For terrestrial gastropods I vote for:


1) H. Pilsbry, Land Mollusks of North America (North of Mexico),  4
volumes, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1939-1948  (my
primary reference)
2) R. Tucker Abbott, Compendium of Landshells, 1989
3) Parkinson, Hemmen & Groh, Tropical Landshells of the World, 1987
4) John Burch, How to Know the Eastern Land Snails, 1962  (Eastern
United States)
and dozens and dozens of monographs on the families that interest me
(most notably, on California Helminthoglyptidae by S.S. Berry, B. Roth,
etc.)

5) A great general book that deals wonderfully with the landsnail
"lifestyle" is G. Alan Solem's The Shell Makers (John Wiley & Sons,
1974)

Since I have room for a few more, the references that I use the most for
marine shells are:
6)  James McLean, Marine Shells of SouthernCalifornia
7)  Allison Kay, Hawaiian Marine Shells
8)  Myra Keen, Sea Shells of Tropical West America   (I just got a copy
of the second edition so I'm spending a lot of time with it right now)
9)  R. Tucker Abbott, American Seashells (Second Edition)
10) Abbott & Dance, Compendium

This is hard to do!!  Trying to come up with the top ten picks left me
with another ten or so that I would want to include.

Phil Liff-Grieff
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La Crescenta, CA