Literature: What have we missed?

[Jean in Wisc]

I've put together a list of literature my son has read (in school and on his own), and I'm trying to pull together a few books for his senior year that will fill in the holes. He's already done short stories and a number of American and British poets. We did a study of many Shakespeare works, watching DVDs and reading summaries of the stories, but we only read one "real" play (Hamlet). We are doing a lot of composition this year and just a few books. I've come up with some possibilities (Canterbury Tales, Time Machine, Orestia, Fahrenheit 451, something by Dickens, Mere Christianity, Our Town, Giants in the Earth, Animal Farm, Man in the Iron Mask, Man Without a Country...), but I'd love to see what you might recommend. Suggestions?

He's read:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Beowulf (Seraillier edition)
Christmas Carol
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Dracula
Epic of Gilgamesh
Frankenstein
Great Gatsby
Hobbit
Huckleberry Finn
Importance of Being Ernest
Invisible Man (H.G. Wells)
Last of the Mohicans
Light in the Forest
Lone Survivor
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Macbeth
Man Who Was Thursday
Odyssey
Oedipus Rex
Of Mice and Men
Old Man and the Sea
Pride and Prejudice
Prince and the Pauper
Red Badge of Courage
Robinson Crusoe
Scarlet Letter
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Song of Roland
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Three Musketeers
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tom Sawyer
Treasure Island
Uncle Tom’s Cabin

[Chris in VA]

Lord of the Flies is a quick, interesting read. It's good to contrast the author's idea of how people revert to the primitive/animal/"bad" when out of civilization's reach with the Romantic idea of the Noble Savage.

You have a very well-read son!

Maybe more ancients? Confessions?

[Jean in Wisc]

Lord of the Flies is a quick, interesting read. It's good to contrast the author's idea of how people revert to the primitive/animal/"bad" when out of civilization's reach with the Romantic idea of the Noble Savage.

You have a very well-read son!

Maybe more ancients? Confessions?

Oh, yes. Thank you!

[readwithem]

Hmmm... as a senior I would definitely include something by Solzhenitsyn, and tie it in with current events with his recent death. Maybe One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or Gulag Archipelago. I would also include something by Doestevsky and/or Tolstoy. Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina would be my picks.

[Jean in Wisc]

Hmmm... as a senior I would definitely include something by Solzhenitsyn, and tie it in with current events with his recent death. Maybe One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or Gulag Archipelago. I would also include something by Doestevsky and/or Tolstoy. Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina would be my picks.

The only one of those listed that I've read is Anna Karenina. Hm. Maybe they have been off my radar because I haven't read them! LOL! We have Day in the Life...Thanks.

[readwithem]

Well, hmmm. :) I would probably want to read any of those together - there are definitely squeamish parts (the murder in C&P is pretty graphic, so is the adultery in AK).... I guess the huge redeeming quality of these books is the look into the depravity of man and the consequences of behavior.

[kate in seattle]

Do you want to stick with literature, or do you want to include some important works that aren't literature (ie, philosophy?)

Some to consider
Aeneid - this was actually more influential than the Greek epics, because ability to read Greek was lost for so many years in Western Civ. most quoted work in later literature.

Confessions - St. Augustine. Really just a great book.

On the Incarnation - Athanasius. Another great book my high school kids enjoyed. Intro by C.S. Lewis.

Erasmus - Education of a Christian Prince - Should be required reading for all young Christian men

Machiavelli - Prince - Convinced my son he would be best suited for taking over and running a small kingdon

Dante - Inferno - lots of classical allusions. not hard to read.

Chaucer - Canterbury Tales - at least the Prologue

Shakespeare - Much Ado or Henry V. read the play, watch the Branagh movie

Milton - Paradise Lost
Spenser - Faerie Queene (can read just the first Book)
(yes, I LOVE epic, i think one year we will just read all the epics - how FUN would that be!)

Kate in Seattle
For modern times you might add some of the Russian titles already mentioned - I love Crime and Punishment. My dd loved AK, I haven't read it. You might try some Tolstoy short stories. I find short stories, as a genre, seriously under-represented on most classical lists, and there are so many great ones.

You might want to add "Why we can't wait" or Letters from the Birmingham Jail by King.

Hope this gives you something to think about - and can find one or two to make it on to his reading list.

[Kareni]

... Spenser - Faerie Queene (can read just the first Book)


If you go this route, I'd recommend this version: Wars and Faithful Loves: Book I of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (http://www.amazon.com/Fierce-Wars-Faithful-Loves-Spensers/dp/1885767390).

Regards,
Kareni

[Jean in Wisc]

If you go this route, I'd recommend this version: Wars and Faithful Loves: Book I of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (http://www.amazon.com/Fierce-Wars-Faithful-Loves-Spensers/dp/1885767390).

Regards,
Kareni

This looks interesting! Thanks!

J

[Karen in CO]

here are some we read that really stuck in my head:
All Quiet on the Western Front
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Plague by Albert Camus

And something distopian like
Brave New World or
On the Beach

and something by Orwell

maybe something like Things Fall Apart by a non-Western author.