Reading List

 

   I used to read books all the time. The first few years it was fiction, then I switched to non-fiction, mostly history. I thought that when I retired I'd have lots of time for reading but I'm lucky these days if I get through a couple of books a year. I exaggerate, but I do wonder what happened to the time I used to spend reading.

   Somewhere along the line I realized I was not going to live long enough to read all the good books in the world, so I tried to narrow the library down to the "must reads". There are several lists out there of the world's greatest books. If you digest those hundred or so books, you'll be a modern day Renaissance person for what it's worth.

   I just now reviewed one of those lists: The Odyssey, check, The Iliad, check, the Tragedies of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, check, check, check, though I confess to getting them mixed up. Then there's a lot of Greek science- The Geometry by Euclid which I got in a dumbed down version in high school. Then comes Roman history as the Romans wrote it. Still working on that. St. Thomas Aquinas- I got him in church. Don Quixote. Just read that in book club in 2023. Then the list has all kinds of Age of Enlightenment science. I'll probably skip that. Robinson Crusoe: Several times. Gulliver's Travels. Yes! Lots of 17th-18th century philosophy. No. Jane Austen. A hard yes. Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Ulysses by James Joyce, Yes yes yes. Kafka. Yes, reluctantly.

   My reading career has been spotty. Are there classics being written right now that I'm missing? I read two biweekly book reviews to stay in the know, but books are still being written at such a furious rate and I can barely keep up with the reviews. The feelings of frustration and panic this flood once caused in me have abated. I do what I can. I listen to audio books as I drive back and forth to town, mostly popular science and spiritual gurus. The hour grows late. I must make hay.

The well rested reader is a perceptive reader.