I do not claim expertise or knowledge of all of these, but two sentimental favorites are The Histories by Herodotus and Solzhenitsyn's Day in the Life. Interesting to see Francis Bacon represented, since I generally think of him as being totally under-rated and not given his full due as (arguably) the godfather of the Enlightenment.
36 Books That Changed the World
- Thread starter Cypress
- Start date
I salute you!
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
I have read from about a dozen of them but only a few from cover to cover. Several I tried to read but could not because I found them archaic, extremely boring and of little relevance in the modern world and very over rated. Those being the King James Bible. The Koran and most over rated of all anything by Shakespeare.
I’ve heard his plays called universal themes. I call them boring formulaic, soap operas with common and unimaginative themes. Shakespeares greatest accomplishment in history is turning off millions of school children from reading.
Truth is quite a few of these books suck but are on the list not because they are great reads but because some authority says they are.
I’ve heard his plays called universal themes. I call them boring formulaic, soap operas with common and unimaginative themes. Shakespeares greatest accomplishment in history is turning off millions of school children from reading.
Truth is quite a few of these books suck but are on the list not because they are great reads but because some authority says they are.
I can only score 23 - and some for those only dipped into! I think there ought to be a lot more novels, and I must admit I think my own feelings are much more affected by poems! Educated people, I'm afraid, are at one in not giving a twopenny about what half-educated children think of ill-taught Shakespeare! 'The Merchant of Venice', though, is drear!
Last edited:
I mostly agree.
That is why the premise of the thread is 36 books "that changed the world", not 36 books that made for "entertaining reading".
I would rather read anything by Michael Crichton than read Canterbury Tales - there is no bloody way I am ever going to comprehend the Anglo Saxon-esque Middle English of Chaucer. I would not even attempt Beowulf, apparently written in inscrutable Old English. But, recognizing their historical significance, I would totally listen to a lecture from a professor of literature on Canterbury Tales or Beowulf.
It was torture to try to read Shakespeare in high school. And even though I still would never attempt to read his plays, I have learned to really appreciate Shakespearean performances. Not on par with the violence and gore of Walking Dead, but still a nice change from the mayhem of the zombie apocalypse!
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Personally I would replace Shakespeare with Dickens. Dickens novels did change the world. Prior to Dickens novels were just a fancy for the wealthy. Dickens popularized the form of literature all around the world to being one of the most, in not the most, popular form of literature today.
Shakespeare more properly belongs to the theater. He wrote soap operas to sell laundry detergent to housewives.
Yeah to some of what you said here, Mott, but NO to the comments on Shakespeare.
The "common and unimaginative themes" you speak of...were not common and unimaginative back when he wrote them. You see them that way because the general themes he helped to invent (with Marlowe) have been copied to death by later authors.
Most of today's soap operas and most of what comes out of Hollywood...derives from themes those two originated or expanded.
I was lucky enough to be stationed in England for two years while in the USAF and saw many of the plays performed by stellar companies. Ya actually get to the point where you understand what is being said...and it makes sense.
His quotes in Bartlett's cover 65 pages.
But...to each his/her own.
I really enjoy good performances of Shakespeare. Reading the plays in high school was torture.
I also think there is a major difference between seeing the Middle English of the 16 century written on paper, and hearing it orally articulated by a talented Shakesperean actor.
To me, something about hearing the spoken word - in the way it was intended, with the correct pacing, tone, and inflection - makes it a lot easier to comprehend that seeing a bunch of archaic Anglo Saxon words written on paper.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
I appreciate your point of view but I'm just saying that the themes that Shakespeare wrote about were common themes that have been around humanity forever long before Shakespeare. You'll find many of the great Latin and Greek playwrights of antiquety who wrote pretty much the same schlock. The main difference was Shakespeare wrote them in English.
Dickens seems like an eminently plausible choice to be on a list of the worlds most important books.
You know what else I realized? Missing from this list is Newton's Principia Mathematica. That is an egregious oversight, since it was a watershed moment in western history, almost unprecedented in its influence on modern intellectual thought - and the very foundation of the Enlightenment.
Funny you say that, had the same experience, even in college. My wife recently wanted to read Shakespeare but knew she wouldn't finish, so she found the clip notes in an old book store that we all used years ago and not only enjoyed them but now runs the category on Jeopardy
A great insight.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Indeed it is....surprised I missed.
You've got me smoked.
I can count on one hand the number of works on that list that I actually have personal experience with.
Most of the rest of them I am familiar with only through lectures and seminars by professors of literature and historical scholars.
I thought it was a little odd that some seminal works of the western literary tradition were absent from that list. Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid, Edward Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I mean, these are major works that are widely acknowleged as masterpieces - indeed, touchstones - of the western canon.
Well, you gotta draw the line somewhere, but I was surprised that the Odyssey beat out Iliad. I got the impression from noted professors of literature and history that Odyssey was sort of a red headed step child to Iliad.
Final observation: The holy trinity of Newton, Darwin, and Einstein seem to have a stranglehold as the reigning tsars of the western empirical tradition. But this list reminds me that it was really Francis Bacon who, first and foremost, successfully initiated the assault on late Medieval scholastic intellectual tradition -- and almost single handidly laid the groundwork for divorcing natural philosophy (aka, science) from theology, and moving the west away from stale deductive reason based on the presumption of authority, towards inductive reasoning and dynamic collaborative science based on testing and validation.
I suppose I tend to prefer the Odyssey because the relentless killing puts me off the Iliad, but, yes, it ought to be there. So should the Mabinogion, most of Tolstoy's work, the Greek tragedies and a lot more. I know almost nothing of Chinese literature, little of Arabic, and any list that leaves out whole cultures is bound to be limited. We're only human, and therefore a wash-out at lists!
English translations of related Indo-European language literature is challenging at best to capture the beauty, pacing, and meaning found in the native tongue. English translations of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, or Goethe probably often do not do the original works full justice.
I can't even imagine how much a translation of a work from a non-Indo European language like Arabic, Chinese, or Japanese would pale in comparison to the original.
It is possible that is why the West is so weak and unfamiliar with world literature outside the Indo-European language literary tradition.