Reading Classics, Chronologically Through the Ages discussion

My main reading project (though I am not making much headway on it yet) is a reading through history chronologically series of books using Martin Seymour-Smith's The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written as the main skeleton, interspersed with other books from or about the same time periods. This is a lot like Kenia's TWEM project, with her own additions interspersed. So this TWEM group is wonderful for me, partly because it gives me some company in pursuing the list I had started. You can see Martin Seymour-Smith's 100 Most Influential Books list at:
http://thegreatestbooks.org/lists/45
I am also reading his book of the same title. He is a bit like a cranky professor, giving his own idiosyncratic viewpoint on the books and authors he includes.
The books related to this project that I have read so far are mostly in preparation:

The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written, read Oct 2014 to Jan 2017

Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, read Feb 2014 with classics book club

History of the World, by Peter Somerset Fry (a Dorling Kindersley illustrated "children's" book, but great for adults too, for a sense of the rough outlines of history throughout the world, and again, chronologically) read Oct-Dec 2015

Prehistory and the First Civilizations, by J.M. Roberts (The Illustrated History of the World, Volume 1) read Jan-Oct 2016


I will be attempting to blend my project with the progress of the TWEM group here, starting with Herodotus' Histories.
The Landmark Herodotus, started November 2016

Classic Novels (and some Nonfiction):
Many years ago, I started reading (or listening to) novels from a 100 best novels list. I'm not sure which list it was or where my copy of the list is now, but it is similar to Modern Library's 100 greatest novels. Then starting three years ago, I took over as organizer of an in-person Classics book club through Meetup.com. I also sometimes read and discuss with various Goodreads classics groups including "Should have read classics", which does children's classics too.

Books I have read as a result first of my independent classics project, and then with the book clubs, are (list updated thru September of 2017):
The Old Man and the Sea
So Big
What Maisie Knew
As I Lay Dying
The Scarlet Letter
Robinson Crusoe
Siddhartha
David Copperfield
A Tale of Two Cities
Bleak House
Around the World in Eighty Days
Crime and Punishment
Ulysses
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Persuasion
Emma
Jane Eyre
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Sound and the Fury
Light in August
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The House of the Seven Gables
Wuthering Heights
Treasure Island
Silas Marner
The Good Earth
The Catcher in the Rye
Babbit
The Grapes of Wrath
Madame Bovary
A Christmas Carol
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Tao Te Ching
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales
Slaughterhouse-Five
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Love in the Time of Cholera
The Metamorphosis
The BFG
The Giver
The Little Prince
The Giving Tree
The Gift of the Magi
The Turn of the Screw
Mrs. Dalloway
Understood Betsy
Candide
The Age of Innocence
Rip Van Winkle
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Brothers Karamazov
The 42nd Parallel
Speak, Memory
Gulliver's Travels
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Great Expectations
The Moonstone
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Heart of Darkness
West with the Night
Death Comes for the Archbishop
The Essays: A Selection (excerpts from Montaigne)
Dead Souls
The Kreutzer Sonata
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
The Prose Edda (still need to finish this one)
Jude the Obscure
Fathers and Sons
A Rose for Emily and Other Stories
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Waste Books
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A Hero of Our Time
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Fahrenheit 451
The Color Purple
Lolita


Since April of 2016 I've been including more classics by women among the choices for my Meetup group, after realizing that one month I had given the group a choice among about 10 books without a single female author on the list.

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Ooo, fun! I've only read 13 ½ books on the list, so I feel very unscholarly.

I'm planning to start The Histories in November, but I've been planning it for months. We'll see ...... Since you'll be reading it too, it might give me more impetus.

Wow! I'm very impressed with all that you've read! I'm so glad you've joined the group. Your own list from the "100 Most Influential..." plus your own added in will be fun to watch you go through and great to engage with you on. I will be starting Herodotus' Histories in January.

Hi, Cleo and Kenia-
I plan to start The Histories (of Herodotus) in November, listening to them on Audible. Sounds like it will be the read for this group starting in January, if that's when you are starting it, Kenia. I will take my time listening, as it is more than 27 hours long. Will this TWEM group be reading anything else together after Oedipus and before The Histories?
Kenia, I have roughly a two-decade head start on you for the classic fiction self-education project. We are starting at about the same time on the history, poetry, etc. You wrote elsewhere that you weren't interested in history or literature in school. I also was not interested in history (not old enough, mature enough -- or maybe no one taught it to me in an involving way). But I did enjoy literature throughout my school career and continued the habit after finishing college.
Cleo, I have only read about 10 of the books on the "100 Most Influential Books Ever Written" list. It's funny to hear you feeling unscholarly, since you have so much ancient Greek background. But I suppose that's different than the philosophy-heavy content of the "100 Most Influential.." running from ancient thru modern times.
As always, I love being able to connect with other "reading through history" nerds here. :-)

-Julie (Sorento62)

Haha yes! Us nerds must band together!

Histories is definitely next. I've finished Oedipus the King and so am ready to discuss it (still need to read Oedipus at Colonis and Antigone, although those are not technically part of TWEM).

I am waiting to begin Histories until January because my husband and I just purchased our first home last month and there is just so much to do and there are still boxes to unpack and furniture to shop for. I am also in the middle of switching companies in my career: I've wrapped up a 10-year run at one and will be beginning at a new place in about a week--so there is a steep learning curve ahead as well as all the newness I will need to get used to. My mental and emotional faculties will be at full capacity with both the new job and the new house these next few months--seeing as these are two very big life events--not to mention the Christmas season is always so busy. So I thought that, for the sake of my sanity, I'll focus on simply finishing the books I am currently reading and will begin Histories in January.

Congratulations on your new house and new job, Kenia. I wish you the best with these momentous milestones. The pause in TWEM books will give me a bit of breathing room to finish up other reading and possibly to read one or two of the previous books on the TWEM list.

I have been stocking my "chronological readings" virtual Goodreads bookshelf with an ordered list of my main project "100 Most Influential Books" list described in the first post of this thread, interspersed with additional important books and historical fiction that I'd like to read in chronological order. Basically my own "Reading Through History" project. The list is numbered from 1 to 285 as of the date of this post. If you find my chronological readings bookshelf and use Settings to include position in the listing, you can sort by position and see them in order. I'll try putting a link here but I'm not sure whether it will work:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I'm not really reading the beginning of the list in chronological order because I jumped in with Herodotus to be in sync with this group. I'll be catching up on some of the earlier books as we proceed with Medea, Hippocrates, et al.

There are some more modern books that I intend to read prior to reaching their chronological order -- just because I don't want to wait that many years to read them. Some examples of books I expect to read out of order are:
I and Thou by Martin Buber
War and Peace by Tolstoy
The Constitution of the United States of America
Machiavelli's The Art of War (which I want to read along with Sun Tzu's Art of War)
On War by Clausewitz
The Communist Manifesto
Einstein's Special and General Theory of Relativity
Economics books by Keynes and Hayek
Philosophy Books by Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Sartre
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

So I'm excited about this virtual bookshelf and wanted to share. :-)

Til Next, My Nerdy Colleagues...
Love ya-
Julie