GREAT BOOKS – THE SECOND DECADE (2007-2016)
The readings are arranged in thirty-seven categories, and each year I read from each category. Each category contains ten numbered groups, the number referring to the year. So during year 1 (2007), I read the plays about the Persians, Plato's Charmides, etc. In 2016, year 10, I read Heracles Mad, Plato's Laws, Aristotle's Rhetoric, and everything else under number (10) in each category.
I'm now reading from my third ten-year reading plan.
Greek Plays
(1) Persians (goes well with Herodotus)
Suppliant Maidens (Aesch)
Persians (Aesch)
Suppliants (Eur)
Wasps (Arist)
(2) Before Troy
Hippolytus (Eur)
Iphigenia in Aulis (Eur)
Iphigenia in Tauris (Eur)
The Peace (Arist)
(3) Oedipus/Thebes
Oedipus the King (Soph)
Oedipus at Colonus (Soph)
Antigone (Soph)
Seven against Thebes (Aesch)
Phoenician Maidens (Eur)
(4)
Prometheus (Aesch)
The Birds (Arist)
The Acharnians (Arist)
The Knights (Arist)
The Clouds (Arist)
(5) Men & Women
Lysistrata (Arist)
Thesmophoriazusae (Arist)
Ecclesiazusae (Arist)
Medea (Eur)
(6) Troy (goes well with the Aeneid)
Hecuba (Eur)
Trojan Women (Eur)
Ajax (Soph)
Rhesus (Eur)
(7) After Troy
Helen (Eur)
Agamemnon (Aesch)
Choepheroe (Aesch)
Eumenides (Aesch)
(8) After Troy
Electra (Soph)
Electra (Eur)
Andromache (Eur)
(See last 1/4 of Iliad VI)
Orestes (Eur)
(9) Mythical creatures plus
Ion (Eur)
Bacchantes (Eur)
Cyclops (Eur)
Plutus (Arist)
(10) Heracles
Heracles Mad (Eur)
Alcestis (Eur)
Heraclidae (Eur)
Philoctetes (Soph)
Trachinian Women (Soph)
Plato
(1)
Charmides
Lysis
Euthyphro
Apology
Crito
Phaedo
(2)
Republic
Books I-V
(3)
Republic
Books VI-X
Laches
(4)
Protagoras
Euthydemus
Cratylus
(5)
Phaedrus
Ion
Symposium
Meno
(6)
Timaeus
Critias
Parmenides
Seventh Letter
(7)
Gorgias
Theaetetus
(8)
Sophist
Statesman
Philebus
(9)
Laws
Books I-VI
(10)
Laws
Books VII-XII
Aristotle
(1)
Categories
On Interpretation
Prior Analytics
Book I
Ethics
Books I-V
(2)
Prior Analytics
Book II
On Generation and Corruption
Ethics
Books VI-X
(3)
Posterior Analytics
Politics
Books I-III
(4)
Physics
(5)
Topics
Books I-V
Politics
Books IV-VIII
(6)
Topics
Books VI-VIII
Athenian Constitution
On Sophistical Refutations
(7)
Metaphysics
(8)
On the Soul
Short Physical Treatises
(9)
On the Heavens
Meteorology
(10)
Rhetoric
Poetics
Plutarch
(1)
Theseus/Romulus
Lycurgus/Numa
Solon/Poplicola
(2)
Themistocles/Camillus
Pericles/Fabius
(3)
Alcibialdes/Coriolanus
Timoleon/Aemilius Paulus
(4)
Pelopidas/Marcellus
Aristides/Marcus Cato
Philopoemen/Flamininus
(5)
Pyrrhus/Caius Marius
Lysander/Sulla
Cimon/Lucullus
(6)
Nicias/Crassus
Sertorius/Eumenes
(7)
Agesilaus/Pompey
Alexander/Caesar
(8)
Phocion/Cato
Agis/Cleomenes
The Gracchi
(9)
Demosthenes/Cicero
Demetrius/Antony
(10)
Dion/Marcus Brutus
Aratus
Artaxerxes
Galba
Otho
Other Ancient History
(1) Herodotus, books I-IV
(2) Herodotus, books V-IX
(3) Thucydides, books I-IV
(4) Livy, books I-V
(5) Livy, books VI-X
(6) Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
(7) Gibbon, chapters I-XIII
(8) Gibbon, chapters XIV-XX
(9) Gibbon, chapters XXI-XXVII
(10) Gibbon, chapters XXVIII-XXXVIII
Durant
(1) Vol. III, Chs. XIV-XXV (295-551)
(2) Vol. IV, Chs. I-XI (1-234)
(3) Vol. IV, Chs. XII-XIX (235-482)
(4) Vol. IV, Chs. XX-XXVI (483-732)
(5) Vol. IV, Chs. XXVII-XXXVI (733-983)
(6) Vol. IV, Chs. XXXVII-Epilogue (984-1086)
Vol. V, Chs. I-X (1-279)
(7) Vol. V, Chs. XI-XXI (280-648)
(8) Vol. V, Chs. XXII-Envoi (649-728)
Vol. VI, Chs. I-XIV (1-292)
(9) Vol. VI, Chs. XV-XXIX (293-662)
(10) Vol. VI, Chs. XXX-Epilogue (663-940); Vol. VII, Chs. I-III (1-87)
Epic
(1) Apollodorus, The Library; Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Divine Comedy
(3) Paradise Lost
(4) Iliad
(5) Odyssey
(6) Aeneid
(7) Song of Roland
(8) Beowulf, Mallory I
(9) Mallory II
(10) Ovid, Metamorphoses
Euclid
(1) Review bk. I; read bk. II
(2) Bk. III
(3) Bk. IV
(4) Bk. V
(5) Bk. VI
(6) Bk. VII
(7) Bk. VIII
(8) Bk. IX
(9) Bk. X
(10) Bk. XI
Church Fathers
(1) Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity
(2) Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith
(3) Athanasius, Life of Antony
(4) Origen, First Principles
(5) Eusebius (Maier translation)
(6) Chrysostom, sermons
(7) Basil the Great, Hexaemeron
(8) Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ
(9) John Cassian, Institutes
(10) Gregory of Nazianzen, Orations
Augustine
(1) City of God, Books I-IV
(2) City of God, Books V-VII
(3) City of God, Books VIII-X
(4) City of God, Books XI-XIV
(5) City of God, Books XV-XVII
(6) City of God, Books XVIII-XIX
(7) City of God, Books XX-XXII
(8) Confessions
(9) On Christian Doctrine
(10) On the Trinity
Aquinas
(1) Treatise on God: Part I, QQ 1-26 (pp. 1-152)
(2) Treatise on the Trinity: Part I, QQ 27-36, 42-43, 49 (pp. 153-97, 224-38,
264-69)
Treatise on the Angels: Part I, QQ 50-60 (pp. 269-314)
Treatise on the Work of the Six Days: Part I, QQ 65-74 (pp. 339-78)
(3) Treatise on Man: Part I, QQ 75-90 (pp. 378-484)
Treatise on the Divine Government: Part I, QQ 103-116 (pp. 528-95)
(4) Treatise on the Last End: Part I-II, QQ 1-5 (pp. 609-644)
Treatise on Human Acts: Part I-II, QQ 6-25, 31-39 (pp. 644-733, 752-92)
(5) Treatise on Habits, beg.: Part I-II, QQ 49-78 (pp. 1-156)
(6) Treatise on Habits, cont.: Part I-II, QQ 79-89 (pp. 156-205)
Treatise on Law: Part I-II, QQ 90-103, 106-108 (pp. 205-304, 321-37)
(7) Treatise on Grace: Part I-II, QQ 109-114 (pp. 338-79)
Treatise on Faith, Hope, and Charity, beg.: Part II-II, QQ 1-22
(pp. 380-481)
(8) Treatise on Faith, Hope, and Charity, cont.: Part II-II, QQ 23-30, 34,
44-46 (pp. 482-536, 558-62, 592-606)
Treatise on Active and Contemplative Life: Part II-II, QQ 179-82
(pp. 606-25)
Treatise on the Incarnation, beg.: Part III, QQ 1-8 (pp. 701-63)
(9) Treatise on the Incarnation, cont.: Part III, QQ 9-15, 20-26 (pp. 763-96,
821-47)
Treatise on the Sacraments: Part III, QQ 60-65 (pp. 847-85)
Treatise on the Resurrection, 1 (Before the Resurrection): Part III,
QQ 69-74 (pp. 885-935)
(10) Treatise on the Resurrection, 2 (The Resurrection Itself): Part III,
QQ 75-82 (pp. 935-74)
Treatise on the Last Things: Part III, QQ 87-99 (pp. 997-1080)
Calvin, Institutes
(1) Preface and I.I - I.XIII (pp. 1-139), I.XIV - II.III (pp. 140-264)
(2) II.IV - II.XI (pp. 265-399)
(3) II.XII - III.III (pp. 400-531)
(4) III.IV - III.XII (pp. 532-82, 1-67)
(5) III.XIII - III.XX (pp. 68-201)
(6) III.XXI - IV.III (pp. 202-326)
(7) IV.IV - IV.XI (pp. 327-451)
(8) IV.XII - IV.XVI (pp. 452-554)
(9) IV.XVII - IV.XX (pp. 555-676)
(10) Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism
Religious scriptures
(1) Koran I (Intro and Surahs 1-18)
(2) Book of Mormon I (I Nephi - Alma)
(3) Book of Mormon II (Helaman - Moroni)
(4) Hindu Scriptures: Rig Veda and Upanishads
(5) Buddhist scriptures (Harvard), half
(6) Sun Tsu, Art of War; Confucius, Analects
(7) Apocrypha
(8) Koran II (Surahs 19-114)
(9) Hindu Scriptures II, Bhagavad Gita and others
(10) Buddhist scriptures (Harvard), second half
Middle Christian Classics
(1) Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, bk. II; Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God
(2) Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
(3) Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises; Erasmus, Praise of Folly
(4) John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul
(5) Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
(6) Edwards, Religious Affections (portions)
(7) Anselm, Proslogium, Cur Deus Homo
(8) Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind into God; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book I
(9) Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Books II & III
(10) Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Books IV & V
Philosophy to Review, Reread, or Read Further
(1) Epictetus
(2) Marcus Aurelius
(3) Hobbes/Mill
(4) Montaigne
(5) Hegel (Blackwell Reader)
(6) Descartes
(7) Bacon/Spinoza
(8) Locke
(9) Hume
(10) Lucretius
Boccaccio
One "day" per year
Spenser/Ariosto
(1) Faerie Queene, bk. III
(2) Faerie Queene, bk. IV
(3) Faerie Queene, bk. V
(4) Faerie Queene, bk. VI, etc.
(5) Orlando Furioso (trans. Barbara Reynolds), first 1/6
(6) Orlando Furioso, second 1/6
(7) Orlando Furioso, third 1/6
(8) Orlando Furioso, fourth 1/6
(9) Orlando Furioso, fifth 1/6
(10) Orlando Furioso, last 1/6
English Poetry
(1) Sir Gawain, etc., trans. by Tolkien
(2) Herrick, Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan, Marvell
(3) Pope
(4) Blake/Burns
(5) Wordsworth (Oxford) (See book by Ulmer, possibly on Google books)
(6) Byron
(7) Shelley
(8) Keats
(9) Tennyson I
(10) Tennyson II
Shakespeare
(1)
1 Henry VI
All's Well that Ends Well
Two Noble Kinsmen
Coriolanus
Sonnets 1-10
(2)
2 Henry VI
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Julius Caesar
Antony and Cleopatra
Sonnets 11-20
(3)
3 Henry VI
Cymbeline
King Lear
Comedy of Errors
Sonnets 21-30
(4)
Richard III
Twelfth Night
Hamlet
Merry Wives of Windsor
Sonnets 31-40
(5)
Henry VIII
Pericles
Macbeth
Much Ado About Nothing
Sonnets 41-50
(6)
King John
Love's Labour's Lost
Othello
The Merchant of Venice
Sonnets 51-60
(7)
Richard II
The Taming of the Shrew
Romeo and Juliet
The Tempest
Sonnets 61-70
(8)
1 Henry IV
The Winter's Tale
Titus Andronicus
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Sonnets 71-80
(9)
2 Henry IV
Measure for Measure
Troilus and Cressida
Sonnets 81-120
(10)
Henry V
Timon of Athens
As You Like It
Sonnets 121-154
New-to-me Philosophy, etc.
(1) Kierkegaard, reader
(2) Nietzsche, reader
(3) Emerson, essays; Thoreau, Walden Pond
(4) Wittgenstein, reader
(5) Spengler, The Decline of the West (abridged)
(6) Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(7) Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea (portions)
(8) Husserl, Crisis of Modern Science
(9) Heidegger, reader
(10) Dedekind, Theory of Numbers
Pascal/Kant
(1) Pensées (Kreeft ed.)
(2) Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
(3) Science of Right
(4) Critique of Pure Reason I (1-33)
(5) Critique of Pure Reason II (34-108)
(6) Critique of Pure Reason III (108-209)
(7) Critique of Practical Reason
(8) Critique of Aesthetic Judgment
(9) Provincial Letters
(10) Critique of Teleological Judgment
18th-century Novels
(1) Richardson, Pamela
(2) Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
(3) Johnson reader (Oxford)
(4) Smollett, Roderick Random
(5) Blackmoor, Lorna Doone
(6) Voltaire, Candide
(7) Swift, Gulliver's Travels
(8) Eliot, Middlemarch (yeah, I know the century)
(9) Sterne, Tristram Shandy
(10) Fielding, Tom Jones
Boswell
Life of Johnson, 60 pages a year
Other Great “Novels”
(1) Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
(2) Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
(3) Dostoevsky, The Idiot
(4) Balzac, Eugenie Grandet
(5) Thackeray, Henry Esmond
(6) Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel bk. IV
(7) Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
(8) Melville, Moby Dick
(9) Cervantes, Don Quixote
(10) Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
Dickens
(1) Old Curiosity Shop, Master Humphrey’s Clock, etc.
(2) Barnaby Rudge, American Notes
(3) Martin Chuzzlewit
(4) Dombey and Son
(5) David Copperfield
(6) Bleak House
(7) Little Dorrit
(8) A Tale of Two Cities, The Chimes
(9) Great Expectations, Haunted Man
(10) Edwin Drood, Battle of Life
Dickens/Austen
(1) Mansfield Park
(2) Northanger Abbey, Cricket on the Hearth
(3) Child's History of England
(4) Christmas stories
(5) Pictures from Italy
(6) Reprinted Pieces ("The Long Voyage" thru "A Christmas Tree")
(7) Pride and Prejudice
(8) Sense and Sensibility
(9) Emma
(10) Persuasion
Trollope
(1) Is He Popenjoy?
(2) John Caldigate
(3) The Warden
(4) Barchester Towers
(5) Doctor Thorne
(6) Framley Parsonage
(7) The Small House at Allington
(8) The Last Chronicle of Barset
(9) Can You Forgive Her?
(10) Phineas Finn
William James
Principles of Psychology (Somewhat following James's recommendations for order)
(1) Chaps. I-III
(2) Chaps. IV, XXIII, XXIV
(3) Chaps. V, VI, XXV
(4) Chap. XXVI
(5) Chaps. IX, Xa
(6) Chap. Xb
(7) Chaps. XI
(8) Chaps. XIV, XVI
(9) Chaps. XVIII, XIX
(10) Chaps. XXII, XXVII
Twentieth Century Works
(1) Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man
(2) Joseph Heller, Catch-22
(3) Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
(4) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
(5) Orwell, Animal Farm
(6) Ibsen (Doll's House), Chekhov, poems by Hardy
(7) Faulkner, Sartoris or Light in August
(8) Mann, Magic Mountain
(9) Kafka, The Castle
(10) James Joyce, Ulysses
Tolkien/Williams
(1) All Hallows Eve
(2) Shadows of Ecstasy
(3) Descent into Hell
(4) The Silmarillion
(5) War in Heaven
(6) The Place of the Lion
(7) Many Dimensions
(8) The Greater Trumps
(9) LOTR
(10) Till We Have Faces
Other Modern Christian writings
(1) Sayers, Begin Here
(2) Waugh, Put Out More Flags
(3) Cowper, poems
(4) MacDonald, Sir Gibbie
(5) Waugh, Men at Arms
(6) Greene, Heart of the Matter
(7) Sayers, plays
(8) MacDonald, Phantastes (Lewis edition)
(9) Waugh, A Handful of Dust
(10) Waugh, short stories
Lewis
(1) The Discarded Image
(2) Preface to Paradise Lost
(3) Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra
(4) That Hideous Strength
(5) Surprised by Joy
(6) The Weight of Glory
(7) God in the Dock
(8) Dark Tower and other stories
(9) The World's Last Night, Christian Reflections
(10) Miracles
Chesterton
(1) Chaucer
(2) ILN
(3) St. Thomas
(4) ILN
(5) Father Brown
(6) ILN (1915, 1920)
(7) Napoleon of Notting Hill
(8) ILN (year tbd)
(9) Orthodoxy
(10) ILN (year tbd)
O'Brian
(1) The Surgeon's Mate
(2) The Ionian Mission
(3) Treason's Harbour
(4) The Far Side of the World
(5) The Reverse of the Medal
(6) The Letter of Marque
(7) The Thirteen-Gun Salute
(8) The Nutmeg of Consolation
(9) The Truelove
(10) The Winedark Sea
Civil War
(1) Foote, vol. III, 427-734
(2) Foote, vol. III, 735-1060
(3) Catton, Mr. Lincoln's Army
(4) Catton, Glory Road
(5) Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox
(6) Forged in Battle
(7) MacPherson
(8) Foote, vol. I, 1st third
(9) Foote, vol. I, 2nd third
(10) Foote, vol. I, 3rd third
Presidential Biography
(1) Flexner, Washinton: The Indispensable Man
(2) McCullough, John Adams
(3) Jefferson: American Sphinx (Ellis)
(4) James Madison (Wills)
(5) Lincoln's Greatest Speech
(6) Hayes (Hoogenboom)
(7) TR – or Mornings on Horseback
(8) Goodwin, No Ordinary Time
(9) McCullough,Truman
(10) Wilson (by John Milton Cooper, Jr. – see also Phyllis Lee Levin on Edith
and the stroke)
Uncategorized
(1) Innocents Abroad
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
(2) Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Verne, From the Earth to the Moon
(3) Doyle, rest of Sherlock Holmes
O'Connor, stories
(4) Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
The Education of Henry Adams
Barth, Dogmatics in Outline
(5) George Morrison, Christ in Shakespeare
Bonhoeffer, Ethics and Creation and Fall
Big excerpt from the Shahnameh
(6) Plantinga, God and Other Minds
Dionysius, On the Divine Names, Celestial Hierarchy
Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield
(7) Geoffrey of Monmouth (Penguin)
Peirce (Philosophical Writings of Peirce) See also Feibleman, Introduction
to the Philosophy of Charles Peirce
Cicero, On Friendship
(8) Arabian Nights (Norton critical edition)(+ Rushdie, Haroun and the
Sea of Stories?)
Philosophy of Thomas Reid
Gower, Confessio Amantis
(9) Jean de Meung, Roman de la Rose
At the Origin of the Christian Claim, Giusanni
Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (or Warranted Christian Belief)
(10) Racine, Moliere, Corneille
Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws
deTocqueville
