Great Books

Classic Reading List

Foundation

The Bible: Old Testament, New Testament, as literature, etc.
The Iliad by Homer, the beginning of Western Literature.
The Republic by Plato, a Socratic dialogue on ideal government.
Plutarch's Lives by Plutarch, the "moral historian", cross- comparing the lives of great Greeks and Romans; originally Parallel Lives.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon; fifteen years in the making, 1.5 million words, a true classic of Western history.
The Greek Myths by Robert Graves.

Great Books of the Western World

Originally published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1952, Great Books of the Western World was revised in 1990. It was edited by Mortimer J. Adler who said: "Great books are relevant to human problems in every century, not just germane to current twentieth-century problems." As the publisher states: "Great Books of the Western World is one of the most acclaimed publishing feats of our time . . this collection represents the essential core of the Western literary canon, compiling . . the most significant achievements in literature, history, philosophy, and science . . (it) traces the ideas, stories, and discoveries that have shaped modern civilization."

Other collections of "great books" include:

Harvard Classics
Yale Classical Studies
Loeb Classical Library

Classics Programs

The most renowned and respected classics program in the U.S. is that of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Today it offers a unique graduate program "modeled on that of the undergraduate college" which "consists exclusively of classic or 'great' books of the Western tradition used as texts . ." at either the Annapolis or Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Other lists of Greek and Roman Classics include those of . .

University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
Cornell
University of Michigan
Brown University
University of Virginia

Western Canon

The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages by Harold Bloom.