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The Great Books
Remember those 71 volumes of the Harvard Classics that you felt bound to read but after many minor starts, you set aside a volume and got lost in that detective series? So many books; so little time.
Well, the dreaded Amazon has published on Kindle all 71 volumes in one mostly well-linked file for a mere $1.99. Worth the price. Only 37,451 pages. I always have five or six books I’m reading, switching from one to the other, depending on my mood.
Currently, I’m reading Harry Jaffa’s “Storm Over the Constitution,” Andrew Roberts’ 1000+ bio of Churchill, “Walking with Destiny,” JK Rowling’s 4th Cormoran Strike P.I. novel, “Lethal White,” (writing as Robert Galbraith, she’s very good), Bernard Cornwell’s “Vagabond,” Michael Walsh’s “Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost,” and now Volume 3 of The Harvard Classics, starting with Francis Bacon.
I also have book 3 of the Malazan epic fantasy series on deck, but that series always requires such constant and sustained attention that I have to be prepared for my other books to be set aside.
Ah well. It’s good to live a life where your personal library is not even half-read.
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The Harvard Classics:
V. 1: Franklin, Woolman & Penn
V. 2: Plato, Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius
V. 3: Bacon, Milton, Browne
V. 4: John Milton
V. 5: R. W. Emerson
V. 6: Robert Burns
V. 7: St Augustine & Thomas á Kempis
V. 8: Nine Greek Dramas
V. 9: Cicero and Pliny
V. 10: The Wealth of Nations
V. 11: The Origin of Species
V. 12: Plutarchs
V. 13: Æneid
V. 14: Don Quixote
V. 15: Bunyan & Walton
V. 16: 1001 Nights
V. 17: Folklore & Fable
V. 18: Modern English Drama
V. 19: Goethe & Marlowe
V. 20: The Divine Comedy
V. 21: I Promessi Sposi
V. 22: The Odyssey
V. 23: Two Years Before the Mast
V. 24: Edmund Burke
V. 25: J. S. Mill & T. Carlyle
V. 26: Continental Drama
V. 27 & 28: English & American Essays
V. 29: The Voyage of the Beagle
V. 30: Scientific Papers
V. 31: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
V. 32: Literary and Philosophical Essays
V. 33: Voyages & Travels
V. 34: French & English Philosophers
V. 35: Chronicle and Romance
V. 36: Machiavelli, Roper, More, Luther
V. 37: Locke, Berkeley, Hume
V. 38: Harvey, Jenner, Lister, Pasteur
V. 39: Prologues
V. 40–42: English Poetry
V. 43: American Historical Documents
V. 44 & 45: Sacred Writings
V. 46 & 47: Elizabethan Drama
V. 48: Blaise Pascal
V. 49: Saga
V. 50: Reader’s Guide
V. 51: Lectures
The Shelf of Fiction:
V. 1 & 2: The History of Tom Jones
V. 3: A Sentimental Journey & Pride and Prejudice
V. 4: Guy Mannering
V. 5 & 6: Vanity Fair
V. 7 & 8: David Copperfield
V. 9: The Mill on the Floss
V. 10: Irving, Poe, Harte, Twain, Hale
V.11: The Portrait of a Lady
V. 12: Notre Dame de Paris
V. 13: Balzac, Sand, de Musset, Daudet, de Maupassant
V. 14 & 15: Goethe, Keller, Storm, Fontane
V. 16–19: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev
V. 20: Valera, Bjørnson, Kielland
that’s a strong statement… a statement I disagree with vehemently
That’s what opinions are for.
Everyone is fighting over Victor Davis Hanson. As the replies increase the chances that this mirrors some lead up to a historical conflict increases. He’s going to end up getting a Hoover post or a podcast out of this, isn’t he?
The idea that anyone can get upset over an opinion is ludicrous.
I’m not upset… I’m surprised that someone can be so wrong about a prolific scholar
It is Bush Republicanism to remain silent about a false accusation, thereby tacitly assenting to it.
P.S.: End up? “Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history.”
And he has a Ricochet podcast, The Classicist, one of my top 5.,
Also the Victor Davis Hanson podcast, produced by National Review, host Jack Fowler
And so a difference in opinion results in insults? Bush Republican? Take it back. Them’s fighting words. I thought Hanson was over rated long before Bush was president.
I thought he was overrated when Bush was warmongering. I couldn’t see what he had to offer to the discussion of going to war in Iraq just because he had written about the Greek way of war.
However, my opinion of him has gone up since then, on account of his supporting Trump and I suppose on account of not ever getting around to reading more of his stuff, so I figure I should give him the benefit of the doubt. As a military advisor, I’m probably not in favor, but from listening to others talk about him it would seem there is more to him than that.
I find VDH invaluable in illuminating the Ancient Greeks.
I think Donald Kagan is much more important, and there are innumerable others who are much more thorough. My catalog says that I have 59 books on the Ancient Greeks, but probably I have more because I also seem to have a category labeled “Ancient Greeks/Romans.” I have four that I own by Hanson. Except for the quite original ideas in “The Other Greeks,” I have found him to be particularly unenlightening. I have found the same on his modern commentary, especially regarding the military which I have found to be trite veneers of understanding (i.e., “The Soul of Battle” includes three “great” commanders who altered human history; Epaminondas, Sherman, and Patton. That’s like saying the three greatest composers in world history were J.S. Bach, Jerry Reed, and Chuck Berry. Sure, Reed and Berry are good, but not at the level of greatest in all history.)
You can even listen to interviews (I think with Tony Robinson) with both VDH and Thomas Sowell, and he just doesn’t even come close to the intellectual strength and stature. Sure, Jerry Reed makes great music, lots of fun. But he’s not Bach. Nor is Hanson.
If the bush fits, wear it!
Bush Republicanism is a state of mind, not a particular term in office.
So any opinion that doesn’t fit yours makes someone an “other.” Great. That’s one of the symptoms of our degenerating society. You know nothing, understand less.
Cathy Newman, is that you?
That doesn’t even make sense. Why people want to attack in silly ways makes no sense.
Sadly this thread has degenerated-can we at least get back to great books-not attempts at great insults-or if recounting insults at least quote the greats like Churchill or Disraeli/Wilkes?
ex-“Sir u will either die on the gallows or of an unspeakable disease”
Disraeli-“Sir that depends on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress”
“That trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?” —Shakespeare, Henry IV, Pt 1
You can rarely go wrong quoting the Bard-or Churchill, the Bible etc-I’d include some others- Augustine, Lincoln etc. I always love the great (perhaps apocryphal & stolen from King George) Lincoln quote:
When some one charged Gen. Grant, in the President’s hearing, with drinking too much liquor, Mr. Lincoln, recalling Gen. Grant’s successes, said that if he could find out what brand of whisky Grant drank, he would send a barrel of it to all the other commanders
with King Geo- someone said Gen Wolfe was mad- the King replied he wished Wolfe would bite some of his other generals.
Attack?
This was all tongue in cheek, I thought: “Bush Republicans” would be VDH fans who don’t defend him.
I have often been told I lack the humor gene. My apologies.
Lacking the humor gene also makes one prone to demand others wear masks and hide at home.
You can tell people your humor is so dry as to be positively Saharan!
Just found and bought these on Kindle. Thanks for the tip! In physical books I’m currently reading East of Eden (first time; any insights appreciated. I’m about 25% of the way in;) just started Jordan’s new book, Beyond Order; and filling small gaps of time with Hemingway’s short stories. I would love to have the actual five feet of books, but I’m already overrun with books in my studio apartment as it is.
I think his comments was facetious . . .