Reading list

Formative books

Books I've found most formative, organized by era and genre. Bias: everything before 500 or after 1800. Inclusion ≠ endorsement.

Classical World

to AD 1

Literature

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Sophocles: Tragedies

Virgil: Aeneid

Classical poetry (placeholder)

Classical drama (placeholder)

History

Herodotus: Histories

Thucydides: Peloponnesian War

Manetho: Aegyptiaca

Xenophon: Anabasis (placeholder)

Polybius: Histories (placeholder)

Livy: History of Rome (placeholder)

Mythic Cosmogony

Enuma Elish

Hesiod: Theogony

Epic of Gilgamesh (placeholder)

Egyptian Book of the Dead (placeholder)

Rig Veda selections (placeholder)

Ugaritic Myth texts (placeholder)

Biblical Studies

The Lost World of Genesis One

The Messiah Before Jesus

Septuagint (placeholder)

Dead Sea Scrolls reader (placeholder)

ANET: Ancient Near Eastern Texts (placeholder)

1 Enoch (placeholder)

Biographies

Life of Alexander

Cyropaedia: Life of Cyrus (placeholder)

Life of Lycurgus (placeholder)

Life of Solon (placeholder)

Life of Julius Caesar (placeholder)

Life of Sappho (placeholder)

Philosophy

Plato: Republic

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics

Cicero: On Duties

Laozi: Tao Te Ching

Lucretius: On the Nature of Things

Pre-Socratics (placeholder)

Late Antiquity

AD 1–500

Literature

Petronius: Satyricon (placeholder)

Apuleius: The Golden Ass (placeholder)

Perpetua and Felicitas (placeholder)

Lucian: Dialogues (placeholder)

Longus: Daphnis and Chloe (placeholder)

Martial: Epigrams (placeholder)

History

Josephus: Jewish War / Antiquities

Eusebius: Church History

Plutarch: Parallel Lives

Tacitus: Annals (placeholder)

Cassius Dio: Roman History (placeholder)

Ammianus Marcellinus (placeholder)

Theology

Apostolic Fathers

Irenaeus: Apostolic Preaching

Augustine: City of God

Irenaeus: Against Heresies

Athanasius: On the Incarnation

Origen: On First Principles (placeholder)

Biblical Studies

N. T. Wright: NT in Its World

Resurrection of the Son of God

How Jesus Became God

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

Pauline studies (placeholder)

Biographies

Athanasius: Life of Antony

Paul: A Biography

Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars

Eusebius: Life of Constantine (placeholder)

Sulpicius Severus: Life of St. Martin (placeholder)

Augustine: Confessions (placeholder)

Philosophy

Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (placeholder)

Epictetus: Discourses (placeholder)

Plotinus: Enneads (placeholder)

Seneca: Letters (placeholder)

Augustine: On Free Choice (placeholder)

Porphyry: Isagoge (placeholder)

Early Medieval

AD 500–1000

Literature

Beowulf

Early medieval literature (placeholder)

Early medieval literature (placeholder)

Early medieval literature (placeholder)

Early medieval literature (placeholder)

Early medieval literature (placeholder)

History

Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Early medieval history (placeholder)

Early medieval history (placeholder)

Early medieval history (placeholder)

Early medieval history (placeholder)

Early medieval history (placeholder)

Theology

The Mystical Theology

Early medieval theology (placeholder)

Early medieval theology (placeholder)

Early medieval theology (placeholder)

Early medieval theology (placeholder)

Early medieval theology (placeholder)

Exegesis & Homiletics

Bede on Genesis

Early medieval exegesis (placeholder)

Early medieval exegesis (placeholder)

Early medieval exegesis (placeholder)

Early medieval exegesis (placeholder)

Early medieval exegesis (placeholder)

Biographies

The White Horse King

Early medieval biography (placeholder)

Early medieval biography (placeholder)

Early medieval biography (placeholder)

Early medieval biography (placeholder)

Early medieval biography (placeholder)

Philosophy

The Consolation of Philosophy

Early medieval philosophy (placeholder)

Early medieval philosophy (placeholder)

Early medieval philosophy (placeholder)

Early medieval philosophy (placeholder)

Early medieval philosophy (placeholder)

High Medieval

AD 1000–1500

Literature

The Song of Roland

The Nibelungenlied

The Canterbury Tales

The Poem of the Cid

The Decameron

The Book of the City of Ladies

History

The Alexiad

Chronicle of the Crusades

Magna Carta

Heimskringla

High medieval history (placeholder)

High medieval history (placeholder)

Theology

Summa Theologiae

Cur Deus Homo

The Imitation of Christ

Commentary on the Sentences

High medieval theology (placeholder)

Exegesis & Homiletics

Glossa Ordinaria

Catena Aurea

Letters of Hildegard of Bingen

Victorine Exposition of the Psalms

High medieval exegesis (placeholder)

High medieval exegesis (placeholder)

Biographies

Saint Catherine of Siena

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

The Book of the City of Ladies

High medieval biography (placeholder)

High medieval biography (placeholder)

High medieval biography (placeholder)

Philosophy

Guide for the Perplexed

Summa Contra Gentiles

The Incoherence of the Incoherence

High medieval philosophy (placeholder)

High medieval philosophy (placeholder)

High medieval philosophy (placeholder)

Early Modern

Renaissance and Reformation voices bridging medieval insight with emerging modernity.

Literature

Cover of Orlando Furioso

Cover of The Faerie Queene

Cover of Essays

Cover of Gargantua and Pantagruel

Cover of The Pilgrim's Progress

History

Cover of The Prince

Cover of The History of the Reformation

Cover of The Conquest of New Spain

Cover of The History of the World

Cover of The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Theology

Cover of Spiritual Exercises

Cover of The Freedom of a Christian

Cover of The Interior Castle

Cover of The Book of Common Prayer

Cover of An Apology for the Church of England

Biblical studies

Cover of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible

Cover of Erasmus's Greek New Testament

Cover of the Geneva Bible

Cover of the Douay-Rheims Bible

Cover of the King James Version

Philosophy

Cover of Critique of Pure Reason

Cover of Philosophy of History

Cover of Five Rings

Cover of The Alchemist

Cover of The Blazing World

Cover of The Princess of Cleves

Political Philosophy

Cover of Meditations on First Philosophy

Cover of Leviathan

Cover of Common Sense

Cover of Treatises

Cover of The Social Contract

Cover of The Prince

Late Modern

Nineteenth-century ferment and late modern classics anticipating contemporary debates.

Literature

Cover of Don Quixote

Cover of Paradise Lost

Cover of Faust

Cover of Pride and Prejudice

Cover of Moby-Dick

History

Cover of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Cover of The Federalist Papers

Cover of The Rights of Man

Cover of Democracy in America

Cover of The French Revolution

Theology

Cover of Institutes of the Christian Religion

Cover of Pensées

Cover of Parochial and Plain Sermons

Cover of Orthodoxy

Cover of The Philokalia

Biblical studies

Cover of Commentary on Romans

Cover of The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Cover of The New Testament in the Original Greek

Cover of The Life of Jesus Critically Examined

Cover of The Interpretation of the New Testament

Fiction

Cover of Frankenstein

Cover of Wuthering Heights

Cover of Crime and Punishment

Cover of The Scarlet Letter

Cover of Les Misérables

Philosophy

Cover of Beyond Good and Evil

Cover of Ethics

Cover of Critique of Pure Reason

Cover of Phenomenology of Spirit

Cover of Utilitarianism

Contemporary

Twentieth and twenty-first century voices engaging modern dilemmas.

Literature

Cover of The Waste Land

Cover of One Hundred Years of Solitude

Cover of Beloved

Cover of The Name of the Rose

Cover of Midnight's Children

History

Cover of The Guns of August

Cover of Postwar

Cover of The Clash of Civilizations

Cover of The Cold War

Cover of A People's History of the United States

Theology

Cover of Theology of the Body

Cover of God in the Dock

Cover of The Spirit of the Liturgy

Cover of Evangelii Nuntiandi

Cover of Mysterium Paschale

Fiction & speculative

Cover of The Lord of the Rings

Cover of Dune

Cover of The Left Hand of Darkness

Cover of A Wrinkle in Time

Cover of The Chronicles of Narnia

Philosophy

Cover of A Secular Age

Cover of Modern Social Imaginaries

Cover of Violence and the Sacred

Cover of After Virtue

Cover of Truth and Method

Psychology

Cover of Man's Search for Meaning

Cover of The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Cover of Maps of Meaning

Cover of The Road Less Traveled

Cover of Thinking, Fast and Slow