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I'm having a lot of trouble narrowing down our booklist for high school. Combining too many books with all of the other needed subjects is overloading each year. I know that these book lists will have some give and take, but I need an outline to have in mind.

 

What 6 books would you consider most essential for a high school student to have read (with some being studied) for each of these categories?

 

1. Ancients

2. Medieval

3. Modern World

4. American

 

Of course, I don't mean for these 6 to include history books or biographies or even necessarily Shakespeare and poetry. I would probably add to these 6 with some from these categories. Really then, this would be for literature almost only. If you feel inclined to add more, please feel free!:lol:

 

Thanks!

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I have not given the other periods much thought yet, but here's my vote on Ancients and Medieval:

Ancients:

 

Iliad

Odyssey

Sophocles Antigone-Oedipus Rex- Oedipus on Colonnos

Vergil's Aeneid

Ovid Metamorphoses

 

not sure what I'd rank 6th, either Herodotus or Plutarch maybe

 

Medieval:

Beowulf

the Edda (or some version of the Nibelung saga)

Chaucer Canterbury tales

Malory Morte d'Arthur

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I'm having a lot of trouble narrowing down our booklist for high school. Combining too many books with all of the other needed subjects is overloading each year. I know that these book lists will have some give and take, but I need an outline to have in mind.

 

What 6 books would you consider most essential for a high school student to have read (with some being studied) for each of these categories?

 

1. Ancients

2. Medieval

3. Modern World

4. American

 

Of course, I don't mean for these 6 to include history books or biographies or even necessarily Shakespeare and poetry. I would probably add to these 6 with some from these categories. Really then, this would be for literature almost only. If you feel inclined to add more, please feel free!:lol:

 

Thanks!

 

I'll give it a shot. I'm working on the same thing. I ended up putting in various Shakespeare works where I thought they would fit well.

 

1. Ancients:

A. Plato--either The Republic or The Phaedo if you want something shorter. Of all the philosophers, he is the most approachable and really just fun to read.

B. Homer--Iliad and the Odyssey. On the other hand, if you expect your children to go to a liberal arts college, they will almost certainly read this there. I actually think it's probably not a great idea to have everything in college be re-reading.

C. Sophocles--The Three Theban Plays. I'm thinking we may read these outloud, taking parts.

D. I haven't read it, but maybe The Epic of Gilgamesh?

E. Virgil--the Aeneid maybe, but I'm not sure I'm willing to put my children through that. I don't think Virgil is nearly as good as Homer.

F. Shakespeare - Julius Caesar

G. Lewis - 'Til We Have Faces (retelling of Greek myth with Lewis' own twists)

 

2. Medieval

A. Some form of Arthurian Legend

B. Song of Roland

C. Tristan and Iseult

D. Beowulf

E. Sir Gawain

F. Shakespeare - Hamlet and Henry V

 

3. Renaissance (I know you didn't ask for this, but I think it's worth separating them)

A. Dante - The Divine Comedy

B. Milton - Paradise Lost (I found this a lot easier to read than Dante, but Dante is awesome too)

C. Da Vinci - some of his notes perhaps?

D. Cervantes - Don Quixote

E. St. Thomas More - Utopia

F. Everyman

G. As much Shakespeare as you can stand including Romeo and Juliet and maybe Othello

 

4. Modern World (post Renaissance and avoiding America until #5)

A. Huxley - Brave New World (has non-descriptive sex)

B. Austen--everything but especially Pride and Prejudice

C. Bronte--any one of them, but my favorite is Jane Eyre. I just roll my eyes at Wuthering Heights

D. Dinezen - Out of Africa

E. Buck - The Good Earth

F. Hugo - Les Miserables

G. Lewis - Space Trilogy

H. Stendhal - The Red and the Black

I. Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment (probably not before junior or senior year)

J. Forester - Passage to India

(I know this is way more than 6, but I just couldn't stop, LOL)

K. Kafka - The Trial or, for something shorter, Metamorphosis

L. Wells - The Time Machine or The Isle of Dr. Moreau

M. Shelley - Frankenstein

L. Shakespeare - The Tempest

M. Dickens - Tale of Two Cities

 

5. American

A. Melville - Moby Dick (a great little guide for this is Seascape, Soulscape: Moby-Dick by Gene Curtsinger, a professor from UD)* or maybe Billy Budd instead.

B. Twain - Huck Finn and Joan of Arc, assuming one has already read Tom Sawyer and The Prince and the Pauper

C. Miller - Canticle for Liebowicz (maybe not a must read but very intriguing and immensely weird. Good for a sci-fi fan.)

D. Shakespeare - Midsummer Night's Dream or King Lear (just a good place to put another Shakespeare)

E. Cather - O Pioneers or My Antonia

 

You might consider involving your high schooler in the decision. I think 6 is a good number for hitting the mean between too much on a surface level and too little, but some of these would take a lot longer than others.

 

*This is not an absolutely objective recommendation as I proofread it for publication. Also, as a parent, you would do well to read it ahead of time as there are a few questionable areas in it.

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I have not given the other periods much thought yet, but here's my vote on Ancients and Medieval:

Ancients:

 

Iliad

Odyssey

Sophocles Antigone-Oedipus Rex- Oedipus on Colonnos

Vergil's Aeneid

Ovid Metamorphoses

 

not sure what I'd rank 6th, either Herodotus or Plutarch maybe

 

Medieval:

Beowulf

the Edda (or some version of the Nibelung saga)

Chaucer Canterbury tales

Malory Morte d'Arthur

 

Hey Regentrude, I have a question I keep meaning to ask. Why is the Aeneid so critical? I know it is part of the Western Cannon, but why? I am obviously letting my personal experience get in the way of my objectivity, but after the Iliad and The Odyssey, it doesn't seem quite up to snuff. Maybe I have bad translations. I should probably go listen to the TC lecture I have on it, but I can't quite summon up the patience, yet.

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Hey Regentrude, I have a question I keep meaning to ask. Why is the Aeneid so critical? I know it is part of the Western Cannon, but why? I am obviously letting my personal experience get in the way of my objectivity, but after the Iliad and The Odyssey, it doesn't seem quite up to snuff. Maybe I have bad translations. I should probably go listen to the TC lecture I have on it, but I can't quite summon up the patience, yet.

 

You should ask EsterMaria that question - I'm not the expert.

 

We find the poetry quite beautiful (DD says she likes the images and similes even better than Homer's). Storywise I agree, it's a lot of stealing from Homer (with twists - makes a great compare and contrast paper, LOL)

It also says a lot about the Roman identity and their patriotism (they were actually quite full of themselves, as DD put it). We find it important in our studies of Rome because it is a central piece of the Roman culture.

Lastly, as far as impact goes, the Aeneid is referenced throughout literature and Art, that to me is also a criterion for selecting original literature. (Just take Dante's Inferno: DD's eyes lit up when she realized that it is THAT same Vergil)

 

We have just started the TC lectures (we love Vandiver). Maybe you could read her outline to find out why it is so important?

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You should ask EsterMaria that question - I'm not the expert.

 

We find the poetry quite beautiful (DD says she likes the images and similes even better than Homer's). Storywise I agree, it's a lot of stealing from Homer (with twists - makes a great compare and contrast paper, LOL)

It also says a lot about the Roman identity and their patriotism (they were actually quite full of themselves, as DD put it). We find it important in our studies of Rome because it is a central piece of the Roman culture.

Lastly, as far as impact goes, the Aeneid is referenced throughout literature and Art, that to me is also a criterion for selecting original literature. (Just take Dante's Inferno: DD's eyes lit up when she realized that it is THAT same Vergil)

 

We have just started the TC lectures (we love Vandiver). Maybe you could read her outline to find out why it is so important?

 

Thank you. I have TC's History of World Literature, so it is only a 30 minute lecture. I am afraid I am rather a whimp. We loved Vandiver for the Iliad, so perhaps I will have to check out her Aeneid series. May I ask which translation you used that your daughter enjoyed so much?

 

I would have asked Ester Maria, but she hasn't been on for a month, which is unfortunate.

 

Kfamily, I apologize for the side-track.

Edited by swimmermom3
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What 6 books would you consider most essential for a high school student to have read (with some being studied) for each of these categories? ... this would be for literature... I don't mean for these 6 to include history books or biographies or even necessarily Shakespeare and poetry...

 

1. Ancients

2. Medieval

3. Modern World

4. American

 

 

This is always horrible to have to limit these lists to so very few! (So, of course, I've given you a few extra lists of 6! ;)) So, *excluding* short stories, essays, poetry, and plays (other than Shakespeare) I based my lists on the criteria of:

- most often read by other high schoolers

- most often appearing on college-bound reading lists

- most often referenced/alluded to throughout literature and in other forms of media, such as films

 

 

Ancients

1. The Illiad

2. The Odyssey

3. a selection of Greek myths

4. Oedipus the King

5. something by Plato or Aristotle

6. Epic of Gilgamesh

(and do read Till We Have Faces by Lewis -- his retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth)

 

Medieval through Enlightenment

1. at least 2 Shakespeare plays (a comedy and a tragedy)

2. Beowulf

3. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

4. a selection of 4-6 Canterbury Tales

5. Pilgrim's Progress

6. Dante's Inferno -- or -- *excerpts* from Don Quixote -- OR -- *excerpts* from Gulliver's Travels

(and some or all of The Once and Future King for your Arthurian myths)

 

British

1. Great Expectations

2. Pride and Prejudice (or other Austen work)

3. Wuthering Heights -- or -- Jane Eyre

4. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde -- or -- Picture of Dorian Gray

5. Frankenstein

6. another work by Dickens

 

American

1. To Kill a Mockingbird

2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

3. The Scarlet Letter

4. something by Hemingway

5. Farenheit 451

6. The Great Gatsby

 

Modern (20th century)

1. Lord of the Rings (trilogy)

2. Animal Farm

3. Lord of the Flies

4. Cry The Beloved Country -- or -- Things Fall Apart

5. Brave New World -- or -- 1984

6. All Quiet on the Western Front -- or -- The Metamorphosis

 

Sci-Fi/Fantasy (other than works already listed above)

1. The Time Machine -- or -- War of the Worlds

2. at least the first 2 of the 3 books of Lewis' space trilogy

3. A Canticle for Leibowitz -- or --The Left Hand of Darkness

4. Earthsea trilogy -- or -- Watership Down

5. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- or -- Peter Pan

Edited by Lori D.
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Ahh, thank you Lori D. This is great!!

 

And yes, I do know that I will need to add short stories, essays, poetry and Shakespeare which is why I limited it to 6. I also want to allow dd to add one or two each year that lets her follow her own interests more. If we add 6 chosen books + essays or short stories, + poetry + one or two Shakespeare plays+ one or two of her own choosing, then this quickly adds up to 10+. This is the problem I kept having. I'm hopeful that over the course of the next 4 years that she will choose to read some things on her own. She fell in love with Tolkien and read not only the Hobbit (which I could never get her to read and finally put it on her required list this year) but also read The Fellowship of the Ring and is half-way through Two Towers right now. Even more exciting, she read that Tolkien's favorite was Beowulf and guess what she's reading now...yes, Beowulf on her own. Whew! (But of course, I'll have to wait and see if she actually finishes it...)

 

Thank You!

Edited by Kfamily
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Oh Lori, you have just done my heart good. By your list, we are dead on for this year. And what? No Aeneid? This is terrible, but I was thinking of having dd read Lively's children's version of The Aeneid even though I didn't like it, just so she would have the basic story. She did read Till We Have Faces and absolutely loved it.

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Oh Lori, you have just done my heart good. By your list, we are dead on for this year. And what? No Aeneid? This is terrible, but I was thinking of having dd read Lively's children's version of The Aeneid even though I didn't like it, just so she would have the basic story. She did read Till We Have Faces and absolutely loved it.

 

 

Hey there SM3! :)

 

Well, I felt *obligated* to include one of the philosophers for some variety in the ancients rather than all epics. The year we did ancients we did the Aeneid -- though after the full translations of Iliad and Odyssey, we were awfully tired of those ancients, and so opted for Alfred Church's "The Aeneid for Boys and Girls" -- an abridged prose rendition of those pesky, burned-out-of-house-and-home-Greeks-looking-for-a-new-homeland-in-order-to-found-Rome... ;) If you can get past gagging on the old-fashioned, patronizing title, it wasn't too bad of a version...

 

 

Till We Have Faces was a great hit here, too. A few months later, older DS picked it up and read it on his own again! So glad it went over well in your family, too. :cheers2: and warmest regards, Lori D.

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I spend the entire summer compiling a giant list, and then agonizing over what to cut. Ug.

 

Two summers ago I was trying to figure out our American Lit. for the following year, and *finally* wrestled it down to what I considered "bare bones", and then told my husband, "Well, that's it; we just have to get through 30 works next year." (LOL!!!) Needless to say that did NOT happen. I finally opted to go with 4 novels, 4 novellas, and a LOT of short stories in order to cover more ground. It turned out pretty well, too, as it also gave us the opportunity to discuss the format of the short story in more depth.

 

BEST of luck as you machete away! :tongue_smilie: Warmest regards, Lori D.

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I spend the entire summer compiling a giant list, and then agonizing over what to cut. Ug.

 

Two summers ago I was trying to figure out our American Lit. for the following year, and *finally* wrestled it down to what I considered "bare bones", and then told my husband, "Well, that's it; we just have to get through 30 works next year." (LOL!!!) Needless to say that did NOT happen. I finally opted to go with 4 novels, 4 novellas, and a LOT of short stories in order to cover more ground. It turned out pretty well, too, as it also gave us the opportunity to discuss the format of the short story in more depth.

 

BEST of luck as you machete away! :tongue_smilie: Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

That reminds me of planning our first family trip to Washington, DC. When the 'must-sees' were too many, we starting hacking away at the itinerary.

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Thank you. I have TC's History of World Literature, so it is only a 30 minute lecture. I am afraid I am rather a whimp. We loved Vandiver for the Iliad, so perhaps I will have to check out her Aeneid series. May I ask which translation you used that your daughter enjoyed so much?

 

I would have asked Ester Maria, but she hasn't been on for a month, which is unfortunate.

 

Kfamily, I apologize for the side-track.

 

I believe she had a baby.

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