100 Most Important Books to Read Before You Die: Part 1

2009-02-21 22:28 CET - Update: Fixed missing word and added tags.

To give proper credit, friend Jason originally asked (on a private mailing list) for recommendations on the "100 Most Important Books to Read Before You Die". Some of his criteria are (and I quote/paraphrase):

• Important

As in changing "the way a people think or act, or exemplifies human action or emotion to a defining degree.


• Diverse

Fiction or non-fiction are ok, and from any discipline, genre and culture.


• Insightful

"Having read the books on the list, one should feel insight into what it means to be human, what humanity has accomplished over its history and why, and what we think about the universe around us and why."


• Clearness over originality

E.g. a later, more accessible work on a subject that is better than an earlier, more "scholarly" work.


• Factual for its time

"Non-fictional" works that are founded on now discredited information should not be disqualified, as long as those works give us insight to their times.

Jason started us off with the Old Testament, which is certainly Important, somewhat Diverse, Insightful, not so Original, and Factual, for its time.

Here, then, are my first 10 suggestions, with more or less reverent (or relevant) commentary. I continue with Jason's religious theme:

1. The New Testament

If you're going to read the Bible, read both parts. You should balance out the Thou-shall-not's with some Blessed-are-the-meek's. I'm a fan of the King James Version, probably because I worked out of it during my Puritan years at RenFaire.



2. The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the AUTHENTIC Words of Jesus by Robert W. Funk & the Jesus Seminar

This a great follow-up to the New Testament. Plus, it really opens up the reality of modern biblical scholarship to the lay person.



3. The Qur'an (Koran)

This [is] on my personal list to read, though I'm still looking for a reasonable English translation.



4. The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer

How can anyone not want to read about the priests of Diana and what they got up to at Aricia? Strike that. If you have any interest at all in the roots of European belief systems, especially those which have been masked or erased by the rise of Christianity, then this is the book to read. If you just want some nice stories to read to the kiddies, might I suggest:



5. Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch

The Antics of the Olympians, rated "G" for "gag me with a spoon". I believe that Bulfinch is singularly responsible for the strategically placed hair of the female centaurs in Fantasia.



6. The Iliad by Homer (sort of)

As much as some might decry the recent Troy and the less recent (and way more Dr-Who-with-a-budget) Clash of the Titans, you can see where the writers of even the cheesiest movies with Greek mythological themes have not strayed all that far from the source. Just don't call it "The Curious Case of the Son of Peleus".



7. The Epic of Gilgamesh

Wacky stuff. Honest. But incredibly influential on "Western" literature from the Old Testament on. E.g. there are clear echoes of Gilgamesh & Enkidu's first meeting in the Robin Hood/Little John and Arthur/Lancelot first encounters. More Gilgamesh goodness can be found here.



8. Tipitaka & Mahayana sutras

If there were "core" texts for Buddhism, then these are it. Apparently, the path to Enlightenment goes through the Wood of Schisms, so just one text doesn't cut it.




9. The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

This is the original Hinduism for Dummies. For those with enormous bladders, try the video version directed by Peter Brook.



10. Tao Te Ching/Daodejing (The Tao and its Characteristics) by Laozi, translated by James Legge

No matter how you transliterate it, Taoism is still the least well understood of the Chinese contribution to world culture. (It's clearly not as flashy as fireworks, nor as yummy as Peking Duck.) The actual Tao Te Ching is not very long (5000 Chinese characters, as the brush writes), but you have to deal with the various commentaries. It's the hazard of reading a language that is half composed of allusions.

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Bonus Item:

Blogging the Bible by David Plotz at Slate.com

It's like a reading the inner monolog of the person tasked to write The Old Testament for Dummies. Last I heard, he's working on turning these essays into a book. He's also considering doing the same thing with the New Testament.

I never meta post I didn't like

I started writing this entry some nine months before its posting date. Typical.

While re-reading A.S. Byatt's Possession for the umpteenth time, I realized that one of her themes is totally why I've waited as long as I have (three-four years) to start a blog: For whom am I writing? In the Romance (not a Novel, especially when borrowing its preface from Hawthorn's preface to House of the Seven Gables), there are writings for Publication, private Correspondences and personal Journals. Byatt meditates on all three, through the thoughts of the characters as well as via the narrative voice. As one character puts it:

Letters [...] exclude not only the reader as co-writer, or predictor, or guesser, but they exclude the reader as reader; they are written, if they are true letters, for a reader.

—Possession, Ch. 8

Now, I did spend the better part of a year writing weekly newsletters, which were eventually distributed to something like 200+ people during its year-and-a-half of active life. I admit that part of the reason the newsletters stopped was that I'd come back to California with the family, and so a majority of people who got updated on my life via the newsletter could just come visit or phone without have to deal with trans-Atlantic time zone differences and international toll costs.

Also, I'd be less than forthcoming if I didn't mention that it was hard work trying to put the events of the week into some sort of context, or at least come up with a framing device that could transform the snippets from social gatherings, family anecdotes, personal observations and baby pictures into a sort of Narrative. And the pictures were a pain as I felt this drive to organize them by event or time frame, tag them so that the file names would include the names of all the people in them (there really should be a standard for adding meta data, such as tags, to images, like id3 for audio files). This was partly due to a mild tendency to OCD on my part, but it also made it easier to track down specific images when the inevitable requests come in for the full resolution originals.

At some point, I hit the wall on the pictures and the newsletters, which is why there are 11000+ photos from the last three-and-a-half years in my iPhoto library (if I could get my act together, I'd only keep about two months' of pictures in iPhoto, with the rest exported out to folders ordered by event and date) and the most recent newsletter dates from early 2005.

So for a while now I've been thinking: a blog, that's the ticket, that'll help me to clear out iPhoto and finally let people know about our summer vacations, the Balls my wife and I have attended and the continuing adventures of my son. This urge has gotten stronger as I see more and more of my friends blog, though of course it doesn't help that they are also all over the place in terms of Voice and Audience. Many of them using their blogs as a primary source for their families (read: Grandparent types) to keep up with their children. Just as many blog mostly about current events, their non-familial interests and/or their jobs. A much smaller percentage will mix these two, though sometimes they will try to avoid this conflation of Narratives by having different blogs for different people. (Disclosure, I'm doing this as well, or rather, I plan on doing this as I also have another blog which will carry on the tradition from my original newsletters to share family updates. Just as soon as I can get some pictures tagged.)

Well, as you can see, it's still slow going. Wish me luck in keeping this and the other blog updated.