Authors or titles with links have posts of their own:
1. Those that I have actually read:
- Mortimer Adler & Charles Van Doren: How to Read a Book (1972) – I wish I had read this before I went to university.
- Aristotle: Complete Works (-322) – taught me how to think and how to read long books, like:
- The Bible (367) – I had read bits and pieces, but the Bible made more sense once I read it all the way through. The West made more sense too.
- George Orwell: 1984 (1949) – For years I did not read this because it was such a downer. The older I get, the more right Orwell seems.
- Beverly Tatum: Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (2003) – made sense of so much of what I have gone through.
- Tolkien: The Hobbit (1937), Lord of the Rings (1955) – when I was 12 this girl in art class told me I should read “The Hobbit”. I still remember the green and blue cover of her book (pictured above). She went on and on about it. She was right. But only years later did I find that out. A lesson learned late: when someone whose judgement I trust recommends a book, I should at least give it a try. So:
2. Recommended:
- Livy: Ab Urbe Condita (-9) – recommended by Machiavelli.
- Boethius: Consolation of the Philosophy (523) – recommended by C.S. Lewis.
- Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813) – recommended by my sister and Winston Churchill.
- Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth (1961) – recommended by a friend at university.
- The books of 2013 that I have not read yet.
- Chancellor Williams: The Destruction of Black Civilization (1974) – recommended by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I only know African history in bits and pieces, so this book also belongs on the next list:
3. A hole in my education:
- William H. McNeill: Rise of the West (1991) – I have read half of this. It is the closest thing I know to a demographically balanced world history, even though it is plainly Eurocentric (but at least it knows it).
- Iris Chang: The Chinese in America (2003) – I have read parts of this.
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014) – I have read parts of this.
- A history of India
- A history of Egypt – from prehistory to present. I only know bits and pieces.
4. What I have read of it seems good:
- Eduardo Galeano: Open Veins of Latin America (1973) – Latin American colonialism.
- Isaac Asimov: Asimov’s New Guide to Science (1985) – now 30 years out of date, but holds up better than you would think.
- Nell Irvin Painter: Creating Black Americans (2006) – a good overview of US Black history from 1619 to 2006.
5. I cannot believe I have not read these yet:
- Shakespeare: Complete Plays (1614) – I have read some plays but not all, which is kind of nuts for an English-speaking person who loves to read.
- W.E.B. Du Bois: Souls of Black Folk (1903)
6. Other:
- Xenophon: Hellenika (-354) – the sequel to Thucydides, which I loved.
- al-Idrisi: Entertainment (1154)
- Marco Polo: Marvels (c. 1300)
- Ibn Batuta: Travels (1369)
- Leonardo: Notebooks (1519) – I have an abridged version, but even that would be better than nothing!
– Abagond, 2017.
See also:
- books
- If you like this blog you might also like…
- My favourite Greek books
- Books banned from Tucson classrooms
- The Top Ten Desert Island Books
- Machiavelli
- Reading Thucydides
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Great list! Two additional suggestions:
1. Black Skin, White Masks: Franz Fanon
2. I Write What I Like: Steven Biko
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the hobbit’s ok, the fellowship drags pretty hard, the silmarrilion i couldn’t finish.
jane austen, the romantic period of literature was more or less my ‘lit specialization’ in college… ch xiii of biographia literaria!
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Abagond, long time no see;)
You might also be interested in the following:
“Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. I read this at the tender age of 19 years, and let me tell you, it makes quite an impression on a young mind as opposed to an older mind.
“The Four Voyages: Being His Own Log-Book, Letters and Dispatches with Connecting Narratives”, by Christopher Columbus and Bartolome de las Casas’ “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies” and Historia de Las Indias (depending on the translations you get ahold of)—-both give you quite an insight into the minds of those who set into the destruction of the native peoples of the so-called New World.
Anything by Ida Wells-Barnett, most notably “A Red Record” and “Southern Horrors”.
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@Abagond: How are you enjoying Democracy In Black did you like my recommendation?
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Ann! Those sound like good recommendations. Thanks.
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@ Mary
Thanks for recommendation. I got the book for Christmas and am reading it now. Seems good so far. I will be doing a post on it.
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@ Arnold
Thanks. I would like to read Biko. I read that Fanon book. One of the hardest books I have read, but well worth it. I did several posts on it:
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I have been on the fence about the Chancellor Williams book. But since you mentioned it i might add it to my book list.
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Turning a book that takes 2 hrs 38 min to read at a steady pace into a 8 hour saga is the ultimate capacity of corporate greed.
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I enjoyed
Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America
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St John Chapter 1. The true Christianity!
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Hello Abagond, thank you for your blog. I read this as much as anything I read, to get information, ideas, book referrals, etc… really a top notch site.
If I could recommend a new book that you might get a lot out of, it’s called “Black Patriots and Loyalists” by Alan Gilbert, a professor at the University of Denver.
The book recounts the Black struggle for emancipation during the founding of the United States, and gives a really detailed background of the global activities happening then. It’s been really well received so far. It is very detailed, however, which makes it go a little slower than some, but I would love to hear your take on it.
Keep on with your bad self!
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@ Kirk C. Watkins
Thanks!
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