Thursday, September 15, 2011

The ten books everyone should read

At his speech at Highlands Latin Schools Community Lecture Series last April, philosopher Peter Kreeft listed the ten books all our classical school teachers should read. It seems to me that everyone should read them. I will note 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

1 comment:

ozziejoe said...

"The *eleven* books everyone should read"