Book Recommendations for a Classic Education in 2014

Book Recommendations for a Classic Education in 2014

To complete my classic education in 2014, in addition to the courses that I am taking, I have to read the classics. Because I know that I love to deviate from plans, I have selected 75 books, 50 of which I will read. I referred to quite a few lists of must-read books to decide which books to read for my classic education. I am giving myself the flexibility that I like to have. Why don’t you select some books from the list and read along with me. The experience will transform both of our lives.

1. Great Dialogues of Plato
2. Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
3. The Iliad, Homer
4. The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso), Dante Alighieri
5. The Aeneid (Penguin Classics), Virgil
6. Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
7. Meditations , Marcus Aurelius
8. Gargantua and Pantagruel , Francois Rabelais (5 volumes)
9. The Complete Collection of Plutarch's Lives (3 volumes)
10. The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics), John Milton
11. Luther's Ninety-Five Theses
12. The Confessions of Saint Augustine
13. Poems and Songs of Robert Burns
14. On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
15. Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero
16. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
17. Nine Greek Dramas by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes: Part 8 Harvard Classics
18. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition),
19. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
20. Njal's Saga
21. Jacques the Fatalist , Denis Diderot
22. Journey to the West: The Monkey King's Amazing Adventures (Tuttle Classics), Wu Cheng'en
23. Independent People, Halldor Laxness
24. The Man without Qualities, Robert Musil
25. The Masnavi I Ma'navi of Rumi: Complete (Forgotten Books), Rumi
26.  The Book of Disquiet , Fernando Pessoa
27. In Search of Lost Time: Proust 6-pack (Proust Complete), Marcel Proust
28. Zeno's Conscience: A Novel, Italo Svevo
29. The Red and the Black (Penguin Classics), Stendhal
30. The Song of Roland , Scott Moncrieff
31. The Gulag Archipelago Abridged: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
32. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving
33. Guy Mannering, Sir Walter Scott
34. Vanity Fair , William Makepeace Thackeray
35.  Faust: A Tragedy , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
36. Utopia, Sir Thomas More
37. Crime and Punishment , Fyodor Dostoevsky
38. The Decameron , Giovanni Boccaccio
39. The Letters of the Younger Pliny
40. The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
41. Doctor Zhivago (Vintage International), Boris Pasternak
42.  The Tale of Genji: , Murasaki Shikibu
43. Michel de Montaigne – The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics)
44. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
45. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
46. Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis
47. Sentimental Education (Penguin Classics), Gustave Flaubert
48. A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics), Laurence Sterne
49. Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
50.  Don Quixote, Miguel De Cervantes
51. David Copperfield , Charles Dickens
52. Moby-Dick (Dover Thrift Editions), Herman Melville
53. Walden, Henry David Thoreau
54. Old Man Goriot (Penguin Classics), Honore de Balzac
55. Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
56. Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy , Jostein Gaarder
57. Blindness (Harvest Book), Jose Saramago
58. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph: The Complete 1922 Text, TE Lawrence
59. A Passage to India, E M Forster
60. Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett
61. J.R.R. Tolkien 4-Book Boxed Set: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (Movie Tie-in): The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
62. Anne of Green Gables (The Complete Anne of Green Gables Boxed Set (Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne's House of Dreams, … Rainbow Valley, Rilla of Ingleside)), Lucy Maud Montgomery
63. Gone with the Wind, 75th Anniversary Edition, Margaret Mitchell
64. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
65. The Woman in White (Penguin Classics), Wilkie Collins
66. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay
67. Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar
68. Lady Audley's Secret (Wordsworth Classics), Mary Elizabeth Braddon
69. Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini
70. Middlemarch (Penguin Classics), George Eliot
71. My Antonia, Willa Cather
72. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
73. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
74. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
75. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe

Reading the 50 books, in addition to taking the courses for my classic education, is a very ambitious undertaking, but I know that I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to. I read over 80 books in four months for my Virtual Literary World Tour.

How many books on my list have you read, and what lessons did you learn from them? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Liked this post? Share it and subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!

Author Bio: Avil Beckford, an expert interviewer, entrepreneur and published author is passionate about books and professional development, and that's why she founded The Invisible Mentor and the Virtual Literary World Tour to give you your ideal mentors virtually in the palm of your hands by offering book reviews and book summaries, biographies of wise people and interviews of successful people.

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