Tag: classics

Most Taught Texts from the Top US Universities

Adams House (Harvard): Library of
Adams House (Harvard): Library of by Paul Lowry

The Open Syllabus Project, is an effort to make the intellectual judgment embedded in syllabi relevant to broader explorations of teaching, publishing, and intellectual history.  It released the top texts taught from the top US universities over the last 15 years and Quartz released an article listing them.  This is exactly the kind of thing that I love.  I love to keep learning and the way that works best for me is reading because I also love that.  So, they only hard part is choosing the right books.  These are definitely some of them.  See the list they released below:

Rank Text Author
1 Republic Plato
2 Leviathan Hobbes, Thomas
3 The Prince Machiavelli, Niccolò
4 The Clash of Civilizations Huntington, Samuel
5 The Elements of Style Strunk, William
6 Ethics Aristotle
7 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn, Thomas
8 Democracy in America Tocqueville, Alexis De
9 The Communist Manifesto Marx, Karl
10 The Politics Aristotle

I would so love all of these books.  I’ve read only a few.  Most if not all of them are available as a penguin classic.  In their little black perfect paperback versions.  I love these.  If only you could buy all of them in one go, with of course an accompanying bookshelf!  Someday, Someday, Maybe.

On Schedule to 100 Books

Book Stack
4 books from the library on my to read list

Here is the short list for the rest of the month.  I hope to read these all by the end of the month.  I’m starting The Stranger today.  The rest will follow in the order they are in the picture.  Most of these are from my reading list, but The Stranger is a suggestion from a great virtual book club on goodreads called Catching up on the Classics.

Here I am going on and on and totally forgot to get to the point.  I just finished my 9th book of the month (review coming soon).  You know what that means?  I’m on track to read 100 books this year.  I need to read at least 8 books each month (8.2 really).  So I am very excited to be on track and can’t wait to dive into The Stranger.

The group does a few reads every month.  They have a new school read, which is a modern classic.  An old school classic which is what you think it is.  They also have a long read, usually over 500 pages and a short read under 200.  February’s short read is The Stranger, weighing in at only 123 pages in the paperback pictured above.

I hope they can forgive me for starting it early, but I have already read The Little Prince which is January’s pick.  By the way, if you haven’t seen the 2015 movie, you should.  It is really fantastic and lets you re-think the book entirely.  I’m putting the trailer in here below.

I have another review coming soon, but for now, I really need to get back to my reading.  See you in the stacks!