Reassessing the List

Sean,

per our conversation about the future of the List, I think you're right. I don't feel comfortable advocating books for inclusion in advance of having read them, even with the 'classics' (although those are usually a safe bet). From a practical standpoint, I think it is necessary to have A list, if only to have a guide of books to read each year, but that doesn't have to be synonymous with THE List. Hopefully, this will allow us to read potential List books, but I think I've found more books I want on the List from my random selections than those we had originally planned to include.

One such example of this is the book I'm currently reading, Reinventing Knowledge. I highly recommend we include it in the List, as it is essentially a history of the List; specifically, the making and preservation of the Western Canon. I'm only halfway through, but definitely imppressed; in addition to the subject matter, it's well-researched, and (to me) even more importantly, well-written. It's a thick little book - 275 pages with only six chapters and a conclusion, but I honestly have a hard time putting it down. If I wasn't stealing time to read right before bed (and losing sleep because of it), I'd have finished the book already.

I'll write a more through review of Reinventing Knowledge later, after I finish it, but it's the type of book I want us to include on the List. And I discovered it the way we probably will most List books - by trolling the history section of my library. I added it to my personal reading list only because I thought it would be interesting reading for a project on knowledge management I'm doing at work. At the time, I was looking for Boorstin's The Creators, another in his series with The Discoverers, which was recommended by many for the List. I think I've told you, but if not, The Discoverers bored me to tears. I could not make myself read it, and I am definitely a completionist when it comes to reading! The Creators is still tentatively on the List plan for this year, but I don't expect it to make the final cut.

I have to dig out my reading list from last year since it has my final notes, but I think that I'll continue this year much the same as I did the previous one - reading anything that catches my fancy, and trying to include as much of the List's planned entries as possible. At the end of this year, since it will mark the end of the first 'era' of the List, you and I should sit down and review 10-30 books for inclusion in years 1&2 (I am counting them as a unit, so averaging 15 books a year, not 60 total). In the mean time, this is what I'm reading:

Reading 2009

Non-Fiction
Trivium- Joseph
Royal Nonesuch- Phillips
Ideas that Conquered the World
Discover Your Inner Economist
Fifth Discipline- Peter M. Senge
Future and Its Enemies- Postrel
Cyberprotest- Dahlgren
Reckless Mind- Lilla
Living High and Letting Die
Always On – Baron
Future Imperfect – David Friedman
Distracted – Jackson
Cognitive Diversity – Scott Page
Inventing Human Rights - Lynn Hunt
Crowd-Sourcing
This Is Your Brain on Music
Reinventing Knowledge
Farewell to Alms
Bottom Billion
Hackers and Painters

Fiction
At Swim-Two-Birds
Bangkok 8
Evidence of Things Unseen- Wiggins
Devil Wears Prada
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
Middlesex
Acts of Faith- Caputo
27th City- Franzen
Passage
Last Cavalier- Dumas, trans. Lauren Yoder (carry over from last year's reading)
Carry On, Jeeves

The List (potentially)
A Brief History of Time
A Little History of the World - Gombrich
A World History - McNeill
An Urchin in the Storm
Art of the Novel- Milan Kundera
Big History
Biography: A Brief History- Nigel Hamilton (carry over from last year)
But Is It Art? – Freeland
Clan of the Cave Bear
Critical Mass – Ball
Curtain: Essay in Seven Parts- Milan Kundera, trans. Linda Asher
Golden Bough
History of God
How to Read a Book - Adler
How to Read and Why - Bloom
I Have Landed Introducing Aesthetics – Kul-Want
Perennial Philosophy – Huxley
Power of MythReligions of Man
Six Great Ideas – Adler
Story of Us Humans
Ten Geographic Ideas that Changed the World
The Creators
The Overflowing Brain
The Rhetoric of Fiction
The Stuff of Thought
Varieties of Religious Experiences
Walking on Water- Jensen
What Good Are the Arts?- John Carey
Your Inner Fish

Other/Additional (as in, will/*should* be the last to be read)
One Economics, Many Recipes - Rodrik
Origins: A Memoir - Amin Maalouf
Ethical Shopping - Young and Welford
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism - Baumol
Not Buying It
Letters to a Young Activist
Bad Modernisms- Mao and Walkowitz
Peasants, Traders and WivesAnthropology, Development, and the Post-Modern Challenge- Gardner and Lewis
Plowshares and Pork Barrels- Pasour
I Write What I Like- Biko
Africa Unchained
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
When Things Fell Apart - Robert H. Bates
On Being Certain
After War
Love the Work, Hate the Job - David Kusnet
Enterprise 2.0
Momentum
Everything Is Miscellaneous
Groundswell
Fear and Trembling - Kirkegaard
Wikinomics

The List

The List is a shared reading list encompassing the entirety of human civilizations in 20 years. The idea of The List came developed over a year’s time (2007) after Mariel mentioned to Sean that as part of organizing her massive reading list (over 40 pages), she intended to compress 50 000 years of human history and literature into a 15-20 year reading project. Sean, being who he is, insisted she actually do it, and that she share. Eventually they (meaning Mariel) sorted through The List, which is posted by year. This year, 2008, is the first year of The List.

This is a work in progress. While The List is organized in a (mostly) logical manner, neither of us have read these books. Many are included simply because they were recommended, or looked interesting, and so were sorted into their respective years. With this in mind, expect that The List will grow and evolve over time, as we actually begin reading the books, and deciding if they are truly worthy of inclusion.

Enjoy.

The List
* italicized implies that a book is recommended, but optional


Year 1: How to Use the List: Theories and Thought Exercises

The Philosophical: The Broader Concepts
Apollo’s Fire- Michael Sims
The Discoverers- Boorstin
The Elegant Universe
A Sideways Look at Time
Study of History- Toynbee

The Philosophical: The Human Mind
I Am a Strange Loop- Douglas Hofstadter
The Head Trip- Jeff Warren

[added 2.13.08: History of a Disturbance - Steven Millhauser. Published in The New Yorker on 3.5.07]

The Practical Aspects: How to Use the List
Biography: A Brief History- Nigel Hamilton
The Well-Educated Mind- Bauer
How to Read a Book- Mortimer Adler
The Rhetoric of Fiction
How We Think- Dewey
How to Read and Why- Bloom
How to Read Literature Like a Professor- Foster

[edited 2.13.08: The Case for Literature, to:
‘The Case for Literature’
Author’s ‘Preface to Without Isms’
‘Without Isms’
‘Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth’
(all from The Case for Literature- Gao Xingjian, trans. Mabel Lee)]


. . . . . .
Year 2: Roots of Society, Culture and Faith
[tentative]

Evolution and Natural History
Man Makes Himself- Childe
The Blind Watchmaker
Story of Us Humans, from Atoms to Today’s Civilization- Robert Dalling
World History- McNeill

Human Society
Stuff of Thought- Steven Pinker
Guns Germs and Steel
Collapse
Wisdom of Crowds

Religion and Philosophy
The History of God- Armstrong
Perennial Philosophy- Huxley
Religions of Man- Smith
Varieties of Religious Experience- James
World as Will and Idea- Schopenhauer
Ten Geographic Ideas that Changed the World
The Golden Bough- Frazer