100 Books to Read in a Lifetime (That Are Older Than 200 Years)

karenb: Original version please! (No, really, the right one this time ;)

: more Christianity?

Veilleur_de_nuit: Parce que ce long poème dit les horreurs de la guerre et les douceurs de l'amour, et parce qu'il a façonné l'imaginaire occidental.

Mapguy314: Means I have it in my library, not necessarily that I have read it, although I have read some of them

-pilgrim- : There is another version on page 1 of list

aulsmith : Definitely parts of it, but the whole thing? Nah.

: yawwwwwwn

ErykaSosa91: I have been wanting to reread thus epic poem for the longest!!

lorax : Thumbing down just to counteract psdavid's proselytizing. I think parts are worth reading for basic cultural literacy, but nobody likes being preached at in a forum like this.

aulsmith : Again, parts of it. But the whole thing? Knowing some of it was done from unreliable manuscripts? Nah.

psdavid: A book in two parts, the old testament which is the new testament hidden and the new testament which is the old testament revealed. Every one of the 66 books (39 Old testament and 27 new testament) interlinks and joins with every other, written in original languages by 40+ authors spanning 2,000 years and many cultures. A book that attracts lively debate as to authenticity and yet every day sees more of its writings and dates confirmed by archaeological finds.

: Why not read one of the better translations, if you're going to read the whole wretched Bible in the first place?

Mapguy314: I read this many years ago.

karenb: Squeaking by, barely (published 1812)

: another white dude book and religion - bah

PietWester: Geschreven in 1759 en nog steeds een van de geestigste werken uit de wereldliteratuur.

aulsmith : I just read through them all and a lot of them are boring, repetitive and some of them are clearly drafts. Go with the ones that are anthologized.

aulsmith: Silverbooks is correct, but I found it engaging. Of course, I was only 12 and never reread it, so I'm not sure how it would come off now.

: mostly propaganda

Turambar: True, Franklin does a good deal of propagandizing, but the book is a sparkling example of Enlightenment Plain Style as well as being one of our earliest examples of American Exceptionalism and a sort of Pragmatism. It doesn't matter if you agree with his views or not; it's undeniably significant.

cemanuel : Agreed. The purpose of this list is specifically for alternatives to Amazon's. Great book though.

camainc : One only needs to read Augustine's City of God to know that Gibbon was so very wrong about the reasons for Rome's "decline and fall."

Turambar: Whether Gibbon was wrong or not is irrelevant to whether The Decline and Fall ought to be read. We don't read Herodotus because he was right. We read him because he helped shape how a civilization thought, as did Gibbon in his own, later way.

JacobKirckman: Gibbon's not 'on my list', as I have it (just not catalogued on LT yet)! Commenting purely to counter Camainc's claim that Gibbon was wrong. I'd take an historian (even an 18th century one) over a Bible-Basher any day...

: We need a little LESS war, please! Even though it's not old enough for this list, THE POLITICS OF NONVIOLENCE by Gene Sharp should be on everyone's must-read list.

karenb : Taking Chretien de Troyes instead.

camainc : A better choice would be Idylls of the King by Tennyson.

: boring and more white dudes

Betelgeuse: Idylls of the King is too recent: published between 1859-1885.

: more glorification of war? nah

lorax : I really don't think everyone needs to read a book that's been called "the book nobody read" (see http://www.librarything.com/work/16335 ). I have a PhD in astronomy and even I never read this; it's important to know about it, and why it was important, but actually reading it? Reading the old, old primary sources isn't important in science the way it is in history.

aulsmith : Not the whole thing. I took a seminar on Donne, and we didn't even read them all.