My autumn reading for 2021

Via Tumblr.

I did not get much reading done this summer! But, as many of my books are about to go into storage and are likely remain there till at least the end of the year, I have to decide what I want to read now. What I need is a Desert Island reading plan for autumn (September 22nd to December 21st).

Rules:

1. A book must be at least 170 years old. (See my 1851 media diet. This post is an update.)
2. Read works by an author together, but otherwise:
3. Read books in the order in which they were written.

So, I will read these books in this order:

• 1773: Phillis Wheatley: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
• 1794: Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative
• 1837: Hosea Easton: A Treatise On the Intellectual Character, and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U. States; And the Prejudice Exercised Towards Them; With A Sermon on the Duty of the Church To Them
• 1840: Tocqueville: Democracy in America
• 1841: James W.C. Pennington: A Text Book of the Origin and History, etc. of the Colored People
• 1847: Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
• 1849: Thoreau: Civil Disobedience
• 1850: Sojourner Truth: Narrative
• 1851: Frederick Douglass: Speeches, 1841-51
• 1851: Herman Melville: Moby-Dick

If I average 30 pages a day, I should just about get through them all by Christmas.

I already have all of these books, so it is just a matter of setting them aside and making sure they do not get packed away.

I have read Thoreau, Bronte and half of Melville before, a long time ago. But I suspect I will get way more out of them now.

In addition:

• Daily:
  • a chapter of the King James Bible
  • The day’s entry in Thoreau’s 1851 journal.
• Weekly:
  • a chapter of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (to match its serialization in 1851-52).

Something I have more or less been keeping up on.

New Testament: In the case of the Bible, I am reading the New Testament. The same rules apply: read its books in the order written. I will use the timeline of Marcus J. Borg in “The Evolution of the Word” (2012):

• 50s AD: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 2 Corinthians, Romans
• 60s:
• 70s: Mark
• 80s: James, Colossians, Matthew, Hebrews
• 90s: John, Ephesians, Revelation
• 100s: Jude, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John
• 110s: Luke, Acts, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Peter, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus
• 120s: 2 Peter

In my experience, when you read books in the order written, you notice things you would not otherwise see. Instead of a mishmash you get an unfolding.

Of the other bits of my 1851 media diet, I will continue to read The Economist and Frederick Douglass’ Newspaper from exactly 170 years ago in 1851.

Dropped from my 1851 media diet:

• Books by Maria Stewart and Martin Delany because I do not have copies of them yet. I hope to read them in winter.
• The diary of George Templeton Strong. Trying to read wide columns of handwritten text through a clunky image-dump interface is just too painful. The Economist and Douglass’ are archived in the same format, but they have printed columns of texts, so it is manageable.

– Abagond, 2021.

See also:

• 1851 media diet
• Black American writing, early 1800s
• Reading old books
• Frederick Douglass
• Phillis Wheatley
• The Economist
• Thoreau’s library
• Early White Americans – Easton and Tocqueville are quoted
• Desert Island reading
  • The Top Ten Desert Island Books
  • Seven books I would take to a desert island

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