Reading List

About This List

This reading list is drawn from two main sources. The first is Charles Murray's book Human Accomplishment, which ranks people in various fields based on a statistical analysis of the amount of space devoted to them in histories of the fields in question. (It shows, for example, that books on the history of Western literature have more to say about Shakespeare than about anyone else, followed by Goethe, Dante, Virgil, and Homer. Pretty obvious, some of it, but Murray quantifies it.)

I had thought of using Murray's ranked lists as a reading list, but found a few problems. First, it is focused on people rather than on books, which means that (a) anonymous works such as the Bible are excluded and (b) there is no indication of which of a given author's works are the indispensable ones. Second, some important fields such as religion and the social sciences are not covered (except as they overlap with literature, philosophy, or the hard sciences), with the result that certain must-read authors (Karl Marx, for instance) don't appear on any of Murray's lists. Third, the science lists give no indication of which figures can be profitably read by non-specialists. Fourth, many of the lists, especially the Western literature one, are just too long to make reading everyone on the list a realistic project.

I therefore turned to Robert Teeter's collection of "Great Books" lists. I decided which of the dozens of lists to focus on by checking them against the top 20 figures from Murray's Western literature and Western philosophy lists (a total of 38 authors, since Rousseau appears on both lists and Socrates didn't write anything). Of the lists collected by Teeter, only the following included at least 50% of those 38 authors:

  • Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren's How to Read a Book. (84%)
  • Philip Ward's A Lifetime's Reading: The World's 500 Greatest Books. (79%)
  • Great Books of the Western World. (74%)
  • St. John's College reading list. (68%)
  • Thomas Aquinas College curriculum. (66%)
  • Harold Bloom's The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. (66%)
  • Columbia reading lists. (61%)
  • Martin Seymour-Smith's 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written. (61%)
  • Good Reading: A Guide for Serious Readers. (55%)
  • Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan. (53%)
  • Sir John Lubbock's Choice of Books. (50%)

That gives us 11 reading lists to work with. The list below includes every author and book which is included on over half (that is, at least 6) of the lists. Authors and books which are included on virtually all of the lists (all 11, or 10 out of 11) are in bold.

If an author is recommended by a majority of the lists, but no one of his books is, then the book or books recommended by the greatest number of lists is included in parentheses. For example, 7 of the lists include Thomas Mann, but only 5 of those include The Magic Mountain. (The other two recommend The Buddenbrooks and Death in Venice, respectively.) Therefore, my list includes The Magic Mountain in parentheses.

Authors in parentheses are those which made Murray's top 20 lists but were recommended by fewer than 6 of the 11 lists above. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, whom Murray ranks 20th in Western philosophy, did not appear on any of the 11 lists and so is not included even in parentheses.

The List

  1. Aeschylus. Agamemnon. Choephoroe. Eumenides.
  2. Aristophanes. The Clouds. The Birds. The Frogs. Knights. Lysistrata.
  3. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Poetics. Politics.
  4. Augustine, St. Confessions.
  5. The Bible.
  6. Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote.
  7. Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy.
  8. Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species.
  9. Descartes, René. Discourse on Method.
  10. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust.
  11. Herodotus. The Histories.
  12. Homer. The Iliad. The Odyssey.
  13. Lucretius. Of the Nature of Things.
  14. Milton, John. Paradise Lost.
  15. Montaigne, Michel de. Essays.
  16. Plato. Phaedo. Republic. Apology. Crito. Gorgias. Ion. Meno. Parmenides. Phaedrus. Protagoras. Sophist. Symposium. Theatetus. Timaeus.
  17. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Henry IV, Part 1. King Lear. Macbeth. Othello. Richard II. Sonnets. The Tempest. Twelfth Night. All's Well That Ends Well. Antony and Cleopatra. As You Like It. The Comedy of Errors. Coriolanus. Cymbeline. Henry IV, Part 2. Henry V. Henry VI, Part 1. Henry VI, Part 2. Henry VI, Part 3. Henry VIII. Julius Caesar. King John. A Lover's Complaint. Love's Labour's Lost. Measure for Measure. The Merchant of Venice. Merry Wives of Windsor. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Much Ado about Nothing. The Passionate Pilgrim. Pericles. The Phoenix and the Turtle. The Rape of Lucrece. Richard III. Romeo and Juliet. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music. The Taming of the Shrew. Timon of Athens. Titus Andronicus. Troilus and Cressida. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Venus and Adonis. The Winter's Tale.
  18. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Antigone. Oedipus at Colonus. Philoctetes.
  19. Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels.
  20. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War.
  21. Virgil. The Aeneid.
  22. Euripides. Alcestis. Bacchae. Electra. Hippolytus. Medea.
  23. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil.
  24. Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Social Contract.
  25. Austen, Jane. Emma. Pride and Prejudice.
  26. Bacon, Francis. Novum Organum.
  27. Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge.
  28. Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson.
  29. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales.
  30. Confucius. The Analects.
  31. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
  32. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov.
  33. Eliot, George. Middlemarch.
  34. Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land. "Ash Wednesday". "Journey of the Magi".
  35. Fielding, Henry. Tom Jones.
  36. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.
  37. Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
  38. Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers.
  39. Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Philosophy of History.
  40. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan.
  41. Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House.
  42. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason.
  43. Locke, John. Second Treatise on Government.
  44. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince.
  45. Marcus Aurelius. Meditations.
  46. Marx, Karl. Capital. The Communist Manifesto.
  47. Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick.
  48. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty.
  49. Molière. The Bourgeois Gentleman. Critique of the School for Wives. Don Juan. Imaginary Invalid. The Learned Ladies. Misanthrope. The Miser. Physician in Spite of Himself. Ridiculous Precieuses. School for Husbands. School for Wives. Tartuffe.
  50. Pascal, Blaise. Pensées.
  51. Plutarch. Parallel Lives.
  52. Proust, Marcel. "Swann in Love."
  53. The Qur'an.
  54. Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel.
  55. Shaw, George Bernard. Saint Joan.
  56. Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations.
  57. Spinoza, Baruch. Ethics.
  58. Tacitus. Annals.
  59. Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace.
  60. Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn.
  61. Voltaire. Candide.
  62. Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse.
  63. Aquinas, St. Thomas. (Summa Theologica.)
  64. Balzac, Honoré de. (Eugénie Grandet.)
  65. Cicero. (Offices.)
  66. Dickens, Charles. (Pickwick Papers. David Copperfield.)
  67. Einstein, Albert. (Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.)
  68. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. (Essays.)
  69. Epictetus. (Discourses.)
  70. Flaubert, Gustave. (Madame Bovary.)
  71. Galileo Galilei. (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences.)
  72. Hume, David. (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.)
  73. James, Henry. (The Ambassadors.)
  74. James, William. (Pragmatism.)
  75. Joyce, James. (Ulysses.)
  76. Kafka, Franz. (The Trial.)
  77. Mann, Thomas. (The Magic Mountain.)
  78. Thoreau, Henry David. (Walden.)
  79. (Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron.)
  80. (Byron, Lord. Don Juan. Poems.)
  81. (Horace. Odes.)
  82. (Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Les Misérables.)
  83. (Leibniz, Gottfried. Discourse on Metaphysics.)
  84. (Petrarch. Poems.)
  85. (Plotinus. Enneads.)
  86. (Racine, Jean. Phèdre.)
  87. (Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy.)
  88. (Schiller, Friedrich. Don Carlos.)
  89. (Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Essays and Aphorisms. Studies in Pessimism.)
  90. (Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley.)

My To-Read List

This is the above list, minus what I've already read since 2000.

  1. Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote.
  2. Descartes, René. Discourse on Method.
  3. Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels.
  4. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War.
  5. Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Social Contract.
  6. Aristotle. Politics.
  7. Austen, Jane. Emma. Pride and Prejudice.
  8. Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge.
  9. Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson.
  10. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
  11. Fielding, Henry. Tom Jones.
  12. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams.
  13. Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
  14. Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers.
  15. Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Philosophy of History.
  16. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan.
  17. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason.
  18. Locke, John. Second Treatise on Government.
  19. Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince.
  20. Marx, Karl. Capital. The Communist Manifesto.
  21. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty.
  22. Molière. The Bourgeois Gentleman. Critique of the School for Wives. Don Juan. Imaginary Invalid. The Learned Ladies. Misanthrope. The Miser. Physician in Spite of Himself. Ridiculous Precieuses. School for Husbands. School for Wives. Tartuffe.
  23. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil.
  24. Plato. Gorgias. Parmenides. Protagoras. Sophist. Theatetus. Timaeus.
  25. Proust, Marcel. "Swann in Love."
  26. Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel.
  27. Shakespeare, William. All's Well That Ends Well. As You Like It. The Comedy of Errors. Coriolanus. Cymbeline. Henry VIII. A Lover's Complaint. Love's Labour's Lost. Measure for Measure. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Much Ado about Nothing. The Passionate Pilgrim. Pericles. The Phoenix and the Turtle. The Rape of Lucrece. Richard III. Romeo and Juliet. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music. The Taming of the Shrew. Timon of Athens. Titus Andronicus. Venus and Adonis. The Winter's Tale.
  28. Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations.
  29. Tacitus. Annals.
  30. Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace.
  31. Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn.
  32. Cicero. (Offices.)
  33. Einstein, Albert. (Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.)
  34. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. (Essays.)
  35. Epictetus. (Discourses.)
  36. Galileo Galilei. (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences.)
  37. Mann, Thomas. (The Magic Mountain.)
  38. (Horace. Odes.)
  39. (Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Les Misérables.)
  40. (Leibniz, Gottfried. Discourse on Metaphysics.)
  41. (Petrarch. Poems.)
  42. (Plotinus. Enneads.)
  43. (Racine, Jean. Phèdre.)
  44. (Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy.)
  45. (Schiller, Friedrich. Don Carlos.)
  46. (Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Essays and Aphorisms. Studies in Pessimism.)
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