My list is below and I figure I am about 66% through the list. Given my current rate of reading, the list is outpacing me.
I like books that tackle the fundamental question asking: "What is the good life?". I think the 'unexamined life is not worth living' and by reading and discussing great books that address our condition, I can search out these questions with the great minds of today and yesterday.
Anatole Broyard expressed in the New York Time Book Review how I feel about many of my books:
My friends come to me to borrow books because I have more than most people. In their innocence, they have no idea what I go through in lending a book. They don’t understand that I think of myself as offering them love, truth, beauty, wisdom and consolation against death. Nor do they suspect that I feel about lending a book the way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock. This is not to say that there is no pleasure in lending. Each man has a bit of the evangelist in him, and when a book moves me I want to put it into everyone’s pocket.
The moment the book is lent, I begin to miss it. According to t.s. eliot, each new book that is written alters every previous one. In the same way, each absent book alters those that remain on the shelves. The complexion of my library, the delicate gestalt, is spoiled. My mind goes to the gap as one’s tongue goes to a cavity. My security is breached, my balance tipped, my affections confused, my barricades against chaos diminished. Until the book is returned, I feel like a parent waiting up in the small hours for a teenage son or daughter to come home from a dubious party.
The most dangerous part of lending a book lies in the returning. At such times, friendships hang by a thread. I look for agony or ecstasy, for tears, transfiguration, trembling hands, a broken voice – but what the borrower usually says is “I enjoyed it” – as if that was what books were for.
Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1207). Spiritual
Friendship
Aeschylus Agamemnon; Prometheus
Bound; The Libation Bearers; The Eumenides
Anon Beowulf
Anon Everyman
Anon The Cloud of Unknowing
Anselm St. (1033-1109) Proslogium;
Monologium; An Appendix in Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilon; and Cur Deus Homo
Aquinas, St. Thomas Summa Theologica,
Political Ideas
Arendt, Hannah The Human Condition;
Eichmann in Jerusalem
Ariosto Orlando Furioso
Aristophanes The Frogs
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics; Works
Athanasius (296-373. Life of Anthony
Auden, W.H. For the Time Being
Augustine (354-430). The Confessions;
City of God
Austen, Jane Pride and Prejudice;
Persuasion
Balzac Pere Goriot
Barth, Karl (1963) Evangelical
Theology
Baudelaire Les Fleurs du Mal
Baxter, Richard (1615-1691) The
Saints’ Everlasting Rest; The Reformed Pastor
Benedict of Nursia ( 480-550). The
Rule of St. Benedict; The Way to God;
Benedict, Ruth Patterns of Culture
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090?-1153) On
Loving God; The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux: Treatises II
Berry, Wendell The Unsettling of
America; Harlan Hubbard, Life and Work
Blake, William Songs of Innocence,
Songs of Experience
Bloom, Allan The Closing of the
American Mind
Boethius The Consolation of
Philosophy
Bonaventure The Soul’s Journey into
God; The Tree of Life; The Life of St. Francis
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich (1940) Psalms:
The Prayer Book of the Psalms; Life Together; The Cost of Discipleship
Borges, Jorge Luis Labyrinths
Brother Lawrence (1692) Practicing
His Presence
Brueggemann, Walter (1984) The Land
Buber, Martin (1970) I and Thou
Buechner, Frederick The Final Beast
Bunyan, John (1684) Pilgrim’s
Progress
Burke, Edmund Reflections on
the Revolution in France
Calvin, John (1509-1564) The Institutes
of Christian Religion (Book III)
Camus, Albert The Fall; The Plague;
The Outsider
Cassian, John (360-435). Conferences
Caussade, Jean Pierre de (1675-1751) Abandonment
to Divine Providence
Cervantes Don Quixote
Chambers, Oswald My Utmost for His
Highest; The Philosophy of Sin
Chatwin, Bruce The Songlines
Chesterton, G.K. The Everlasting Man,
Essays, Orthodoxy
Chrysostom, John On Being Pastor
Conrad, Joseph Lord Jim; Heart of
Darkness
Copernicus, De Revolutionibus
Corneille The Cid
Czelsaw, Milosz Collected Poems
Dante The Divine Comedy
Darwin, Charles On the Origin
of Species; The Voyage of the Beagle
Davies, Robertson Deptford Trilogy
Defoe, Daniel Robinson Crusoe, Moll
Flanders
Descartes, Rene Meditations;
Discourse on Method; Principles of Philosophy
Dickens, Charles Great Expectations,
A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Collected Works
Dickinson, Emily Collected Poems
Diderot Rameau's Nephew
Dillard, Annie (1982) Teaching a
Stone to Talk; Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Donne, John The Holy Sonnets
Dooyeweerd, Herman A New Critique of
Critical Thought
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor The Brothers
Karamazov; Crime and Punishment; Notes from the Underground; Short Stories; The
Insulted and the Injured; The Idiot
Durkheim, Emile Suicide
Eco, Umberto The Name of the Rose;
Foucault’s Pendulum
Edwards, Jonathon (1703-1758) The
Religious Affections
Eliot, George MiddleMarch
eliot, ts The Four Quartets, The
Wasteland, Collected Plays and Poems;
Ellul, Jacques (1973) Prayer and
Modern Man
Epictetus' Enchiridion
Erasmus Praise of Folly
Euripedes Hippolytus; Electra; The
Trojan Women; The Bacchae; Alcestis
Eusibius The History of the Church
Faulkner, William The Town
Fielding, Henry Joseph Andrews
Flaubert Madame Bovary
Foster, Richard (1993) Prayer:
Finding the Heart’s True Home; Celebrating Discipline
Foucault, Michel Discipline
and Punishment
France, Anatol Penguin Island; The
Revolt of the Angels
Freud, Sigmund Psychopathology
of Everyday Life
Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems
Goethe Faust
Gogol Diary of a Madman
Golding, William The Lord of the
Flies
Greene Graham The Power and the
Glory; Our Man in Havana
Gregory the Great (550) Pastoral Care
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Collected
Fairy Tales
Guyon, Mme. Jeanne (1648-1717) Experiencing
the Depths of Jesus Christ (Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer)
Hansen, David The Art of Pastoring
Harvey On the Motion of the Heart and
Blood in Animals
Havel, Vaclav Disturbing the Peace,
Collected Plays
Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of
Spirit; Lectures on the Philosophy of World History
Herbert, George (1593-1633) Works;
The Country Parson; The Temple
Heschel, Abraham Joshua (1951) The
Sabbath
Hesse, Herman Steppenwolf; Demian
Hildegard of Bingen Mystical Writings
Hobbes, Thomas Leviathon
Homer The Iliad; The Odyssey
Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889) Poems
and Prose
Houston, James M. (1989) The Transforming
Power of Prayer; The Heart’s Desire
Hugel, Frederick von (1921) The Life
of Prayer
Hugo, Victor Les Miserables
Hume, David Of Miracles; Treatise on Human Nature
Ibsen, Henrik An Enemy of the People;
Peer Gynt; A Doll's House
Irving, John A Prayer for Owen Meany
James, Henry The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels
James, William (1902) Varieties of
Religious Experience; Psychology; Briefer Course
John of the Cross (1542-1591) The
Dark Night of the Soul
Joyce, James Ulysses; The Dubliners
Julian of Norwich (1342-1423) Showing
or (Revelations of Divine Love)
Jung, Carl Psychological Types
Kafka, Franz The Metamorphosis,
Complete Stories
Kant, Immanual Critique of
Pure Reason; Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals; Prolegomena; Religion
Within the Limits of Reason Alone
Kempis, Thomas a The Imitation of
Christ
Kierkegaard, Soren (1850) The
Sickness unto Death; Purity of Heart; Fear and
Trembling
Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions
Kundera, Milan The Unbearable
Lightness of Being; Life is Elsewhere; The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Law, William A Serious Call to a
Devout and Holy Life
Leech, Kenneth Experiencing God:
Theology as Spirituality
Lessing, William Nathan the Wise
Lewis, C.S. (1948) Reflections on the
Psalms; Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer; Till We have Faces, Narnia
Series; Mere Christianity; The Screwtape
Letters; God in the Dock; The Great Divorce; Perelandia; Out of the Silent
Planet; That Hideous Strength
Livy, History of Rome, Book I
Llagerkvist, Par The Death of Ahasuerus;
Barabbas; The Dwarf
Locke, John Essay Concerning Human
Understanding; Letter Concerning Toleration
Loder, James (1981) The Transforming
Moment
Lopez, Barry Arctic Dreams
Loyola, Ignatius (1491-1556) The
Spiritual Exercises;
Lucretius The Nature of Things
Luther, Martin (1483-1546). Letters
of Spiritual Counsel; Political Writings
Machiavelli, The Prince and Discourse
MacLean, Norman A River Runs Through
It and Other Stories
Mann, Thomas Dr. Faustus; Death in
Venice
Marlowe, Thomas Dr Faustus
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia One
Hundred Years of Solitude
Marx, Karl The Communist
Manifesto and Estranged Labor
Mather, Cotton Student and Preacher,
or Directions for a Candidate of the Ministry
Mauriac, Francois The Life of Jesus
May, Gerald Care of Mind/Care of
Spirit
McIntosh, Gary L. & Rima, Samuel D.
Sr, Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership: The Paradox of Personal
Dysfunction
McNeill, John T A History of the Cure
of Souls
Melville, Herman Moby Dick; Billy
Budd; Bartleby; Benito Cereno and Other Short Stories
Merton, Thomas (1971) Bread in the
Wilderness; Spiritual Direction; Seven Storey Mountain
Mill, John On Liberty
Milton, John Paradise Lost
Miura, Ayako The Wind is Howling
Mohammad Al-Qur’an
Moliere The Misanthrope
Montaigne, Essays
More, Thomas Utopia
Morrison, Beloved
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus The Magic
Flute; The Barber of Seville
Nee, Watchman The Normal Christian
Life; The Normal Christian Worker; The Release of the Spirit; Sit, Walk, Stand
Newman, John Henry (1864) Apologia
Pro Vita Sua
Newton, Principia
Niebuhr, Reinhold Leaves from the
Notebook of a Tamed Cynic; The Nature and Destiny of Man
Nietzsche, Frederich Thus Spoke
Zarathrustra; Beyond Good and Evil
O’Connor, Flannery The Habit of Being
Orwell, George Nineteen Eighty-Four;
Animal Farm
Otto, Rudolph (1923) The Idea of the
Holy
Packer, J.I. Knowing God; God’s Words
Paine, Tom The Rights of Man
Pascal, Blaise (1650) Pensees
Persig, Robert Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance;
Peterson, Eugene H. Travelling Light;
Reversed Thunder; Run with the Horses; The Contemplative Pastor; A Long
Obedience; The Wisdom of Each Other; Subversive Spirituality; Like Dew Your
Youth; Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work; Where Your Treasure Is; Working the Angles; Answering God; Under the
Unpredictable Plant; Stories of the Christian year; Pray with …;
Petronius The Satyricon
Piper, John A Hunger for God
Pirandello Henry IV
Plato The Republic, Apology and Works
Prince, Derek Blessing or Cursing:
You Can Choose; Fasting; Faith to Live By
Pseudo-Dionysius (450) Complete Works
Rabelais Gargantua
Racine Phaedra
Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
Ricoeur, Paul The Symbolism of Evil
Rousseau, Jean Jacque Emile
Sales, Francis de (trans. Peronne Marie
Thibert) Introduction to the Devout Life; Letters of Spiritual Direction
Sartre, Jean-Paul Dirty Hands; Being
& Nothingness
Saul, John Ralston Voltaire’s
Bastards
Schaeffer, Francis A. Escape from
Reason; He is There and He is Not Silent
Schiller, On the Naive and
Sentimental in Literature
Shakespeare Collected Works (read
many poems and plays but not all)
Shelley, Mary Frankenstein; The Last
Man
Skvorecky, Josef The Engineer of
Human Souls
Smith, Adam An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander The Gulag
Archipeligo; Cancer Ward; A Day in the Life of Ivan Desinovich; The Love-Girl
and the Innocent
Sophecles Oedipus the King; Antigone;
Electra; Philoctetes; Oedipus at Colonus
Spener, Jakob Philipp (1635-1705) Pia
Desideria
Spurgeon, C.H. Lectures to My
Students
St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) Francis
and Clare: The Complete Works
Stendhal The Red and The Black
Stevenson, Robert Louis Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde
Stoppard, Tom Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead
Stravinsky Rite of Spring
Swift, Jonathon Gulliver's Travels
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). The
Interior Castle
Thoreau, Henry Walden
Thornton, Martin Pastoral Theology:
Reorientation
Thucydides, Peloponnesian War
Thurneysen, Eduard A Theology of
Pastoral Care
Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit; The
Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of the King; Silmarillion
Tolstoy, Leo Anna Karenin; War and
Peace; Resurrection; Master and Man and Other Short Stories; Childhood, Boyhood
and Youth;
Tournier, Paul A Place of Your Own
Tozer, A.W. Pursuit of God; Knowledge
of the Holy
Trochu, Francis The Cure D’ars
Troyes, Chretien de Erec et
Enide and Lancelot
Twain, Mark Huckleberry Finn; Tom
Sawyer
Tyler, Anne Saint Maybe
Tzu, Lao The Tao of Power
Underhill, Evelyn (1936) Worship;
Brideshead Revisited
Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class
Vergil The Aeneid
Vico, The New Science
Voltaire, Zadig; Candide
Walter of Hilton (1396) Toward a
Perfect Love
Warfield, B.B. (1911) The Religious
Life of the Theological Student
Weber, Max The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism
Weil, Simone The Need for Roots
Wesley, John and Charles (1703-1791) John
and Charles Wesley: Selected Prayers, Hymns, Journals, Notes, Sermons, Letters,
& Treatises
Wharton Ethan Frome
Wiesel, Eli The Night Trilogy; The
Gates of the Forest
Willard, Dallas The Spirit of the
Disciplines; The Divine Conspiracy; Renovation of the
Heart
William of St, Thierry (1085-1135). The
Golden Epistle
Williams, Charles (1939) The Descent
of the Dove
Wollstonecroft, Mary
Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf, Virginia A Room of
One's Own; The Waves
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