I think there have been other books like this, but having had the opportunity to hear the author Tom Moon interviewed about it on NPR twice over the past few weeks, and having flipped through it on a number of occasions at a local bookstore, I can definitely say it'll be on my holiday wishlist.
What's so intriguing about this book is that for every critical/fan favourite you'd expect to find (Sgt. Pepper, for instance), several dozen are included that most of us probably have never heard of it. A quick look at http://www.1000recordings.com/ reveals artists like Oum Kalthoum, Incredible String Band and composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Not only that, the little blurbs on each album are insightful, offering ideal "next steps" for the listener who has already discovered that record and is eager to move on to something further.
To hear some of the other unlikely choices, listen to the two NPR segments on the book:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=95613983
and
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=96495906
