Reading all of the classics in chronological order!

[Tuesday_Yaseotoko]

Gentle readers,

 

Sadly, I have CDO - which is like OCD - but with all of the letters in the correct alphabetical order - the way they should be!

 

One tell-tale symptom is that many years ago I set myself the task of reading all of the [Penguin] classics in chronological order.

 

Short story long - I started at the epic of Gilgamesh ~3000 BC and am currently working my way through the Complete works of Aristotle, ~384 BC having before read every major classic in between: Plato, Aristophones, Homer, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Xenophon, Herodatus, Hindu Myths, Gathas of Zaroaster, The Bible, etc.

 

Am I the only tragic bookworm with such a compulsive affliction/addiction - or are there other CDOs out there too?

 

Please advise..

[Kell]

Oh, wow! What a challenge! I'm not so CDO as you are, although pretty much everything that can be alphabetised in my flat has been aranged so.

 

I did consider doing a decades challenge where I read a classic from each year in any given decade in the order they were published, though at present I don't have time to dedicate mhyself to that challenge, it's one I plan to do at some point. Would that count?

[~Andrea~]

Gentle readers,

 

Sadly, I have CDO - which is like OCD - but with all of the letters in the correct alphabetical order - the way they should be!

 

Lol - that made me laugh.

Seriously - good luck. That's quite a challenge - but I'm sure it will be very rewarding. There'll be some great books in there, as well as some very obscure less interesting ones.

[Janet]

I'm awestruck - I simply can't imagine doing this! Good luck!

[Tuesday_Yaseotoko]

Oh, wow! What a challenge! I'm not so CDO as you are, although pretty much everything that can be alphabetised in my flat has been aranged so.

 

I did consider doing a decades challenge where I read a classic from each year in any given decade in the order they were published, though at present I don't have time to dedicate mhyself to that challenge, it's one I plan to do at some point. Would that count?

Of course it counts!

I like to see how things develop - what comes after what, what might have influenced what.

So reading over a year or decade is a bit like that too.

Enjoy it - but watch out that you don't catch CDO!

[Tuesday_Yaseotoko]

Lol - that made me laugh.

Seriously - good luck. That's quite a challenge - but I'm sure it will be very rewarding. There'll be some great books in there, as well as some very obscure less interesting ones.

It is quite a challenge - some works by Xenophon, for instance were so obscure and out of print that I had to order second hand copies from remote bookstores across the globe.

 

Demosthenes - whom I am reading after Aristotle - looks like my bookseller Rosy and I will have to track down using a pith helmet and torch! Something out of print in America - but we will get our orations or bust!

[Tuesday_Yaseotoko]

I'm awestruck - I simply can't imagine doing this! Good luck!

I'm more to be pitied than inspire awe.

 

But as they say about Mount Everest - why do I do it?

 

Because they're there!

[Ceinwenn]

Really, I would expect someone with CDO to read the classics in Alphabetical order! :thud:Now there's a challenge! Seriously, though, best of luck with that! Definately know that's one challenge I wouldn't be up for!

[SueK]

Wow Tuesday, I really have to applaud you - very commendable - and that is a "mountain" of literature, as you say. The question is though, are you enjoying the books?

[Ben Mines]

What—what, I ask!—are you going to do if a work is discovered and published but dates to a year preceding your position on the reading timeline?

 

The answer should be obvious: a true CDO will go right back to the epic of Gilgamesh and start all over again.