Classic books

An interesting blog project has begun over here.

This is not specifically homeschooling however, the overall gist of the project is commendable. Essentially, one creates a list of no less than 50 books to read over the a given period of time (no more than 5 years) and then one is required post on the books as they are read. Since part of our homeschooling project is the reading of Great Books this seems like a great opportunity to not only collate these works, but to critically reflect on them.

My first love was with History, my second was the Faith, my third is my Wife and my forth great love is 'Reading'. Therefore, I submit this list of Great (or Classic) books to be read in the next 3-4 years. The final date will be 28/03/2016. If it the list changes (as it surely will) this post will be updated.


The books:

Brideshead revised / Evelyn Waugh
Decline and fall / Evelyn Waugh
A handful of dust / Evelyn Waugh
The power and the glory / Graham Greene
The end of the affair / Graham Greene
Brighton Rock / Graham Greene
Notes from underground / Fyodor Dostoevsky (Finished 29/03/12: review)
Crime and punishment / Fyodor Dostoevsky
The idiot / Fyodor Dostoevsky
The brothers Karamazov / Fyodor Dostoevsky

The painted veil / W. Summerset Maugham
Of human bondage / W. Summerset Maugham
The man who was Thursday / G. K. Chesterton
Great expectations / Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby / Charles Dickens
A tale of two cities / Charles Dickens
Bleak House / Charles Dickens
Iliad / Homer
Odyssey / Homer
Anna Karenina / Leo Tolstoy

Aeneid / Virgil
Divine comedy / Dante Alighieri (Finished 2012)
Pride and Prejudice / Jane Austen
Mansfield park / Jane Austen
Emma / Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey / Jane Austen
Persuasion / Jane Austen
Sense and sensibility / Jane Austen
Canterbury tales / Geoffrey Chaucer
Middlemarch / George Eliot

The path to Rome / Hilaire Belloc
Faust / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The sorrows of young Werther / Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Macbeth / William Shakespeare
The merchant of Venice / William Shakespeare
Hamlet / William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet / William Shakespeare
King Lear / William Shakespeare
Silence / Shusaku Endo
The Samurai / Endo Shusaku

Paradise lost / John Milton
Paradise regained / John Milton
The good soldier / Ford Madox Ford
Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (specifically, the Terrible Sonnets (badly named) and many others)
Moby Dick / Herman Melville
Dracula / Bram Stoker
Frankenstein / Mary Shelley
Loss and gain / John Henry Newman
Picture of Dorian Gray / Oscar Wilde (Finished 11/04/12: review)
Gulliver's travels / Jonathan Swift (Finished 23/04/12: review here, here, here and here)

The scarlet letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne
The consolation of philosophy / Boethius
Confessions / St. Augustine
Wuthering Heights / Emily Brontë
The Devil's elixirs / E.T.A Hoffmann
The nutcracker / E.T.A Hoffmann
The Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lady Audley's secret / Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Works by P.G.Wodehouse (This is very difficult to choose (he wrote over 90 books and they are all masterpieces, I will select 3 of the best.)
The lord of the rings / J.R.R Tolkien

The Silmarillion / J.R.R. Tolkien
Collected stories / John Cheever
Father Elijah: an apocalypse / Michael D O'Brien
That hideous strength / C.S. Lewis
Perelandra / C.S. Lewis
Out of the silent planet / C.S. Lewis
Ida Elisabeth / Sigrid Undset
Kristien Lavransdatter / Sigrid Undset
Metamorphoses / Ovid
Don Quixote / Miguel de Cervantes

Pensées / Blaise Pascal
Phèdre / Jean Racine
Heart of darkness / Joseph Conrad
Death comes for the Archbishop / Willa Cather
The Waste Land / T.S. Eliot



This is my "hopefuls" list of works. I aim to compile a goodly list of works here which deserve to be on the above list but which simply, arbitrarily didn't make it. If I read any of these works within the time frame (or after that, for that matter) I will post a review and link it here as well.

Oresteia / Aeschylus
Clouds / Aristophanes
Frogs / Aristophanes
Lysistrata / Aristophanes
Père Goriot / Honoré de Balzac
Eugénie Grandet / Honeré de Balzac
The barber of Seville / Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais
The marriage of Figaro / Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais
Lord of the world / R.H. Benson
Songs of innocence / William Blake
Songs of experience / William Blake
Decameron / Giovanni Boccaccio
Mother courage and her children / Bertolt Brecht
The caucasian Chalk Circle / Bertolt Brecht
Men and women / Robert Browning
Dramatis Personae / Robert Browning
The ring and the book / Robert Browning
Childe Harold's pilgrimage / Lord Byron
Don Juan / Lord Byron
Life is a dream / Calderón de la Barca
Poems / Catullus
Poems / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The way of the world / William Congreve
Lord Jim / Joseph Conrad
Heart of darkness / Joseph Conrad
Nostromo / Joseph Conrad
Victory / Joseph Conrad
La Cid / Pierre Corneille
Complete poetry Richard Crawshaw / Richard Crawshaw ; edited by George Walton Williams
Robinson Crusoe / Daniel Defoe
David copperfield / Charles Dickens
Poems / Emily Dickenson
Poems / John Donne
Absalom and Achitophel / John Dryden
Mac Flecknoe / John Dryden
Religio Laici / John Dryden
The hind and the panther / John Dryden / John Dryden
Mill on the floss / George Eliot
Four quartets / T.S. Eliot
Murder in the cathedral / T.S. Eliot
Praise of folly / Erasmus
Alcestis / Euripides
Bacchae / Euripides
Hippolytus / Euripides
Medea / Euripides
The sound of fury / Willaim Faulkner
As I lay dying / Willaim Faulkner
Absalom, Absalom! / Willaim Faulkner
Light in August / Willaim Faulkner
Joseph Andrews / Henry Fielding
A history of Tom Jones, a foundling / Henry Fielding
Far from the madding crowd / Thomas Hardy
The return of the native / Thomas Hardy
Jude the obscure / Thomas Hardy
The temple / George Herbert
Poems (Hesperides ; Noble Numbers) / Robert Herrick
Odes / Horace
Notre-Dame of Paris / Victor Hugo
Les misérables / Victor Hugo
A Doll's House / Henrik Ibsen
An enemey of the people / Henrik Ibsen
Hedda Gabler / Henrik Ibsen
Peer Gynt / Henrik Ibsen
The bald soprano / Eugene Ionesco
Rhinoceros / Eugene Ionesco
The wings of a dove / Henry James
The ambassadors / Henry James
The golden bowl / Henry James
The portrait of a lady / Henry James
Volpone / Ben Johnson
The alchemist / Ben Johnson
The silent women / Ben Johnson
Poems / John Keats
Knot of vipers / Francois Mauriac
The unknown sea / Francois Mauriac
Flesh and blood / Francois Mauriac
The frontenac mystery / Francois Mauriac
Tonio Kröger / Thomas Mann
Death in Venice / Thomas Mann
The magic mountain / Thomas Mann
Jew of Malta / Christopher Merlowe
Edward II / Christopher Merlowe
Dr. Faustus / Christopher Merlowe
Poems / Andrew Marvell
Tartuffe / Molière
The misanthrope / Molière

Waverley / Sir Walter Scott