither. .. . . surely you jest. Pride and Prejudice is one of the best books ever written, and several of the others are most incredibly awesome.

I think this is a very interesting topic. I've been taking notes these last few years about which books to read before others. Here they are (putting aside any series on the list).

- Books by Dumas before The Dumas club

- Books by Henry James before The Master

- Books by Flaubert before Flaubert's parrot

- Books by Conrad and Wharton before Unless

- Books by Turgenev before The Heretic

- Gothic novels before I'm not scared (this is my personal opinion - I thought there were gothic themes in I'm not scared)

- The Nose and The Metamorphosis before The Breast

- Alice in Wonderland before Through the Looking Glass

- The books from the Rougon Macquart series are stand alone but could be read in order to enhance the experience

- The adventures of Sherlock Holmes before The hound of the Baskervilles

- The immoralist before Strait is the gate (the latter being somewhat the response to the former's critiques)

- Cold Comfort Farm parodises rural life stories of writers such as the Bröntes, Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence

- I don't know if it would be better to read Death in Venice before Death in Rome

- Manon des sources is the sequel to Jean de Florette (not on the list, but great)

- Tess of the D'Urbervilles before The French Lieutenant's woman

- The color purple before Possessing the secret of joy

- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency before The long dark tea-time of the soul

- The Tropic of Cancer before The Tropic of Capricorn

- Elizabeth Costello before Slow Man

I'm open to corrections or other suggestions. Because I'm not obsessed. Not at all.

Excellent idea for a thread!

For those who may not have seen it, I had listed the preferred reading order for those books that are part of a series in the 1001 Books Finding Aid. There are several cases where a book on the "1001 Books" list is a sequel to a book that is not on the list. But that doesn't address most of the recommendations we are posting here, which are not formal sequels and series.

Read Persuasion before The French Lieutenant's Woman

Pamela before Joseph Andrews

The Ravishing of Lol Stein before The Vice Consul

Moby-Dick before Blood Meridian

The Castle before Snow

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes before The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Lolita before The Sea

#7 & # 8

Wow! Some of those are "of course" but there are connections there that I didn't know about . . . .

Books by Conrad and Wharton before Unless . . . I read Unless years before I read the other authors, and I don't remember it that well, and I definitely didn't make any connections, but this is so intriguing! I must reread Unless now.

Lolita before The Sea - another intriguing one. Both of these are in my TBR, so I guess I'll have to read Lolita first. Who knew?

Re Conrad and Wharton before Unless. It's just that the main character in the book talks about the legacy of these authors regarding writing conventions.

The main example that I can think about is when the main character in Unless, a writer, was bemoaning that fact that a lot of characters in books don't have a circle of close friends. She said 'I blame Conrad and Wharton'. So true, I thought. And I would not have had that thought if I hadn't read these authors before.

So reading these authors enhanced Unless for me.

Ah, I see. I'm definitely due for a reread of Unless, since I rated it 5 stars but can hardly remember it. And now I've read Wharton and Conrad, so it should be a good experience. Thanks.

Before Paul Auster's New York Trilogy: Don Quixote, and various books by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Suggest reading On the Road before The Savage Detectives.

Suggest Villette before embarking on Dorthy Richardson's Pilgrimage.

Definitely read Malcom Lowry's Under the Volcano before Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid, which has lots of references to the prior book.

I remember hearing Ian McEwan interviewed about Atonement and he said for the first section he drew from Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen (and I think some others that I've forgotten). I see that, and appreciate what he's done with that influence. Therefore, I think you should read something by those authors before Atonement.

Before Atonement you should also read The Go-Between which I don't think is on the list but ought to be.

yes The Go-Between is on the list (#605 on the spreadsheet) and was last in the 2012 (most recent) edition.

Thanks for pointing out The Go-Between. That book was not on my radar, but sounds like just the sort of thing I love.

It is a wonderful book, with one of literature's greatest opening lines.

> 20 Great opening line indeed!

Before reading The Satanic Verses I would recommend to know a bit about Mohammed and the Koran. I read Mohammed first and then absolutely loved The Satanic Verses and the way Rushdie integrates the Koran into this book.

Having just finished Foucault's Pendulum I wish I'd clued myself up on Kaballah and the ten Sefiroth as I'm sure this would add another deep level to the novels structure and themes.

>22 JonnySaunders:
Does anyone have a good book on this to suggest? I've tried to read Foucault's Pendulum multiple times, but failed and perhaps reading this would help?

I haven't actually done this... but if you want to get references it might be a good idea to read Amadis de Gaula and Tirant lo Blanch before Don Quixote.

Robinson Crusoe before The Moonstone for the minor references.

Watchmen didn't make a lot of sense to me without a background in the comics it's based off of. I'd recommend reading a couple first to get a sense of the genre, but I have no suggestions.

Before Ulysses? I've asked this elsewhere and received the following recommendations: Dubliners, Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man, The Illiad, The Odyssey and Hamlet.

I've read Foucault's Pendulum and did very well just by resorting to Wikipedia for reference backgrounds. I would say Watchmen most benefits from some kind of understanding of the Cold War atmosphere in the 1980s, if you didn't live it yourself. Wikipedia might be sufficient for this too.

#23 true, Watchmen requires some previous experience with (older) superhero comics just to see what it references and picks apart. The more the better of course.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is sometimes said to be 'a trans-atlantic remake' of Goodbye to Berlin. A reason, maybe, to read Isherwood first.

Mothers Milk by Edward St Aubyn is the fourth book in the Patrick Melrose series which has five books in all.

I'm not sure if it can be read alone or if it's better to have the background of the previous books. I just bought a copy that has the first four books in one and it's about 600 pages - not bad for four books!

Read Kafka's The Trial before The Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee.

And read Kafka's The Metamorphosis before The Passion According to G. H. by Clarice Lispector.

I've heard it's wise to read The Vicar of Wakefield before Jane Austen's works.

Edit: or rather, before Emma at least. See message 31 below.

Hmmm... why so? Just in preparation for style and melodrama?

>30 arukiyomi:, because apparently Austen pokes subtle fun at the brand of literature represented by Vicar. Sorry I can't describe it better than that. Of Austen I've only read Emma and not the Vicar (yet). I think there might have been a reference, not sure.

Wikipedia seems to think so: "The novel is mentioned in George Eliot's Middlemarch, Jane Austen's Emma, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins, Charlotte Brontë's The Professor and Villette, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, as well as his Dichtung und Wahrheit." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicar_of_Wakefield

The Scarlett Letter before Blood and Guts in High School

Books by Gogol before The Namesake.

Copied from Flavorwire:

Before reading Madame Bovary you should read Don Quixote:
Flaubert first read Don Quixote when he was 11 years old. He wrote a letter to a friend of his that declared, “I know I had told you before that I wanted to be a playwright, but on second thought, I’ve decided against it… I have decided instead to become a novelist and I’ve already got some ideas for my first books. I’ll write about Cardenio, about Dorotea, and one about Ill-Advised Curiosity.” Of course, anyone who has read Cervantes knows just what little Gus is talking about. Much later, he’d write one of the most beloved books in the canon, consciously imitating and expanding upon his favorite book of all time. There are many parallels in the two books — one of the most interesting is Emma Bovary herself. As Kevin Frazier explains, “Emma embodies, in one person, the conflict between idealism and pragmatism that Cervantes divides between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.”

Before reading Finnegans Wake you should read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
Everyone’s favorite pairing, one of those you’d never think of, but you believe immediately. Both books are dreamscapes rife with worldplay, and as far back as 1941 Henry Levin called Carroll’s book “the official guide” to the language of Joyce’s. But that said, don’t expect much of anything to help you understand Finnegans Wake. You just have to read it and revel — or revolt.

Before reading Wide Sargasso Sea you should read Jane Eyre:
Wide Sargasso Sea is one of the few direct “spin-off” novels that has become a classic in its own right. Though it is technically a prequel to Brontë’s novel, you should read it after, so its revelations (so to speak) of the madwoman in the attic hit you the hardest.

The Sorrows of Young Werther before Frankenstein. The monster reads the former, comments on it and it informs his worldview.

Metamorphoses before The Last World, unless you have a good grasp on Greek/Roman mythology.

I'd suggest a passing familiarity with the major works of Shakespeare before reading Wise Children.

I suggest Scarlet Letter before A Prayer for Owen Meany. It seemed to me that Irving was pulling some ideas from it for Meany.

Great thread! And some ideas to ponder...

I have started the fun game of putting any 1001 referred to within (mainly by a character) a 1001 onto my tbr list. It's a potentially dangerous game.

>39 BekkaJo: the goodreads 1001 group has a 1001 Books in Other 1001 Books thread that is a lot of fun.

#38 -- The opening of A Prayer for Owen Meany immediately made me think of Fifth Business but I don't know which came first.

Before Gulliver's Travels you should read Utopia although the latter is mysteriously absent from The List.

>41 annamorphic:, Fifth Business was first.

>3 puckers:, I think we could expand further around what should follow Jane Eyre:
Wide Sargasso Sea (prequel)
Turn of the Screw (another classic, closely following the model)
Rebecca (another close following of the model)
then two more, if so inclined:
- Martin Chuzzlewit
- then The Eyre Affair (for fun humour)

Reading Vanity Fair, I’m discovering it should be preceded by Pilgrims Progress and Tom Jones

>43 Cecrow: Other than the title reference I'm not sure how much Pilgrim's Progress will help. I tried reading this but the moralizing tone of the omnipotent narrator put me off. I'd rather be on Becky's side.