Great Books

—The wisdom of classic literature

Great Books

Completion status: this resource is ~5% complete.

Introduction

This Great Books curriculum aims to achieve several instructional goals that are aligned with the principles of liberal education and intellectual inquiry. While specific goals may vary depending on the institution, the following are commonly pursued objectives:

1. Critical Thinking Skills: Encourage students to develop and hone their critical thinking skills by engaging deeply with classic and foundational texts from various disciplines. Through close reading, analysis, and interpretation, students learn to evaluate complex ideas, arguments, and perspectives.
2. Intellectual Breadth: Provide students with a broad and interdisciplinary education by exposing them to a diverse range of texts, ideas, and cultural perspectives. By studying works from different historical periods, geographic regions, and intellectual traditions, students gain a comprehensive understanding of human knowledge and experience.
3. Effective Communication: Cultivate students' ability to communicate clearly, persuasively, and thoughtfully through writing, speaking, and discussion. By participating in seminars, debates, and writing assignments centered on Great Books texts, students develop their communication skills and learn to articulate their ideas effectively.
4. Ethical Awareness: Foster ethical awareness and moral reasoning by exploring questions of justice, morality, and human values in Great Books texts. Through thoughtful reflection and discussion, students engage with ethical dilemmas and learn to critically examine their own beliefs and assumptions.
5. Cultural Literacy: Promote cultural literacy and historical awareness by studying influential works of literature, philosophy, science, and art from different historical periods and cultural contexts. By understanding the cultural and historical significance of Great Books texts, students develop a deeper appreciation for the richness and complexity of human civilization.
6. Lifelong Learning Habits: Instill a lifelong love of learning and intellectual curiosity by nurturing students' intellectual passions and interests. Through exposure to challenging and stimulating texts, students develop habits of inquiry, reflection, and lifelong intellectual engagement that extend beyond their formal education.
7. Global Citizenship: Foster a sense of global citizenship and intercultural understanding by exploring the interconnectedness of human societies and civilizations through Great Books texts. By studying works from diverse cultural traditions and historical contexts, students develop empathy, tolerance, and respect for cultural differences.
8. Independent Thinking: Encourage independent thinking and intellectual independence by empowering students to question authority, challenge conventional wisdom, and think critically for themselves. Through guided inquiry and Socratic dialogue, students learn to develop their own ideas, arguments, and interpretations based on evidence and reasoned analysis.

Overall, a Great Books University-level curriculum aims to provide students with a transformative educational experience that equips them with the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind needed to navigate an increasingly complex and interconnected world with wisdom, integrity, and intellectual vigor.

This course can be useful in a variety of learning modes. Study groups may be especially effective.

A Book List

Listed here are titles that are often included in a Great Books college curriculum. Each title is linked to a module that provides a brief synopsis of the book, followed by suggested essay topics. Select titles from this list that interest or challenge you. Read and study each selection, as guided by the module linked from each title.

It may be helpful to read How to Read a Book, by  Mortimer J. Adler to more fully prepare to critically read each title. Also consider books listed in appendix A of the 1972 edition.

1. The Trial, by Franz Kafka
2. Foe, by J. M. Coetzee
3. Season of Migration to the North, by Al-T.̣ayyib S.̣ālih
4. Women as Lovers, by Elfriede Jelinek
5. Don Quixote, by Miguel De Cervantes
6. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz
7. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
8. Faust, by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
9. Faust, Part One, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
10. The Plague, by Albert Camus
11. The Cave, by Jose Saramago
12. Black Rain, by Masuji Ibuse
13. The Descent of Alette, by Alice Notley
14. As You Like It, by William Shakespeare
15. The Arabian Nights, by Husain Haddawy
16. Othello, by William Shakespeare
17. Symposium, by Plato
18. Discourse on Method, by Rene Descartes
19. Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
20. A Miller's Tale, by Alan Miller
21. The Aeneid, by Virgil
22. Inferno, by Dante Alighieri
23. Antigone, by Sophocles
24. Shahnameh, by Ferdowsi
25. Civilization and Its Discontents, by Sigmund Freud
26. A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf
27. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
28. A Survey of Israel's History, by Leon James Wood
29. The Macmillan Bible Atlas, by Yohanan Aharoni
30. The Western Canon, by Harold Bloom
31. Themes in Old Testament Theology, by William A. Dyrness
32. Kingdom of Priests, by Eugene H. Merrill
33. The Ancient Near East, by James B. Pritchard
34. No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre
35. Concise Bible Atlas, by J. Carl Laney
36. Yesterday, Today, and Forever, by Larry R. Helyer
37. Israel and the Nations, by F. F. Bruce
38. Biblical Archaeology, by Cyrus H. Gordon
39. The Deuteronomic Theology of the Book of Joshua, by Gordon J. Wenham
40. The Country Doctor, by Franz Kafka
41. The Uncanny, by Sigmund Freud
42. Garden of Forking Paths, by Jorge Luis Borges
43. Vertigo, by Alfred Hitchcock
44. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
45. The Classic Fairy Tales, by Maria Tatar
46. The Odyssey, by Homer
47. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
48. The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
49. The Theban Plays, by Sophocles
50. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
51. Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
52. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
53. Toward an Old Testament Theology, by Walter C. Kaiser
54. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
55. Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
56. Goethe's Faust, by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
57. Old Testament Wisdom, by James L. Crenshaw
58. Wisdom in Israel, by Herhard Von Rad
59. Praise and Lament in the Psalms, by Claus Westermann
60. When Song Is New, by Ronald Barclay Allen
61. The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio
62. Making the English Canon, by Jonathan Brody Kramnick
63. The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
64. The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
65. Khirbet Khizeh, by S. Yizhar
66. Silas Marner, by George Eliot
67. Big-Time Shakespeare, by Michael D. Bristol
68. The Ramayana, by R. K. Narayan
69. King Lear, by William Shakespeare
70. George Eliot, by Valerie A. Dodd
71. Pañcatantra, by Patrick Olivelle
72. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
73. Notes From Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
74. Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
75. Pentamerone, by Giambattista Basile
76. The Sandman, by E. T. A. Hoffmann
77. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
78. Candide, by Voltaire
79. Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
80. Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga
81. Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu
82. The Story of Layla and Majnun, by Ganjavi Nizami, Nizami
83. The Life of John Milton, by Barbara Kiefer Lewalski
84. Disgrace, by J. M. Coetzee
85. Confessions, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
86. Short Stories, by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
87. Cultural Capital, by John Guillory
88. Paradise Lost, and the Romantic Reader,  by Lucy Newlyn
89. Poetry and the Making of the English Literary Past, 1660-1781, by Richard Terry
90. The Uses of the Canon, by Howard Felperin
91. Milton and Religious Controversy, by John N. King
92. The Fame Machine, by Frank Donoghue
93. Canons and Contexts, by Paul Lauter
94. Shakespeare and the Book, by David Scott Kastan
95. Literature, Culture, and Society, by Andrew Milner
96. The Canon and the Common Reader, by Carey Kaplan
97. Imperfect Sense, by Victoria Silver
98. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
99. Penguin Classics, by Penguin
100. The Red and the Black, by Stendhal

Buddhist Classics Book List

A list of Buddhist Classics books is available from the Dharma Reals Buddhist University.

Chinese Classics Book List

A list of Chinese Classics books is available from the Dharma Reals Buddhist University.

Indian Classics Book List

A list of Indian Classics books is available from the Dharma Reals Buddhist University.

Other Book Lists

• Classics you know you should have read but probably haven't, from Librarything.
• 100 World Classics, from Librarything.