GeezerVison

James Mustich Jr.
Education	Princeton University (BA)
Writing career
Notable work	1,000 Books To Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List

James Mustich Jr. is a bookseller, editor, and writer. In October 2018, Mustich's book 1,000 Books To Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List was published by Workman Publishing,^[1] receiving starred reviews from Publishers Weekly^[2], Booklist^[3], and Library Journal,^[4] as well as the praise of other notable independent reviewers^[5]. The Washington Post listed it as one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the year.^[6]

Mustich graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude in 1977. He married Margot Greenbaum, who was a year below him at Princeton, in 1986.^[7]

In 1986, Mustich co-founded the mail-order book catalog A Common Reader': Books for Readers with Imagination', and served as its president and publisher until the business was closed in 2006.^[8] During its two-decade run, the catalog was published up to 17 times each year and listed hundreds of titles in each issue, each with its own write-up.^[9] A Common Reader circulated to hundreds of thousands of readers and at its peak sold over 300,000 books a year.^[10] Its in-house imprint, Akadine Press, republished over 60 out-of-print books by such authors as Lillian Beckwith, Alice Thomas Ellis, Barbara Holland, Reynolds Price, and John Ciardi.^[11]

In 2007, Mustich was founding editor of the Barnes & Noble Review, an online literary journal.^[12] As editor of the Review he has conducted in-depth interviews with many leading authors, including Philip Roth,^[13] Salman Rushdie,^[14] Philip Pullman,^[15] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,^[16] Neal Stephenson,^[17] Richard Price,^[18] Elmore Leonard,^[19] Azar Nafisi,^[20] and Robert Caro.^[21]

In 2017, Mustich became the founding executive producer of the Barnes & Noble Podcast, for which he has conducted interviews with writers such as Questlove,^[22] Nassim Nicholas Taleb,^[23] Lidia Bastianich,^[24] Steven Pinker,^[25] and Michael Wolf.^[26]

"Book Expo 2018: James Mustich: Man On a Mission"

• "1,000 Books to Read"
• "The Ultimate Literary Bucket List" (Washington Post, September 26, 2018)
• "What It's Like to Write A Book Full of Books" (LitHub, October 10, 2018)
• "Using a Reading List to Measure a Life" (Chicago Tribune, November 14, 2018)