Posted on 05/30/2017 4:13:27 AM PDT by iowamark
Here are 115 books the NAS recommends for colleges and universities with common reading programs. The first list contains 80 books appropriate in level of difficulty and length for any college freshman. The second list contains 30 more ambitious choices...
Recommended Books for More Ambitious College Common Reading Programs
MATTHEW ARNOLD – CULTURE AND ANARCHY (1869)
The point of culture is the pursuit of perfection; the uncultured are mere Philistines. Arnold eloquently articulates the High Victorian ideal of culture as singular and normative—a valuable corrective to the modern view of culture as plural and descriptive. Students will learn to consider what they should do during college to acquire culture and leave off Philistinism.
JACQUES BARZUN – BERLIOZ AND HIS CENTURY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM (1950)
An exemplar of intellectual history, which brings alive the great romantic French composer Hector Berlioz. Barzun shows how to conduct a sympathetic evocation of the past, and lets us know both what was new and valuable about Romanticism and how Romantic we still are.
RUTH BENEDICT – PATTERNS OF CULTURE (1934)
Benedict’s classic of anthropology beautifully describes the varying cultures of the Pueblo, the Kwakiutl, and the Dobu. Students will find an eloquent account of the concept of cultural relativism—and also discover how deeply rooted that concept is in the West’s intellectual traditions and academic disciplines.
HAROLD BLOOM – THE WESTERN CANON (1994)
Bloom’s enthusiasm for great books is infectious. Students won’t have read many of the books he discusses but will want to.
BENVENUTO CELLINI – THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENUTO CELLINI (1558-1563)
Goldsmith, soldier, sculptor, and musician, Cellini’s life embodied the gusto and ambition of the Renaissance. Cellini’s autobiography is the standard by which to measure milk-and-water memoirs—as his life is the standard by which to measure milk-and-water lives. Especially recommended for colleges with concentrations in the fine arts.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES – DON QUIXOTE (1605)
Is Don Quixote a hero, a fool, a madman—or all three? Don Quixote is a rich, gargantuan saga of the adventures of the iconic windmill-tilting knight-errant Don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho Panza. The book has been called the “first modern novel,” and Harold Bloom writes that the tale of Don Quixote’s impossible quest “contains within itself all the novels that have followed in its sublime wake.” The book might be the longest work a college student will ever read, but it will also be the most memorable.
WHITTAKER CHAMBERS – WITNESS (1952)
A former Communist and Soviet spy, Chambers repented and exposed former State Department official Alger Hiss as a fellow Communist and spy. Hiss denied the allegation but evidence emerged that Chambers was right. Though the statute of limitations on espionage had run out, Hiss went to prison on a perjury conviction. In Witness, Chambers goes beyond the details of this case to offer a broad reflection on the course of twentieth-century history and the fate of Western civilization as it faced the challenge of totalitarian Communism...
I’ve read most of these authors but few of these works. I think this is a splendid list for anyone interested in casting a critical eye not only on everyone else but also on themselves.
Yes, I agree — a good list that I will mark.
That list was a lot better than I thought it would be.
Bkmk
bkmk
Yes, pretty much all good books over 100 years old are public domain and available on the internet. Also, all of the books on this list are classics and should be in any good public or college or high school library.
I confess that I posted this list because it includes Whittaker Chambers' autobiography 'Witness', a book that should be read by every American. The National Association of Scholars is a conservative academic group.
I have only read six of these—and seen the movie versions of a few others—so I have a lot of reading to do.
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