They say that writing down goals increases one's chances of actually reaching them. To test that theory I've created this space to post my "great books" reading plan. I am not following any one list or canon, but drawing from several according to my desire for breadth, relevance, and practicality. I should note that by "relevance" I mean works that have been highly influential or have high artistic, religious, or scientific merit within the Western (Judeo-Christian-Greco-Roman-European) tradition. My overarching goal is to better understand my culture, which is why works from other great civilizations aren't included in this project unless they had an influence on the West.
I posted the first version of this list earlier, but will be leaving that one alone. This list will get updated and expanded as I progress (assuming I progress!), and will be a record of where I've been and where I intend to go.
General Preparation
- The Well-Educated Mind (Bauer) √
- How to Read a Book (Adler & Van Doren) √
- The Trivium (Sr. Miriam Joseph)
Context (to be read concurrently)
- Oxford Atlas of World History(O'Brien)
- New History of the World (Roberts)
- Encyclopedia of World History(Stearns)
- The Story of Art (Gombrich)
- Gardner's Art Through the Ages(12th ed.)
- Music in Western Civilization (Wright)
References
- Oxford Classical Dictionary
- Encyclopaedia Britannica (2005)
- ye olde internette
Mesopotamia
- Myths from Mesopotamia (Dalley)
- chapter on Gilgamesh in Ancient Epic Poetry (Beye)
Ancient Egypt
- The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Faulkner)
Hebrew Bible
- Oxford Annotated NRSV Bible
- with support from the Oxford Bible Commentary
Preparation for Ancient Greece
- Ancient Greece (Pomeroy)
- Classical Mythology (Morford & Lenardon)
Homer
- Iliad & Odyssey (Lattimore)
- chapters up to Homer in Ancient Epic Poetry(Beye)
- A Companion to the Iliad: Based on the Translation by Richmond Lattimore (Willcock)
- Homer's Odyssey: A Companion to the Tranlsation of Richmond Lattimore (Jones)
Hesiod (Lattimore)
Greek Lyrics (Lattimore)
Greek Drama
- Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Greene and Lattimore)
- Aristophanes: all or part?
History
- Herodotus: The Histories
- Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War
Hippocrates
Plato
Aristotle
to be continued...
