The sort of thing ambitious students often request at the end of a semester.
May 11, 1999
Reading Suggestions (for A. de Ranieri)
I’ve used only a few basic categories, and the ordering within these categories is entirely arbitrary. When you’re done with these (a decade or two from now), let me know, as there are plenty more where these came from: 6016 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63112-1410, (314) 725-6678, bdwalter@artsci.wustl.edu.
General Cultural Reference
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E. Hamilton, Mythology (Ovid’s Metamorphoses and other standard myths presented in invitingly clear English; a bit sanitized, but an excellent introduction to famous names and stories)
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Bible stories (suggested method: find a good edition of paintings – say, Rembrandt’s – depicting famous passages from the Bible, then read the explanations of the paintings; that way, you’ll acquire knowledge of the famous stories and figures without bogging down in all the genealogies and prophecies, which can be fun, but which also can turn off even the most avid reader)
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Shakespeare, the plays (all roads in English literary history lead to or from Shakespeare; read the plays themselves if you can, but you might want to familiarize yourself with plots and story-lines first in one of the various editions devoted to summarizing Shakespeare’s works [often designed especially for young readers, a bit like Hamilton’s Mythology], because unless a professor is helping them through, first-time readers of the plays often never return for a second helping because of the densely poetic language)
Life-Changing Nonfiction
Just a few titles of works that shifted my whole world-view.
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E. Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden (a brilliantly expansive ecological reading of the history of Western civilization, steeped in the myths and cultural traditions that have made us who we are; I cannot recommend this book highly enough)
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P. Levi, Survival in Auschwitz and The Drowned and the Saved (possibly the best writer and thinker on the Holocaust; these books will haunt me the rest of my life – or so I hope, at any rate)
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R. Malan, My Traitor’s Heart (a brilliantly personal investigation of the roots of apartheid; it’s impossible to put down – mesmerizing, harrowing, and triumphantly difficult in all the right ways)
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O. Sacks, The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (fascinating case studies of unusual neurological conditions, presented with rare warmth, compassion, and wit; a wonderful read)
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S. J. Gould, Full House, Questioning the Millennium, The Flamingo’s Smile, and Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (a bit pugnacious and self-indulgent at times, Gould is nevertheless the preeminent living philosopher of natural selection, his work [especially the first two titles listed here] an essential plea for distinguishing evolution from myths of progress)
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N. Elias, The History of Manners (a fascinating read)
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M. Foucault, Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish (ditto)
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S. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and On Photography (very interesting reads)
Misc. (mostly Fiction, Drama, & Poetry)
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V. Nabokov, the novels and the stories, esp. Lolita, The Defense, Laughter in the Dark, Invitation to a Beheading, and Pnin
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Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons (a wickedly funny book)
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J. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
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E. Wharton, The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, The Custom of the Country, and the stories
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W. Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (a beautiful book) and My Antonia
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F. Kafka, stories (especially The Metamorphosis)
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D. Defoe, Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders
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C. Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
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D. Harington, the Stay More novels, esp. Butterfly Weed, The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, Lightning Bug, and Ekaterina (a superbly gifted writer of warm but difficult comedy)
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J. Joyce, Dubliners (a beautiful collection of stories)
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F. Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (a very funny book)
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Homer, The Iliad and esp. The Odyssey
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Virgil, The Aeneid
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M. Swenson, Nature
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S. Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
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C. Ozick, The Shawl
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H. Melville, Moby-Dick
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E. Hemingway, the stories
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G. Orwell, essays and 1984
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T. Morrison, Sula and Tar Baby
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E. A. Poe, stories
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Moliere, The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, Don Juan, and Le bourgeois gentilhomme (sometimes translated as The Would-Be Gentleman)
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U. Eco, The Name of the Rose
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D. Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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M. Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Innocents Abroad, and esp. Life on the Mississippi
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W. Faulkner, As I Lay Dying and the stories (esp. “A Rose for Emily”)
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Aristophanes, Clouds and Lysistrata
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Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates
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M. de Cervantes, Don Quixote
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J. Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and the stories
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H. James, The Europeans, The Turn of the Screw, and The Portrait of a Lady
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C. Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
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E. Bronte, Wuthering Heights
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J. Milton, Paradise Lost
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H. D. Thoreau, Walden
