Some people have strong feelings about reading lists. You wouldn’t think it, but they are quite polarizing. The critics say that reading should be done out of passion, and you should leave yourself unconstrained, allowing yourself to read any book at any time. Others follow a strict code, only reading what they have prescribed to themselves.
I do a bit of both. I keep a list of books I want to work through, but I don’t work through them in any order or under any defined period of time. With my laid back form, it can sometimes take longer than I like to finish some books. I also have a terrible tendency to add more books in just so that I can read them before others and to reread other books multiple times before beginning a new one. Whenever I am giving my self over to those slights, I am reminded by a quote from Mortimer J. Adler. He says, “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.”
Though I am quite lax when it comes to reading lists, I nevertheless think they are a beneficial tool for anyone who wants to start reading more books. Reading is magical, a path to other worlds, and anything that helps you tap into that magic is a practice worth trying.
Why Read In The First Place?
Reading is among the most important skills anyone can learn. It is the one thing that you learn in primary school that follows you for the rest of your life. The teachers have always had to make a case for algebra and biology but not for reading. Most of the vital information we take in throughout our day is still in text form. Even our favorite modes of communication are always in text format, requiring you to read.
We read all day long, and it is unavoidable. So, even if you don’t like to read, the way our society is is configured requires it of you. Your choice is not between reading and not reading; it is between skilled reading and unskilled reading. So if you are required to choose between the two, I would vouch for the former as it is not only more fulfilling, but it is also more beneficial for any individual in the long run.
Some Objections
We all have reasons why we can’t do various activities. Especially if that thing is as dull as reading a book.
I don’t have time to read!
Lucky for you I have written an entire post on how to read more books in less time. We live during the busiest time in history, but we also live in a time where information and books, in particular, have never been so cheap. It would be a shame if you couldn’t capitalize on that. So if time is your fear, go no further and check out my post on how to read more books in less time!
I don't know how to read, and I don't know where to start
Nowadays this is less of a problem than you might think. It seems that to read, you have to be able to read. It makes sense. However, now there are alternatives to reading text, namely in the form of audiobooks. You may think that listening to a book is not the same as physically reading the text on a page. You would be wrong. For the individual not trained in speed reading or any other tactic, reading is the same thing as listening. An untrained reader subvocalizes, which means they read aloud in their head, and they primarily listen to this internal voice. This process triggers the same areas of the brain that are associated with hearing. Now, it is true that you can train yourself to read exclusively with your eyes, and this is by far the fastest way to read. However, you must start somewhere, and the easiest, lowest pressure way to begin consuming books is via audio through programs like Audible.
If you’d like to learn about how to become a better reader with the ability to read words in any format, whether that be a textbook, blog post, or novel, I highly recommend Mortimer J. Adler’s book, How to Read a Book.
Click Here to Start Reading or Listening to How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler!
Why Use A Reading List?
We often say things such as, I want to read more books, I have meant to read that book, or I could never read that many books. I know I am guilty of those utterances. They are all valid statements. Reading is not only one of the most rewarding activities. It is also one of the most demanding ones. When we sit down to read a book, it could be up to a 1000-page commitment. If you read at the average speed, you will be with that book for 40 hours if you plan on reading it cover to cover. It might even take you longer, depending on the type of book it is. If you’re reading an old book or a complicated book, then you might even dread reading the text from the moment you’ve picked it up.
Since books can take long spans of time to complete, it helps to work on them as if they were a project that you had assigned to you. Of course, you can read out of passion and desire, such reading will not require much structure at all, and I encourage reading of that nature. However, If you are studying or merely trying to become more well-read, then it would benefit you to keep a reading list.
Reading lists help you keep track of where you’ve been and where you’re going. They can be quite encouraging since they reflect all the books you have read. Of course, if you haven’t read many books, they can also be daunting. However, since you’re likely doing this reading thing on your own, no one needs to know how extensive, complete, or learned your list is, which is another benefit of keeping a list. You can fill it out with books you enjoy and use it to help you find other books that you may want to read.
Reason One: Taste and Specificity
For example, you may know that you like fantasy books, but that may not help you when you’re looking for a new book because all fantasy books are quite different. However, if you have a reading list, you can look back over the particular types of fantasy books you have enjoyed. With a brief scan, you would be able to know that you like fantasy books with knights, magic, and dragons, written in an extensive world-building format, with more than three completed books in the series. This specificity can be achieved without a reading list, but it is more effective and easier to reproduce with a list.
Reason Two: Achievement and Reward
Once you’re out of school, If you are not a reader by nature, you lose the sense of necessity and reward behind reading. A reading list can help you develop an immediate feeling of achievement. If you create a list of 10 books that you’d like to read by the end of 2020, and then you start to check some of those books off the list, you will be spurred on to check more and more of them off. Provided you are an achievement-driven person. The list provides you with a way of immediately recognizing your progress. For others that require reward in a different fashion, you can develop your list around the topics that you want to learn or base the list off of someone who you look up to. You would be surprised at the number of esteemed people who used reading lists that you can find readily available online.
The HuffPost collected a few titles adored by famous individuals: Click Here To Read!
If you model your list off of another individual and you begin to read those books, checking them off the list, you will start to feel yourself walking in the steps of those who you aspire to emulate. This can be a powerful motivator for those who have a passion for learning and the accumulation of knowledge for a purpose.
A Reading List For Everyone
In the 1970’s philosopher, Mortimer Jerome Adler compiled a list that anyone could benefit from reading through. His list includes all of the most excellent books in the western canon. His list is comprehensive and daunting, each text being dense and containing first-hand wisdom. I recommend this list, not as something to read through in a year but rather something that you work through over a lifetime.
Who Is Mortimer J. Adler?
As a philosopher in the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions, Mortimer Jerome Adler worked to make philosophy accessible to all people. He was interested in the everyday man. Adler said that he had no interest in the academic audience, and his famous works show this intent. Mortimer J. Adler produced many works, but among his most famous books is Aristotle for Everybody, How to Read a Book, and How to Speak / How to Listen. Though his notable works are few, in his lifetime, he produced more than 20 books.
Mortimer J. Adler is considered to be a staple in the 20th-century study of Westen Philosophy, primarily in the areas of Philosophical theology, metaphysics, and ethics. During his career, he worked for Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica, and at his own Institute for Philosophical Research.
Mortimer J. Adler's Reading List
Mortimer J. Adler compiled a comprehensive reading list in 1972, and since it is mostly made up of books that are hundreds of years old, it has maintained its relevancy. With that being said, there are drawbacks to using a list made up of books that are hundreds of years old. Though the translations are good, they still may be hard for some to read, but not impossible. If you do not like old books, I will encourage you to pick one of these great books at least once a year to try and wrestle with. Scroll through the list and find either a title or author who jumps out at you. There will be many books that you will recognize but maybe have never read. That would be an excellent place to start.
If you want to get more out of the books on this list or any other book, you may read in the future. I strongly recommend Mortimer J. Adler’s book How to Read a Book. It contains a comprehensive guide to reading text in any format, from magazine articles too heavy reference books. The book is even ironically in audio format on Audible.
Click Here to purchase a copy of How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler.
The Reading List by Mortimer J. Adler
Below you will find an extensive list of all the world’s most significant literature compiled by Mortimer J. Adler. You can click on any of the books to purchase it.
Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War
Epicurus: Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus
Apollonius of Perga: Conic Sections
Lucretius: On the Nature of Things
Plutarch: Parallel Lives; Moralia
Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic
Galen: On the Natural Faculties
St. Augustine: On Christian Doctrine
St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica
Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy
Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli: Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
Desiderius Erasmus: The Praise of Folly
Nicolaus Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Martin Luther: Three Treatises
Francois Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel
John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion
William Gilbert: On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote
Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queene
Francis Bacon: Advancement of Learning
William Shakespeare: Poetry and Plays
Galileo Galilei: Starry Messenger
Galileo Galilei: Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
Johannes Kepler: Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
Johannes Kepler: Concerning the Harmonies of the World
William Harvey: On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
William Harvey: On the Circulation of the Blood
William Harvey: On the Generation of Animals
René Descartes: Rules for the Direction of the Mind
René Descartes: Discourse on the Method
René Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy
Blaise Pascal: The Provincial Letters
Christiaan Huygens: Treatise on Light
John Locke: Letter Concerning Toleration
John Locke: Of Civil Government
John Locke: Essay Concerning Human Understanding
John Locke: Thoughts Concerning Education
Jean Baptiste Racine: Tragedies
Isaac Newton: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz: Discourse on Metaphysics
Max Planck: Where Is Science Going?
Max Planck: Scientific Autobiography
Henri Bergson: Time and Free Will
Henri Bergson: Matter and Memory
Henri Bergson: Creative Evolution
Henri Bergson: The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
John Dewey: Democracy and Education
John Dewey: Experience and Nature
John Dewey: The Theory of Inquiry
Alfred North Whitehead: An Introduction to Mathematics
Alfred North Whitehead: Science and the Modern World
Alfred North Whitehead: The Aims of Education and Other Essays
Alfred North Whitehead: Adventures of Ideas
George Santayana: The Life of Reason
George Santayana: Skepticism and Animal Faith
George Santayana: Persons and Places
Lenin: The State and Revolution
Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Things Past
Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy
Bertrand Russell: The Analysis of Mind
Bertrand Russell: Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits
Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain
Thomas Mann: Joseph and His Brothers
Albert Einstein: The Meaning of Relativity
Albert Einstein: On the Method of Theoretical Physics
Albert Einstein: The Evolution of Physics
James Joyce: ‘The Dead’ in Dubliners
James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Jacques Maritain: Art and Scholasticism
Jacques Maritain: The Degrees of Knowledge
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz: New Essays Concerning Human Understanding
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz: Monadology
Jonathan Swift: A Tale of a Tub
Jonathan Swift: Journal to Stella
Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift: A Modest Proposal
William Congreve: The Way of the World
George Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge
Alexander Pope: Essay on Criticism
Alexander Pope: Rape of the Lock
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu: Persian Letters
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu: Spirit of Laws
Voltaire: Letters on the English
Voltaire: Philosophical Dictionary
Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews
Samuel Johnson: The Vanity of Human Wishes
Samuel Johnson: The Lives of the Poets
David Hume: Treatise on Human Nature
David Hume: Essays Moral and Political
David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On the Origin of Inequality
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On the Political Economy
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Emile, The Social Contract
Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy
Laurence Sterne: A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
Adam Smith: The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Practical Reason
Immanuel Kant: The Science of Right
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Judgment
Immanuel Kant: Perpetual Peace
Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
James Boswell: Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D.
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison: Federalist Papers
Jeremy Bentham: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust; Poetry and Truth
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Philosophy of Right
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Biographia Literaria
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Stendhal: The Red and the Black
Stendhal: The Charterhouse of Parma
Arthur Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism
Michael Faraday: Chemical History of a Candle
Michael Faraday: Experimental Researches in Electricity
Charles Lyell: Principles of Geology
Auguste Comte: The Positive Philosophy
Honore de Balzac: Eugenie Grandet
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative Men
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America
John Stuart Mill: Representative Government
John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill: The Subjection of Women
John Stuart Mill: Autobiography
Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin: The Descent of Man
Charles Dickens: Pickwick Papers
Charles Dickens: David Copperfield
Claude Bernard: Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
Henry David Thoreau: Civil Disobedience
Karl Marx: Communist Manifesto
Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert: Three Stories
Leo Tolstoy: Twenty-Three Tales
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain: The Mysterious Stranger
William James: The Principles of Psychology
William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
William James: Essays in Radical Empiricism
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: The Genealogy of Morals
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: The Will to Power
Jules Henri Poincare: Science and Hypothesis
Jules Henri Poincare: Science and Method
Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams
Sigmund Freud: Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud: Civilization and Its Discontents
Sigmund Freud: New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
George Bernard Shaw: Plays and Prefaces
Max Planck: Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory
Jean Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The First Circle
It’s wonderful to meet another avid Book Booster!
Hello! I found your site through a like on one of mine and I love it! I could not agree more about the reading list thing and I think it is crucial as an “adult” that even after school we continue to read. I face kind of a dilemma in that regard – we had to read such HIGH-LEVEL literature at such a young age (we had read all of Shakespeare by 6th grade) that I do not remember a lot of it (I even played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I STILL do not remember the play!). We just had to read a lot – so there is a lot of literature that people are amazed I have read and then there are some very obvious gaps (we never read The Iliad and The Odyssey, for example).
At any rate, as a former (/ hoping to finish my “English Literature” degree soon … I had to stop school not even a year shy of graduating due to severe health problems) English lit major (and Philosophy major), I can say that some of those books are really … “high-level” for a lot of people. I would suggest, just personally, that people read around and find what kind of “genre” or time period / country they like to read (from) and start there. For me, for example, there are some “classic classics” I love but I’m a diehard turn of the 19th-20th century American literature (esp. just pre-Great War and leading up to WWII). I also love French theory (that spans a LOT of time and “movements”). But just get a feel for what you like – if it’s something you’re reading and you don’t like it, just finish it so it’s done; if it’s like War and Peace-length, I would suggest just dropping it and going for something more your style and pace. Like … Kant is not easy. And I have realized that you sort of have to read Kant and then read everything that came as a result of Kant … and then GO BACK to Kant to really understand it all. But that’s just my opinion! My apologies for the long comment but this is a subject about which I am passionate! Thanks for the great post and I am going to use the above list to put some “form” to my “to-read” list! Thanks much!