Categories of Books to be Filled

Great Books KC strives for a balanced approach, while adhering to our general criteria for great works of literature (see What Makes a Book Great.)

There are several categories we like to cover in the course of a year:

• Re-reading books we have read before
One of the hallmarks of the Great Books is that they are worth RE-reading. Each year, we include one excellent selection that we have read more than a year previously.

• A selection from the Bible.
One of the two major sources of the Western tradition, Biblical literature holds a central place in our reading program.

• A selection from the Greeks
The other major source of the Western tradition. (See comment 2)

• A selection from Shakespeare
Central to the Western tradition, Shakespeare is only second to the Bible and the Greeks because he came later than they did. Had he come earlier, he would probably equal or exceed Homer in primacy.

• A work of poetry

• A non-Western selection
There are a wealth of Great Books from non-Western sources. We give ourselves the opportunity to learn from them.

• A selection by a female author

• A recent (1900-1950) selection (See comment 1)

• A shorter work

• A longer work
We set aside the three summer months, each year, to tackle one longer, more ambitious work.

These categories are open to adjustment. If there are categories you believe should be added, or if you think some of these should be omitted, please share your perspective.

What Makes a Great Book

What makes a Great Book...well, great?

This is a topic of some controversy, especially when it comes to listing the Great Books in any sort of a “canon.” Everyone has their own list, which will not be exactly the same as anyone else’s list. Differences notwithstanding, there are certain works which will appear on most lists—few would dispute that Homer, the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare make the cut.

One of the most well-known (and—again—controversial) endeavors in list-building is Mortimer J. Adler’s ""Great Books of the Western World," published in 1952 and revised in 1990. Adler’s list is controversial because it focuses exclusively on Western literature, which for a variety of historical and sociological reasons is dominated by male authors of European ancestry. To be fair, Adler did call his catalog "Great Books of the Western World" (as opposed to "Great Books of the World," which might have made a big difference.) A more recent effort in this vein is Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon.

The increasingly egalitarian and global society that has developed since the end of World War II has focused attention on the works of excellent authors who may have been overlooked or neglected due to cultural bias. This has provided an even richer and deeper field from which to choose when selecting candidates for the Great Books.

More useful than attempts at compiling exhaustive lists are efforts to define the criteria by which great works can be identified. Perhaps the single most useful criterion is still the one everyone learns in high school when discussing what makes a classic:

• Great Books have stood the test of time.

What this means, exactly, is open to debate—is the “test of time” 50 years? Is it 100 years? Answers will vary—but the underlying concern is separating works of transient interest from those of lasting value. Often this can only be accomplished with confidence when enough time has passed to make it obvious which works have, in fact, lasted.

Anne Perez, in the Winter 1999 edition of the online quarterly "Teaching Great Books," discusses the specific criteria used by Adler when compiling the list for "Great Books of the Western World:"

• Great Books are pertinent to contemporary life.

• Great Books are worth rereading.

• Great Books contain “great ideas.”

• Great Books make some sort of impression and/or change in civilization.

Finally, Perez adds a criterion of her own:

• Great Books must never forget the complexity of the human spirit.

The meanings of these criteria are open to debate, and the criteria are not exhaustive. Determining appropriate criteria may prove as contentious as attempting to list the Great Books themselves. Thinking deeply and seriously about what makes a work “great,” however, is another treasure of a rich literary tradition.

List of Books Read in Previous Years

Here is a running list of the books we have read in previous years:

2024

Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot

The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu (Chapters 1 - 17)

Black Prince,by Iris Murdoch 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by Anonymous 

Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare 

Three selections from Essays, by Michel de Montaigne - 

    "Of Cannibals," "Of Friendship," "Of The Education of Children"

Democracy in America, by A. de Toqueville (first half) 

Democracy in America, by A. de Toqueville (second half) 

The Clouds,by Aristophanes 

The Mabinogion, by Anonymous 

Book Revelation (from the Bible) by John of Patmos 

2023

Journey to the End of the Night, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad 

To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf 

Sunday Morning and other poems, by Wallace Stevens 

MacBeth, by William Shakespeare 

The Devil's Disciple, by George Bernard Shaw 

Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw 

Captain Brasbounds Conversion, by George Bernard Shaw 

Antigone, by Sophocles 

Gilgamesh (2nd millennium BC epic)

Book of Job (from the Bible)

2022 
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe 

        and Volpone, by Ben Jonson
The Golden Ass, by Apuleius 
Ten-Thirty on a Summer Night, by Marguerite Duras 
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and The Wasteland, by T. S. Eliot 
The Brothers Ashkenazi, by I.J. Singer 
In Search of Lost Time, Swann's Way, by Marcel Proust 
In Search of Lost Time, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, by Marcel Proust 
In Search of Lost Time, The Guermantes Way, by Marcel Proust 
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee and Walker Evans 
Tao Te Ching, by Lao-Tau 
Ezra and Nehemiah, from the Bible

2021
The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow
Othello, by Shakespeare
Lysistrata & Thesmophoriazusae, by Aristophanes
Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, by Aimé Césaire
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, by Vladimir Nabokov
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, by Nikolai Leskov
The 42nd Parallel, The U.S.A. trilogy, by John Dos Passos
1919, The U.S.A. trilogy, by John Dos Passos
The Big Money, The U.S.A. trilogy, by John Dos Passos
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
Kakoro, by Natsume Soseki
Story of David, 1 Samuel 16-31, 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings 1-2

2020

The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James
Ecclesiastes, from the Bible
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft
Essay on Man, by Alexander Pope
Stoner, by John Williams
The Trees, from Awakening Land Trilogy by Conrad Richter 
The Fields, from Awakening Land Trilogy by Conrad Richter 
The Town, from Awakening Land Trilogy by Conrad Richter
The Consolation of Philosophy,by Boethius
A Madman’s Diary, by Lu Xun
Richard III,by Shakespeare

2019

The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
Acts of the Apostles
 Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare
Tin Drum, by Günter Grass
 A House for Mr. Biswas, by V.S. Naipaul   
The King Must Die, by Mary Renault
Bull From the Sea, by Mary Renault
Mask of Apollo, by Mary Renault
The Histories, by Herodotus
Turn of The Screw, by Henry James
The Ink Dark Moon, by Onono Komachi & Izumi Shikibu

2018

Annals, by Tacitus
The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
Luke, from the New Testament
Richard II, by Shakespeare
The Kreutzer Sonata, by Leo Tolstoy
The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck
Sons, by Pearl Buck
A House Divided, by Pearl Buck
Growth of the Soil, by Knut Hamsun
The Reivers: A Reminiscence, by William Faulkner
Songs from the Slums, by Kagawa Toyohiko

2017

Silence, by Shusaku Endo
Native Son, by Richard Wright
A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O’Connor
Selected song lyrics by Bob Dylan
Cymbeline, by Shakespeare
Palace Walk (Cairo Triology), by Naguib Mahfouz
Palace of Desire (Cairo Triology), by Naguib Mahfouz
Sugar Street (Cairo Triology), by Naguib Mahfouz
The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon
Fear and Trembling, by Soren Kierkegaard
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius

2016

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, a translation by Anne Carson
Dream of the Red Chamber(also titled
Hónglóu Mèng (紅樓夢)), by Cao Xueqin
The Vicar of Wakefield, by Goldsmith
The Cross, by Sigrid Undset
The Wife, by Sigrid Undset
The Wreath, by Sigrid Undset
The Book of Ruth, from the Bible
Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
Selected Poems, by Gwendolyn Brooks
Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 by Shakespeare

2015

Njáls Saga (part of Sagas of Icelanders)

Bhagavad Gita

The Nature of Things, by Lucretius

The Mansion, Vol. 3 of Snopes Triology, by William Faulkner

The Town, Vol. 2 of Snopes Trilogy, by William Faulkner

The Hamlet, Vol. 1 of Snopes Trilogy, by William Faulkner

King Lear, by Shakespeare

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

Book of Esther, from the Bible

Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King

2014

Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Future of an Illusion, by Sigmund Freud
Ulysses, by James Joyce
Ulysses, by James Joyce
Ulysses, by James Joyce
A Winter's Tale, by Shakespeare
The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
Song of Solomon, from the Bible
Oedipus at Colonus, by Sophocles 

2013

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Medea by Euripides

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

One Thousand and One Nights (covered in three meetings)

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Elizabeth Bishop's Poetry

Genesis from the Bible

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

2012

Gospel of Mark from the Bible

Epic of Gilgamesh

Anthony & Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (covered in three meetings)

Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tao te Ching, Lao-tsu

Symposium, Plato

Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry

Catch 22, Joseph Heller

2011

The Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

Notes from the Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ecclesiastes, from the Bible

Plutarch's Lives, by Plutarch (covered in three meetings)

Candide, by Voltaire

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, tr. Edward FitzGerald

Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare

and the movie, “10 Things I Hate About You”

The Odyssey, by Homer

The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

2010

Beowulf, by anonymous 

Selected Poems, by various English authors 

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu 

War and Peace, by Tolstoy (covered in three meetings)

The Tempest, by Shakespeare 

Revelation, (from the bible) 

Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell 

Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich 

The Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides 

2009

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

King Lear, William Shakespeare

In A Grove, Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Job (from Hebrew Scriptures)

The Iliad, Homer (2nd time for the group)

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

2008 

Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriett Beecher Stowe

Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser

Emma, by Jane Austen

Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev

The Koran

The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus

2007

The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare

The Sayings of Confucius, by Confucius

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce

The Divine Comedy, by Dante (covered in three meetings)

Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather 

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

The Sonnets, by William Shakespeare

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding 

2006 

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

Democracy In America, by Alexis de Tocqueville

Beowulf

On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin

Middlemarch, by George Eliot

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville 

2005 

Paradise Lost, by John Milton

The Republic, by Plato

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Pentateuch

The Alhambra, by Washington Irving 

2004 

The Aeneid by Virgil

Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

The Odyssey, by Homer

Queen Margot by Alexandre Dumas

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

The Iliad, by Homer