A Few Great Books:

Life is not equated with books; books help to make life better and the best (great) ones put life on the upper Richter scale.

• Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice; Austen's great novel about pride, and, well, prejudice! Fine reading and character study.
• Bloom, Allan, The Closing of the American Mind; Bloom's much criticized book. Hate or love, it's a fine study of modern American academics.
• Donne, John, Collected Poems; If you can find the Oxford edition, ed. Grierson, you can get at the sum of it all, especially Donne's "Holy Sonnets." My favorite is "Death be not Proud." Also check out the poem on Good Friday. One interested in Donne's other writings can find value in his funeral sermons as well as Discourses upon Emergent Occasions.
• Dostoevsky, Fydor, Crime and Punishment. There are many theological angles and existentialist theories to cook up with this book, but it is also simply a fine crime novel. Read it as if it was pulp and you'll be surprised just the same. Not to understimate its value for a Christian, but it is important to realize that this novel is for criminals, just the same.
• Douglass, Frederick, "My Duty as an Anti-Slave Voter." This essay helped make sense out of being an avid reader of the Federalist Papers. I think all reform-minded progressives out to read this essay; it balances one's fervor and brings it more into order with reason and what Jack Schwandt calls "responsible partisenship."
• Ellison, Ralph, The Invisible Man. A book which is written off of many sources but whose center I prefer to find in the nameless narrator's opening statement: "I would prefer to have five record players ... so that I could play Louis Armstrong five times at once ... and hear it again and again: 'What did I do to be so black and blue?'" Indeed, there is much to gain from this enourmous novel, but the most perhaps is the simpliest question that Satchmo raises in the song: "What did I do to be so black and blue?"
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel, "Feathertop" and "Rapuccini's Daughter" in The Portable Hawthorne; two great essays by one of our American treasures. Both these are imaginative pieces. To develop one's love of New England fantasy, one might read "Young Goodman Brown" and then take a drastic leap to H. P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu, a tremendously dreamy set of literature combining the macabre and scientific interest.
• Publius (Jay, Hamilton, and Madison), The Federalist Papers; required reading for citizens of our "large commercial republic." This set of papers sets forth the greatest experiment, whose stakes are often lost, it seems to me: "whether a society of men can determine or not the course of their government or forever rely upon force and chance for the determination of their fate." (Federalist No. 1).
• Johnson, Samuel, Rasselas; Johnson wrote the Adventurer, the Idler, and the Rambler, but I think Rasselas fits the bill for a good introduction. It is good for those who "wish to determine their course in life."
• Lewis, C. S., Experiment in Criticism; Lewis was first and foremost a literay scholar. One should not dispose of a few of these books which try to make sense out of the task of reading and writing about reading. This together with The Personal Heresy where Lewis and E.M.W. Tillyard argue about the role of an author's personality in poetry provoke much thought and reflection of a line which the deconstructionists have missed.
• Lincoln, Abraham, "Lyceum Address" in The Portable Lincoln; This argument by the first Republican shows without a doubt his insight into things American. I wish many Lyceums could be spent on this topic of Lincoln's.
• Luther, Martin, The Freedom of a Christian; I needn't say much of this book. It is along with Paul's Letter to the Galatians one of the "Magna Charta" of Christian liberty, a freedom from priggish legalism and holier-than-thou for a freedom in the world to get on with the business of serving our neighbors in our daily vocation. My passion for Luther takes me way beyond this piece, but everytime I read it, something new pops up.
• Machiavelli, The Prince; In his Discourses on Livy Machiavelli claims to sail in lands not yet seen. Ill Principe starts that voyage. Devilishly clever and an epoch-setting book.
• Mann, Thomas, Doctor Faustus; Mann combines the Faust-legend of Goethe with questions of 19th century liberal theology and the destruction of Europe together with modern music. A grand scope of a novel.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil; This book sets up a mature statement of Nietzsche's heretofore criticism of metaphysics and values. He does us all a service by pointing out the selfish moves of most philosophers as well as doing his best to speak for the world by mocking love and mercy.
• Oberman, Heiko, Luther: Man between God and Devil; read this and James Kittleson's Luther the Reformer and you're set. Set for what, I don't know.
• O'Conner, Flannery, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in Collected Works; A dastardly tale which sets the stakes and sets them high. Human life doesn't get much more sharp.
• Percy, Walker, The Moviegoer; Percy often denied connections between himself and Kierkegaard, but this puts despair in American flesh. Read this in the deep of a Minnesota winter and enjoy life down at the other end of the Mighty Miss.
• Plato, Republic; I once was a mathematician with eclectic interests. After this book I became a human being with eclectic interests, and a math major. I also learned to distinguish between Plato and platonism.
• Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality; problematic but important essay to understand property and inequality in modern life.
• Schneider and Gullans, ed., Last Letters From Stalingrad; this is a haunting book which collects letters from Nazi infantryman (one of which was my grandfather). The various letters break your heart once you see it all within the bleak white of the Russian winter. Sad.
• Shamolov, Vladimir, Kolyma TalesInto Russia once more, Shamolov has a myriad of pointed short stories about the life of the jailed. Read only in the summer and fall, never in the winter. Like Crime and Punishment, this book is only for prisoners.
• Strauss, Leo, "What Is Liberal Education" in Liberalism, Ancient and Modern; sets one straight about the goal of a liberal education, perhaps altered in the context of a "College of the Church."
• Swift, Jonathan, The Battle of Ancient and Modern Books; The bookplate for this hangs on my wall. This satire points to the great battle, which the moderns have declared long since over. Say it ain't so!
• Thurber, James, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"; for sheer halairity and insight, this short piece is fabulous anthropology on par with Kierkegaard. Thurber's a genius.
• Valgardson, W. D., God is Not a Fish Inspector Thought that O'Conner was harsh? When there's an accident, when there's blood on the road, Valgardson looks right at the blood and puts it into print. Very fine.
• Weil, Simone, Gravity and Grace; the French mystic and philosopher enthrones suffering in this strange book. In it she echoes the oldest Christian truth: "we who once be a tree overcome by one man's tree are overcome."