Great Books

—The wisdom of classic literature



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. Please know that any single list of great books will be inherently biased. Choose books from the various lists provided here to get a sample suitable to your goals and interests.
 * 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. Learning from great books can help us live wisely.

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
 * 101) Magana Jari ce, by Abubakar Imam
 * 102) Iliya Dan Mai karfi, by Ahmadu Ingawa
 * 103) Ruwan Bagaja, by Abubakar Imam
 * 104) Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle By Jim Rohn
 * 105) Better than Before By Gretchen Rubin
 * 106) The One Thing by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan
 * 107) Win your inner battle by Darius Foroux
 * 108) Goals by Brian Tracy

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.