Beginnings
This all started in 2014 when, in a fit of frustration at my lack of knowledge, understanding and general grasp of western culture especially in the form of literature, I wrote my first "to read" list. It was and is a monster of a list and broader than just western thought. But I get ahead of myself. I had just finished re-reading
How to Read a Book by Charles Van Doren and
The Well-Educated Mind : A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer. I was off work with health problems and had time on my hands, and as time has a way of doing I ended up reflecting on the knowledge I had obtained in my university study and what I wished I'd done more of and what I wished I'd done less of. I slowly concluded that I felt I had really missed out by never straying from the Science department. I was also aware from my previous interactions with people who had majored in the arts and history, that even they were not as widely read as they thought they probably should be. I decided not to be one of those people, so my self education in the classics began. Although both How to read a book and The well-educated mind are more about study of books, I have decided that I am more interested in reading as a tiki tour through history than full in depth study of the books.
The First List
Both books come at lists of books a little differently though they both put them in chronological order. The Well-Educated Mind approaches book by category but does not go back into antiquity. How to Read a Book on the other hand presents one list from antiquity to modern classics, relatively speaking. I took a mixed approach and wrote myself a list from antiquity to the end of 1 BC. I also was not content to stay entirely within the western tradition, though it is still the majority. Its size was also bolstered by the decision to read the entire works of authors rather than to pick and choose the most well known. I think this will pay dividends when I arrive at the scientific texts.This means the list has 210 titles on it.
Hurdles
I'm not as far through the first list as starting in 2014 might suggest. I started well enough but got myself caught up on the Iliad for 6 months. The real hurdle I hit was the Upanishads, one of my books from outside the western tradition. I got stuck on that for nearly 2 years until my husband suggested that maybe if I was that stuck I needed to pass it over and leave it, it wasn't like I hadn't given it a darn good go. Currently I'm moving slowly through Herodotus' Histories, I'm not stuck but it is a much more lengthy piece than the Greek plays that surround it in the list.
The Second List
My husband and I want kids and are currently planning on homeschooling any that we are blessed with, time will tell if that plan holds water. But one of the things we realised is that because of the size of the BC list we were not sure when I was going to get onto any AD content. And it's the later stuff I would be more likely to want to teach. After a bit of thought we decided to put together a AD literature list to be worked on alongside the BC list. This is a shorter list at 133 titles and runs to T.S Eliot. Stopping here keeps the question of modern books until another day. The list focuses entirely on the western tradition and is created as an amalgamation of the lists from the two books. This is a fairly recent addition and I have only completed the first two books.
Currently
I spend half an hour to an hour reading on these projects a day and alternate between the two lists. It gives me mini breaks from Herodotus without it being too long and not knowing where I'm up to. This has me progressing in a slow but steady manner. And what I've already completed gives me a nice backlog to write about. I'm going to be putting up new content midday Mondays so come and join me on a journey of self education through the classics.
What's your journey been like?
What do you wish you knew more about?
Tell me in the comments
