The 10 Books Everyone Should Read
At his speech at Highlands Latin Schools Community Lecture Series last April, philosopher Peter Kreeft listed the three books all our classical school teachers should read. It seems to me that everyone should read them. I will not that they were written by two saints (one of whom was a philosopher), two philosophers (one of whom was a saint), four poets (one of whom was also a dramatist), one mathematician (the maximum number allowed), and one novelist. And one author appears twice because he is the greatest: Homer. Here they are:
- The Confessions, by St. Augustine
- The Summa Theologica, by St. Thomas Aquinas
- Plato’s Dialogues
- Shakespeare’s plays
- The Divine Comedy, by Dante
- The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Aeneid, by Virgil
- The Iliad, by Homer
- The Odyssey, by Homer
- The Pensees, by Pascal
- The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky
Thanks so much for this list. Some reading lists are long and daunting, this one actually looks quite managable! I would love recommendations on translations for these books. I have the worst time figuring out which to read.
AH! Well, I’ve at least read one. Given this present age, I’ll let you guess which. I started Brother K, but got bogged down. Guess I shall return. I own a large copy of The Divine Comedy I will get to sooner now. Thanks for the list!
OH! One other question though: Is this the suggested order or does it matter?
CFloyd,
I just put them in the order he gave them, but I would suggest simply reading them chronologically, starting with the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and so on.
Why is Homer the greatest?