Hello, blog world. I am so happy it is Sunday - no homework, no bus ride, no cleaning. Just me and my bowl of Brownie Crunch cereal (which you should try, if you haven't. I've had to limit myself to weekend mornings only so I don't balloon out).
Today I wanted to highlight a list that I found via my friend Chantel's blog. Chantel is recently engaged and wrote a long list of things she loves about her husband-to-be. One of these things is his desire to read a list made by Will Durant, a philosopher and writer. Supposedly, if you read all 100 of these books, you will have the educational level of a Ph.D.
I'm not sure if I will get through all of these books in my life, but I do want to challenge myself to keep track of the ones I do read and try to get through at least half of them at some point. Books I have already read will be struck out, and books I am currently reading will be italic. Books I know I want to read will be bold.
1 John Arthur Thomson, The Outline of Science: A Plain Story Simply Told (4 vol.)
2 Logan Clendening, The Human Body
3 John Harvey Kellogg, The New Dietetics, pp 1-531, 975-1011
4 William James, Principles of Psychology (2 vol.)
5 Herbert George Wells, The Outline of History
6 William Graham Sumner, Folkways
7 James Frazer, The Golden Bough (1 vol. abridged)
8 James Henry Breasted and James Harvey Robinson, The Human Adventure
(2 vol.)
9 Brian Brown, The Wisdom of China
10 The Bible
11 Elie Faure, History of Art (4 vol),
12 Henry Smith Williams, A History of Science (5 vol.)
13 J. B. Bury, History of Greece
14 Herodotus, Histories (Everyman Library)
15 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (Everyman Library)
16 Plutarch, Lives of Illustrious Men
17 Gilbert Murray, Ancient Greek Literature
18 Homer, Iliad (trans. William Cullen Bryant)
19 Homer, Odyssey (trans. William Cullen Bryant)
20 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
21 Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone )
22 Euripides, all plays (trans. Gilbert Murray)
23 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers
24 Plato, Dialogues (trans. Jowett),
25 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
26 Aristotle, Politics
27 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (trans. Munro, certain passages are admirably paraphrased in William Mallock, Lucretius on Life and Death)
28 Virgil, Aeneid (trans. William Morris), selections
29 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Everyman Library)
30 Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* (6 vol., Everyman Library)
31 Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat (Fitzgerald paraphrase)
32 George Moore, Heloise and Abelard (2 vol.)
33 Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy (trans. Longfellow or Charles E. Norton) (I've read the Inferno!)
34 Hippolyte Taine, History of English Literature*, book 1
35 Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (Everyman Library)
36 Henry Adams, Mont St. Michel and Chartres
37 Cecil Gray, The History of Music, ch. 1-3, 5
38 John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (7 vol.) (Durant also suggests Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy)
39 Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography (trans. Symonds)
40 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters and Sculptors (4 vol.), esp. Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michaelangelo
41 Harald Hoffding, History of Modern Philosophy (2 vol.), sections on Bruno and Machiavelli
42 Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
43 Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation
44 Emile Faguet, The Literature of France, sections on the sixteenth century
45 Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
46 Michel de Montaigne, Essays (3 vol., Everyman Library), esp. "Of Coaches", "Of the Incommodity of Greatness", "Of Vanity", and "Of Experience"
47 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
48 William Shakespeare, Plays
49 Francois La Rochefoucauld, Reflections
50 Moliere, Plays, esp. Tartuffe, The Miser, The Misanthrope, The Bourgeois Gentleman, and The Feast of the Statue (Don Juan)
51 Francis Bacon, Essays (Everyman Library)
52 John Milton, "Lycidias", "L'Allegro", "Il Penseroso", Sonnets, "Areopagitica" and selections from Paradise Lost
53 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Everyman Library)
54 Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethics and On the Improvement of the Understanding (Everyman Library)
55 Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Portraits of the 18th Century
56 Francois Marie de Voltaire, Works (1 vol. ed.), esp. Candide, Zadig, and essays on "Toleration" and "History"
57 John-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
58 Taine, Origins of Contemporary France (6 vol.)
59 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution* (2 vol., Everyman Library)
60 James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (2 vol., Everyman Library)
61 Henry Fielding, Tom Jones (2 vol., Everyman Library)
62 Laurence Sterne, Tristam Shandy (Everyman Library)
63 Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (Everyman Library)
64 David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature (2 vol., Everyman Library) esp bks 2-3
65 Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman
66 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (2 vol., Everyman Library), selections (I tried to read this... don't know if I'll ever make it through!)
67 Emil Ludwig, Napoleon
68 George Brandes, Main Currents of 19th Century Literature (6 vol.)
69 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
70 Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe
71 Heinrich. Heine, Poems (trans. Loius Untermeyer)
72 John Keats, Poems
73 Percy Bysse Shelley, Poems
74 George Gordon Byron, Poems
75 Honore de Balzac, Pere Goriot
76 Gustave Flaubert, Works* (1 vol. ed.), esp. Madame Bovary and Salambo
77 Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
78 Anatole France, Penguin Isle
79 Alfred Tennyson, Poems
80 Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers
81 William Thackeray, Vanity Fair
82 Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Children
83 Fyodor Dostoievski, The Brothers Karamozov
84 Leo Tolstoi, War and Peace
85 Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt
86 Charles Darwin, Descent of Man
87 William Buckle, Introduction to the History of Civilization in England, esp. pt 1 ch. 1-5, 15
88 Arthur Schopenhauer, Works (1 vol. ed.)
89 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
90 Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization* (2 vol.)
91 Edgar Allen Poe, Poems and Tales
92 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
93 Henry David Thoreau, Walden
94 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
95 Abraham Lincoln, Letters and Speeches
96 Romain Rolland, Jean Cristophe (2 vol.)
97 Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. 1-3, 6
98 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
99 Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
100 Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West (2 vol.)
2 Logan Clendening, The Human Body
3 John Harvey Kellogg, The New Dietetics, pp 1-531, 975-1011
4 William James, Principles of Psychology (2 vol.)
5 Herbert George Wells, The Outline of History
6 William Graham Sumner, Folkways
7 James Frazer, The Golden Bough (1 vol. abridged)
8 James Henry Breasted and James Harvey Robinson, The Human Adventure
(2 vol.)
9 Brian Brown, The Wisdom of China
10 The Bible
11 Elie Faure, History of Art (4 vol),
12 Henry Smith Williams, A History of Science (5 vol.)
13 J. B. Bury, History of Greece
14 Herodotus, Histories (Everyman Library)
15 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (Everyman Library)
16 Plutarch, Lives of Illustrious Men
17 Gilbert Murray, Ancient Greek Literature
18 Homer, Iliad (trans. William Cullen Bryant)
19 Homer, Odyssey (trans. William Cullen Bryant)
20 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
21 Sophocles,
22 Euripides, all plays (trans. Gilbert Murray)
23 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers
24 Plato, Dialogues (trans. Jowett),
25 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
26 Aristotle, Politics
27 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (trans. Munro, certain passages are admirably paraphrased in William Mallock, Lucretius on Life and Death)
28 Virgil, Aeneid (trans. William Morris), selections
29 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Everyman Library)
30 Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* (6 vol., Everyman Library)
31 Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat (Fitzgerald paraphrase)
32 George Moore, Heloise and Abelard (2 vol.)
33 Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy (trans. Longfellow or Charles E. Norton) (I've read the Inferno!)
34 Hippolyte Taine, History of English Literature*, book 1
35 Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (Everyman Library)
36 Henry Adams, Mont St. Michel and Chartres
37 Cecil Gray, The History of Music, ch. 1-3, 5
38 John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (7 vol.) (Durant also suggests Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy)
39 Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography (trans. Symonds)
40 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters and Sculptors (4 vol.), esp. Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michaelangelo
41 Harald Hoffding, History of Modern Philosophy (2 vol.), sections on Bruno and Machiavelli
43 Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation
44 Emile Faguet, The Literature of France, sections on the sixteenth century
45 Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
46 Michel de Montaigne, Essays (3 vol., Everyman Library), esp. "Of Coaches", "Of the Incommodity of Greatness", "Of Vanity", and "Of Experience"
47 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
48 William Shakespeare, Plays
49 Francois La Rochefoucauld, Reflections
50 Moliere, Plays, esp. Tartuffe, The Miser, The Misanthrope, The Bourgeois Gentleman, and The Feast of the Statue (Don Juan)
51 Francis Bacon, Essays (Everyman Library)
52 John Milton, "Lycidias", "L'Allegro", "Il Penseroso", Sonnets, "Areopagitica" and selections from Paradise Lost
53 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Everyman Library)
54 Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethics and On the Improvement of the Understanding (Everyman Library)
55 Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Portraits of the 18th Century
56 Francois Marie de Voltaire, Works (1 vol. ed.), esp. Candide, Zadig, and essays on "Toleration" and "History"
57 John-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
58 Taine, Origins of Contemporary France (6 vol.)
59 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution* (2 vol., Everyman Library)
60 James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (2 vol., Everyman Library)
61 Henry Fielding, Tom Jones (2 vol., Everyman Library)
62 Laurence Sterne, Tristam Shandy (Everyman Library)
63 Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (Everyman Library)
64 David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature (2 vol., Everyman Library) esp bks 2-3
65 Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman
66 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (2 vol., Everyman Library), selections (I tried to read this... don't know if I'll ever make it through!)
67 Emil Ludwig, Napoleon
68 George Brandes, Main Currents of 19th Century Literature (6 vol.)
69 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
70 Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe
71 Heinrich. Heine, Poems (trans. Loius Untermeyer)
72 John Keats, Poems
73 Percy Bysse Shelley, Poems
74 George Gordon Byron, Poems
75 Honore de Balzac, Pere Goriot
76 Gustave Flaubert, Works* (1 vol. ed.), esp. Madame Bovary and Salambo
78 Anatole France, Penguin Isle
79 Alfred Tennyson, Poems
80 Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers
81 William Thackeray, Vanity Fair
82 Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Children
83 Fyodor Dostoievski, The Brothers Karamozov
84 Leo Tolstoi, War and Peace
85 Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt
86 Charles Darwin, Descent of Man
87 William Buckle, Introduction to the History of Civilization in England, esp. pt 1 ch. 1-5, 15
88 Arthur Schopenhauer, Works (1 vol. ed.)
89 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
90 Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization* (2 vol.)
91 Edgar Allen Poe, Poems and Tales
92 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
93 Henry David Thoreau, Walden
94 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
95 Abraham Lincoln, Letters and Speeches
96 Romain Rolland, Jean Cristophe (2 vol.)
97 Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. 1-3, 6
98 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
99 Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
100 Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West (2 vol.)
It's so nice to set goals. And it looks like, if not a PhD, you should be awarded...well, a lovely MA, perhaps.
ReplyDeleteHere's my Sunday Salon: Une Petite Visite à Paris. (And don't worry....it's in English. I just like to pretend to speak French.)
Interesting list. I think I've only read two books on it. Though I'm also currently reading Madame Bovary and Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I love your new blog theme.
@Deb Nance - Exactly. I'm just going for my MA in Will Durant's list! Haha. And I pretend to speak French as well. :)
ReplyDelete@everybookandcranny - I want to read Madame Bovary as well, I've been hearing great things about it. And thank you!
What a list! I thought I hadn't read any on it until we got to the Russian fellows. I had a "Russian summer" when I was in college, and enjoyed Tolstoy and Dosteovsky.
ReplyDeleteHere's my reading for the week on MY SUNDAY SALON POST
That is a VERY ambitious list! Awesome points to you for even attempting any of it, lol.
ReplyDeleteHrm, looks like PhD isn't my lot in life. :) I did love War and Peace though! I occasionally wish I was a person who wasn't scared by lists such as these, but whew! scary! I love lists, though, so thanks for sharing this one.
ReplyDeleteGreat list! Thanks for sharing this. I'm reading Montaigne now and LOVE him. Oh, and War and Peace. And I'm working on Madame Bovary and Leaves of Grass. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to read Lincoln's letters and speeches!! And well, much of the list, really.
This list is intense! But you can do it!
ReplyDeleteWow. I've read 2 books on the list (The Odyssey and The Brothers Karamazov, which I loathed). I don't think I'll be getting my doctorate any time soon. :-D
ReplyDeleteCreations - I've hardly read any Russian authors, just Chekhov. I need to get on that.
ReplyDeleteSarah - Yeah, I don't think I will be reading some of those 4 volume works.
Melody - I know, at first I was thinking, "what a great idea!" and then decided, like Deb Nance said, maybe I'll just get my master's. :)
Jillian - I can totally see you actually finishing this list! I don't know if I will, but it has given me some ideas.
Sweetest Little Bookworm - Thanks for the confidence! At least I have my whole life to try, haha.
Softdrink - Me either! it is so intense!