Recommendations?

[JordanW]

I am really looking to start with some stuff from William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe, and also anyone that is similar to them? I'm pretty much open to anything I guess, I'm really looking for more classical stuff (anything B.C. to the mid to late 1800's.) I also want to learn about Greek Philosophy, and I ordered 2 books today, one being Plato's The Republic and the other being Plato's The 5 Dialogues, both of which I am very excited to read. I always enjoyed reading when I was a kid, but I kind of fell away from that when I got older and when high school DEMANDED you to read, it kind of turned me away from reading. Now I am out of high school though and am actually interested in reading, so I hope that this post gives you enough information on what you need, if not feel free to ask me more. Thanks.

 

[sparkchaser]

How far back do you want to go? Epic of Gilgamesh and The Bhagavad Gita old? Anything you definitely don't want to read?

 

[JordanW]

How far back can we go? :lol:

 

[sparkchaser]

Epic of Gilgamesh I think. 3,000 B.C.

 

[silverseason]

I also want to learn about Greek Philosophy, and I ordered 2 books today, one being Plato's The Republic and the other being Plato's The 5 Dialogues, both of which I am very excited to read.

If you are interested in the Greeks, I recommend Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter. This work combines history, mythology, philosophy and art to give a compelling picture of the creativity of classic Greece. You will read Plato with greater understanding after the Cahill book.

 

[dele]

I have some ideas if you're interested in classic literature in general.

• Anything by Shakespeare
• The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
• The Iliad - Homer
• The Odyssey - Homer
• Done Quixote - Cervantes
• Gulliver's Travels - Jonathon Swift
• The Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
• Le Morte D'Arthur - Malory

I hope some of those at least catch your fancy.

 

[JordanW]

OK well anything from 3,000 B.C. to the late 1800's sounds good to me. I really want to get some of Shakespeare's work, but I'm not sure which publishers are the right ones I should be buying from? Also, thanks to all of you for the recommendations.

 

[joderu95]

The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Thomas Paine
Mark Twain

 

[Occlith]

Since you mention Poe, I also recommend the short stories of Ambrose Bierce.
Daphnis and Chloe - Longus
Metamorphoses - Ovid
Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio

 

[silverseason]

Some of the great Victorian novels:

Dickens, Bleak House
Elliot, MIddlemarch
Bronte, Jane Eyre