We've all heard about the classic texts; books and dialogues that changed the way people thought about the world, that sneak their way into pop culture every so often, that have become coloquialisms. But how many of you have actually read books like The Wealth of Nations, Dante's Inferno, Hobbes' Leviathan, Descartes' Meditations of First Philosophy, or even the Bible?
I can honestly say that I've only read Descartes, and I'm working on Leviathan at the moment. I tried to give the Bible a read, but got really bored during Genesis with all the "X begot Y, who begot Z and W, who begot... ad infinitum."
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Jophiel wrote:
I managed to be both retarded and entertaining.
I've read The Wealth of Nations, The Inferno, and The Bible. Never made it far into The Leviathan though.
I've read the Bible (including the Apocrypha) and Paradise Lost but got bored with Inferno with a quickness.
Oh, and I read the unabridged Les Misérables -- trust me, get the abridged copy unless you actually care for page after page after page of Hugo's views on things which have zilch to do with the plot.
Edit: I've also read about 75% of the Egyptian Book of the Dead but I don't remember much of it except that it's not exactly engaging reading.
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 4:41pm by Jophiel
Oh, and I read the unabridged Les Misérables -- trust me, get the abridged copy unless you actually care for page after page after page of Hugo's views on things which have zilch to do with the plot.
Edit: I've also read about 75% of the Egyptian Book of the Dead but I don't remember much of it except that it's not exactly engaging reading.
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 4:41pm by Jophiel
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
I've read most of the bible, A good chunk of the book of mormon, and all of Nostradamus's predictions. I have to say that all of them sucked.
Anyone read War & Peace?
Anyone read War & Peace?
Does Sun Tzu The Art of War count?
Sun Tzu should count, as should Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings
Yes, I've read lots of "the" classics. Nobby would be proud. I went to Revelle College at UCSD and had five 10 week courses where the reading list was like:
THE NEW OXFORD ANNOTATED BIBLE (Oxford Univ. Press)
Homer, THE ODYSSEY, Robert ****** trans. (Penguin)
Sophocles, THE THREE THEBAN PLAYS: ANTIGONE, OEDIPUS THE KING, OEDIPUS AT COLONUS, ****** trans. (Penguin)
Aristophanes, THREE COMEDIES: ACHARNIANS, LYSISTRATA & CLOUDS, Henderson trans. (Focus/Pullins)
Plato, PROTAGORAS & MENO, Guthrie editor (Penguin)
Humanities Course Reader - AS Reserves
Dornan & Dawe, THE BRIEF ENGLISH HANDBOOK, 7th Edition (Allyn & Bacon/Longman)
(this is the first, it progresses through history...it is very western thought centric).
http://humanities.ucsd.edu/courses/hum1read.htm
I highly recommend Aristophanes. Hail Cleon!
THE NEW OXFORD ANNOTATED BIBLE (Oxford Univ. Press)
Homer, THE ODYSSEY, Robert ****** trans. (Penguin)
Sophocles, THE THREE THEBAN PLAYS: ANTIGONE, OEDIPUS THE KING, OEDIPUS AT COLONUS, ****** trans. (Penguin)
Aristophanes, THREE COMEDIES: ACHARNIANS, LYSISTRATA & CLOUDS, Henderson trans. (Focus/Pullins)
Plato, PROTAGORAS & MENO, Guthrie editor (Penguin)
Humanities Course Reader - AS Reserves
Dornan & Dawe, THE BRIEF ENGLISH HANDBOOK, 7th Edition (Allyn & Bacon/Longman)
(this is the first, it progresses through history...it is very western thought centric).
http://humanities.ucsd.edu/courses/hum1read.htm
I highly recommend Aristophanes. Hail Cleon!
Despite being an ill-educated lout, I've read the Bible, Dante's Inferno, War and Peace (which is actually pretty good once you figure out that everyone seems to have 5 different names), Les Miserables (must have been the abridged version as I don't remember the irrelevancies Joph describes), Beowulf, The Art of War, On War, Thus Spake Zarathrusta and Ecce ****, The Iliad and The Odyssey, but no Plato, Socrates, Aristotle or Sophocles. I have read The Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but not Finnegan's Wake. Never read Chaucer.
I have not read Gone with the Wind, but I did read the Polish national epic, With Fire and Sword.
I have not read Gone with the Wind, but I did read the Polish national epic, With Fire and Sword.
I've been forced to read abridged versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, The Song of Roland, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Dante's Inferno, and a few select portions of the Bible.
Of these, I would probably actually go out of my way to read the un-abridged versions of The Odyssey and Dante's Inferno.
I've also read the complete Oedipus the King and Antigone.
I've also read the Lord of the Flies and the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo (read the unabridged vs. abridged, if you can) if those count.
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 8:54pm by DodoBird
Of these, I would probably actually go out of my way to read the un-abridged versions of The Odyssey and Dante's Inferno.
I've also read the complete Oedipus the King and Antigone.
I've also read the Lord of the Flies and the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo (read the unabridged vs. abridged, if you can) if those count.
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 8:54pm by DodoBird
I've a three volume set of the Summa Theologica here which I've great a good percentage of, but never attempted it cover to cover.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
I've read everything listed in the OP, but I'm an acknowledged nerd.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Read:
Paradise Lost, The Art of War, The Iliad and The Odyssey, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Le Morte d'Arthur, The Once and Future King (I know my Arthur), The Canterbury Tales, La Chanson de Roland (in English of course), The Prince, Tao Te Ching..
...and probably more, but those are the books on my "I want to impress you book shelf."
Sooo, do I get a cookie?
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 9:10pm by GitSlayer
Paradise Lost, The Art of War, The Iliad and The Odyssey, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Le Morte d'Arthur, The Once and Future King (I know my Arthur), The Canterbury Tales, La Chanson de Roland (in English of course), The Prince, Tao Te Ching..
...and probably more, but those are the books on my "I want to impress you book shelf."
Sooo, do I get a cookie?
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 9:10pm by GitSlayer
But the real question is have you read Slaughterhouse Five? Well. Have you?!
Brill wrote:
But the real question is have you read Slaughterhouse Five? Well. Have you?!
Is that considered a classic? Personally I didn't like his take on free will. If we are going to throw in Sci Fi 'classics' then I'm going to include Left Hand of Darkness, The Canticles of Lebewitz, and everything by Heinlein (some of those are classics, right?) as well.
I was never a very big fan of Heinlein. Or of Card for that matter. No idea why, I just cannot get into their writing at all.
47 posts
Careful, Lazarus Long is watching...
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 9:29pm by LordSpamalot
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 9:29pm by LordSpamalot
Brill wrote:
I was never a very big fan of Heinlein. Or of Card for that matter. No idea why, I just cannot get into their writing at all.
I can deffinitly say that Heinlein heavily influenced my outlook on women, individualism and sexuality growing up. So much so I often had a hard time not only understanding my peers views on the same but I had a hard time comprehending why they didn't see how narrow minded and foolish they looked. In hindsight they probably just thought I was a wierdo with screwy ideas.
Card has a few good books (Enders Game) but for the most part he writes towards his religion way to much for my taste.
Demea wrote:
We've all heard about the classic texts; books and dialogues that changed the way people thought about the world, that sneak their way into pop culture every so often, that have become coloquialisms. But how many of you have actually read books like The Wealth of Nations, Dante's Inferno, Hobbes' Leviathan, Descartes' Meditations of First Philosophy, or even the Bible?
Huh. I didn't know stuffed tigers could write...
Quote:
I can honestly say that I've only read Descartes, and I'm working on Leviathan at the moment. I tried to give the Bible a read, but got really bored during Genesis with all the "X begot Y, who begot Z and W, who begot... ad infinitum."
Read The Silmarillion instead. It's the same thing, but with elves.
The most "classic" things I've read (other than high-school texts of Shakespeare) are Asimov's Foundation series, Tolkien's works and CS Lewis. I started reading some of my dad's Steinbeck but lost interest pretty quickly.
publiusvarus wrote:
we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.
I just finished the Iliad and am currently working through the Oddyssey. Once I get through my pile of books (Catch-22, Steppenwolf, Dragonflight) I will probably go pick up the Aeneid.
Trudged through the Divine Comedy, the last book Paradisio made the other two seem riveting.
Though out of all the classics I have read, I think the most mind numbing was Moby ****, thick boring read, well written just boring. That or Bleakhouse, I never really liked ******* but that book was so horrible that words cannot describe.
Trudged through the Divine Comedy, the last book Paradisio made the other two seem riveting.
Though out of all the classics I have read, I think the most mind numbing was Moby ****, thick boring read, well written just boring. That or Bleakhouse, I never really liked ******* but that book was so horrible that words cannot describe.
Bode - 100 Holy Paladin - Lightbringer
Debalic wrote:
The most "classic" things I've read (other than high-school texts of Shakespeare) are Asimov's Foundation series, Tolkien's works and CS Lewis.
I also have an old cassette of Alan Parson Project's I, Robot around here as well but I doubt that counts...
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 9:22pm by Jophiel
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html
That is the most full resource you're gonna find. I've been reading them for years off and on. At the moment I'm still reading Cicero's letters and speeches which can be found on there.
My favourites so far a the Satirists. Juvenal is the best IMO.
These are the original classics, straight from the mouthes of people 2000+ years ago. Some of them may as well be like reading news reports. That's why I enjoy the satire the best, because it's raw, dirty, to the point, and it doesn't try to flatter anybody.
That is the most full resource you're gonna find. I've been reading them for years off and on. At the moment I'm still reading Cicero's letters and speeches which can be found on there.
My favourites so far a the Satirists. Juvenal is the best IMO.
These are the original classics, straight from the mouthes of people 2000+ years ago. Some of them may as well be like reading news reports. That's why I enjoy the satire the best, because it's raw, dirty, to the point, and it doesn't try to flatter anybody.
Quote:
But how many of you have actually read books like The Wealth of Nations, Dante's Inferno, Hobbes' Leviathan, Descartes' Meditations of First Philosophy, or even the Bible?
I've read all of those, along with the other pair in the Divine Comedy (I did skip the begats in the Bible, I can't be bothered with record keeping).
Of other stuff mentioned in the thread
Les Mis - read full english version, original french kicked my ***.
War and Peace - Yup
Art of War - Yup
Book of Five Rings - Nope
Yossarian's post - about 50%
Summa Theologica - good chunks of it not everything
Epic of Gilgamesh - Yup
The Odyssey - Yup
The Song of Roland - Yup
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Yup
Oedipus the King - Yup
Antigone - Nope
The Iliad - Yup
Beowulf - Yup (Grendle as well)
Le Morte d'Arthur - Yup
The Once and Future King - Yup (Disliked it intensely)
The Canterbury Tales - Yup
The Prince - Yup (Please note - never read Machiavelli without reading his other works)
Tao Te Ching - Yup
Slaughterhouse Five - Nope
Left Hand of Darkness - Nope
The Canticles of Lebewitz - if this is supposed to be A Canticle for Leibewitz, yep, else, nope
everything by Heinlein - Most of it, Stranger From a Strange Land struck me the most
Card - Ender's Game gets a big thumbs up, Ender's Shadow not so much but still good, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide I disliked, didn't read anything else in the series. Notably Card edited a fantastic collection of Sci-Fi, a sort of primer for people who want to get into the field (title: Masterpieces : the best science fiction of the century)
The Silmarillion - Yup
Shakespeare - Yup
Asimov's Foundation series - Yup
Tolkien's works - Yup
CS Lewis' works - Yup
Steinbeck - East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath
Lord of the Flies - Yup
The Count of Monte Cristo - Nope
Catch-22 - Yup (Closing Time sucked)
Steppenwolf - Nope
Dragonflight - Nope
Other books I find to be especially important - either in being very good, important in the development of human history or both.
von Clausewitz - On War
Confucius - The Analects
Kuhn - Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Kant - Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, Critique of Pure Reason, Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment
de Tocqueville - Democracy in America
Marx/Engels - The Communist Manifesto
Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion
Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Against the Mathematicians
Leibniz - Anything you can get translated
Whitehead/Russell - Principia Mathematica
Hegel - Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
Darwin - The Origin of Species, Descent of Man
Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel
Swift - A Modest Proposal
Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics
Hawking - A Brief History of Time
Greene - The Elegant Universe
Abbott - Flatland
Vidal - Messiah, Julian, Lincoln
Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Fortold
Asimov - I, Robot
Herbert - Dune (the sequels and the prequels can burn - as can the Sting film)
Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy (All 5.5 of it)
Durell - Alexandria Quartet
Huxley - Brave New World
Wells - Animal Farm, 1984
Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up
Benford/Brin - Heart of the Comet
Stevenson - Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash
Pratchett - The Truth, Thief of Time
Gaiman - Neverwhere
Bear - Darwin's Radio
D'ick (damn filter) - Do Androids Dream of Robot Sheep
Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles (I also feel he's the best short story writer out there)
Niven - Ringworld Series
Shaara (the elder) - The Killer Angels
Shaara (the younger) - The Last Full Measure, Gods and Generals
McCullough - Caeser, Caeser's Women
Rawls - Where the Red Fern Grows
Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
Pressfield - Gates of Fire
I'm sure I've left out tons good ones, and (as you might guess) I like to read so anyone who has more stuff to add I'll be selfish and ask for suggestions.
I've read more classics than I care to contemplate. I read too much. If you want my clssical reading list, we may be here for a while.
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Thalthas wrote:
Herbert - Dune (the sequels and the prequels can burn - as can the Sting film)
Stevenson - Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash
1) The sequels (aside from the immediate sequel) are good. The prequels aren't as good, but they're a damn sight better than a lot of sci-fi out there.
2) Stephenson; also, pick up Zodiac (amusing to read at least once) and The Diamond Age (...on second thought, just pick up The Diamond Age at the library, read it once, and then leave it alone again for another year or so). The Baroque Cycle is... um... long. Interesting, but long for that kind of setup.
Kelvyquayo the Irrelevant wrote:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html
That is the most full resource you're gonna find. I've been reading them for years off and on. At the moment I'm still reading Cicero's letters and speeches which can be found on there.
My favourites so far a the Satirists. Juvenal is the best IMO.
These are the original classics, straight from the mouthes of people 2000+ years ago. Some of them may as well be like reading news reports. That's why I enjoy the satire the best, because it's raw, dirty, to the point, and it doesn't try to flatter anybody.
That is the most full resource you're gonna find. I've been reading them for years off and on. At the moment I'm still reading Cicero's letters and speeches which can be found on there.
My favourites so far a the Satirists. Juvenal is the best IMO.
These are the original classics, straight from the mouthes of people 2000+ years ago. Some of them may as well be like reading news reports. That's why I enjoy the satire the best, because it's raw, dirty, to the point, and it doesn't try to flatter anybody.
Kelvy I read a lot of those when I majored in Classics in university. Thank you for linking that site - I'll have a better look later but it looks like a great source for readings when I'm bored.
I'll be honest and say I preferred my ancient Greek readings, but I always loved laughing at the pompousness of some of the Roman authors. I mean come on, Caesar made an entire verb form in Latin for himself, that's gotta count for something! XD Not a big fan of Cicero, but that could have been more because of the texts we were forced to read for class... I've never read a single thing of his outside of my classes.
Anyway if you're like me and prefer the stories as opposed to the speaches, I'd recommend some of the awesome plays like Oedipus Rex, Frogs (I can't remember the original name, sorry), or poetry like the Homeric Hymns (<3). If you're not so into the plays or poetry, epics are always awesome. If you're tired of the usual "later" ones, check out the story of Gilgamesh. I thought it was pretty interesting myself, but I have strange tastes apparently >.>
MDenham the Shady wrote:
... The prequels aren't as good, but they're a damn sight better than a lot of sci-fi out there.
Kevin J "I Can't write my way out of a sh*t filled paper bag" Anderson wrote them. They are utter crap. Anyone who feels differently must be forced to read his star wars butchery in sequance until ones eyes begin to bleed.
Edited, Feb 26th 2007 10:32pm by Kaolian
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