sonic1 Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 Last few months (omitting poetry and children's lit): Epic of Gilgamesh Tale of Sinue and other egyption poems Pindar: The Odes Petronius: The Satyricon The Code of Hammurabi Lucretius: On the Nature of the Universe The Annotated Mother Goose The Annotated Alice Strunk & White: The Elements of Style Sapho-various translations Alcaeus-various translations Euripides-complete plays Sophocles-" " Aeschylus: The Oresteia Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Gengi Kobo Abe: Kangaroo Notebook Aristophanes: Complete plays The Zanzibar Chest: Aiden Hartley Thucyclides: The Peloponesian War Herodotus: The Histories Dante: The divine Comedy Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism Rudyard Kipling: Kim The Columbia History of the World See a theme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 Wow - very impressive! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarahrob Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 Ooh, some of my favourites in there - I absolutely love the Oresteia (particularly the Libation Bearers), Medea and Iphigeneia in Tauris, and as for Antigone... I love it so much I know chunks of it by heart. Sad, but true... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kell Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 I studied Euripides, Sophocles & Aristophanes during my college course & loved them all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonic1 Posted August 23, 2006 Author Share Posted August 23, 2006 I highly recommend going back to classics you read at earlier ages. I have learned so much and have experienced them so differently as an adult, as to make them seem like totally different books. The Iliad, for example, I hated in high school, because I felt it was all just war, and a total boy-book (though I am a boy). But after reading it this time, I found so much more in there. I also really appreciated Homer's depiction of his heros-which were more fallable, human and petty than even most modern literature, and therefore more truthful in some ways (even though they often exibit superhuman strength and such). The way the gods influence people is fascinating too. There are times I can look around me and wonder if Aphrodite is still using cupid to make people do totally insane things for love or to fall in love with the most unsuspected of subjects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugar Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Last few months (omitting poetry and children's lit): Just out of interest - any chance of a post with the poetry collections you have dipped into and the children's stuff you have read? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonic1 Posted August 24, 2006 Author Share Posted August 24, 2006 Last few months (omitting poetry and children's lit): Just out of interest - any chance of a post with the poetry collections you have dipped into and the children's stuff you have read? Sure; they will be long, and I work a lot so I will have to get back about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonic1 Posted August 25, 2006 Author Share Posted August 25, 2006 Poetry the past few months (mostly a lot of classic stuff). Poetry is something I go back to a lot, and don't nesessarily read straight thru like a book. I ommitted the classic romans and greeks mentioned already above. Robert Frost Emily Dickenson Walt Whitman John Dryden ST Coleridge Gertrude Stein ALexander Pope WH Auden Rudyard Kipling William Shakespeare Robert Pinsky Carl Sandburg Philip Levine John Donne Robert Lewis Stevenson William Blake Charlotte Bronte Louise Bogan T. S. Eliot Langston Hughes I read children's lit in a similar manner at poetry. I could never mention all of them, since I read like 10-15 picture books a day to my kids. But I will mention the ones I have read for myself lately, many of which are returns or frequent returns. A few are new reads. Brooks: Freddy the Detective, Freedy goes to Florida, Freddy and the Ignoramus Dahl: Matilda, The Twits, the BFG, James and the Giant Peach Abel's Island: Steig Pippy Longstockings (all three books) Aesops Fables The White Mountains Trilogy Barrie: Peter Pan The complete Hans Christian Anderson The complete Grimms tales All of L. Frank Baums Oz books and Wonder tales Lewis Carrol: alice books and poetry Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories Carl Sandburg: Rootabega Stories Edith Nesbit: Treasure Seekers, Railway Children All the Beatrix Potter books Oscar Wilde's children's stories Kingsley: Water Babies The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales: Jon Scieszka Complete Brer Rabbit (both the original version and the modernized) and many many more I can't think of offhand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugar Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 Another interesting list there! I don't include the picture books that I read (as a children's librarian, doing storytimes a couple of times a week, I would have a massive list!), but include anything that I read in "my" time. I see there is quite a lot of "classic children's" stuff there too, and a few I don't know. I guess they must be American? Brooks: Freddy the Detective, Freedy goes to Florida, Freddy and the Ignoramus Abel's Island: Steig The White Mountains Trilogy Carl Sandburg: Rootabega Stories Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonic1 Posted August 31, 2006 Author Share Posted August 31, 2006 Another interesting list there! I don't include the picture books that I read (as a children's librarian, doing storytimes a couple of times a week, I would have a massive list!), but include anything that I read in "my" time. I see there is quite a lot of "classic children's" stuff there too, and a few I don't know. I guess they must be American? Brooks: Freddy the Detective, Freedy goes to Florida, Freddy and the Ignoramus Abel's Island: Steig The White Mountains Trilogy Carl Sandburg: Rootabega Stories Yes they are american, and really really good stuff. All except the White Mountains Trilogy which is sort of a kids science fiction (and decidely British), al beit with better developed characters, and not so allegorical. I too read at least 30 picture books a week, and it would be crazy to list those, but suffice it to say there are some great reads in there. Definately check out the Rootabega stories. Thay are awesome. Being a poet, Sandburg tells the stories in a rather poetic way, with lots of repetitions. And characters include talking brooms, corn fairies, Rootabega kings, and a kid that plays his "spanish spinish splishy guitars made special" with his mittens on, because of the cold bitter cold. A wacky world where the plot is dreamlike, and the characters even more so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonic1 Posted August 31, 2006 Author Share Posted August 31, 2006 Here is a sample online of the Rootabega stories. http://www.josephperry.net/rootabaga/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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