Cartography by Suandini Banerjee
Cartography by Suandini Banerjee
My Personal Canon of Great Books:
There have been lots of fascinating lists of personal canons of great books among lit bloggers and I’ve succumbed to peer pressure and made my own list. As I was thinking about my list I realized that the ancient authors are embarrassingly predictable. So I’ve broken my canon into two parts, ancient and everything else.
Ancient Authors:
Homer, Iliad
Presocratic Philosophers, The Main Fragments in Ancient Greek
Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Euripides, Trojan Women, Medea
Sopocles, Oedipus, Antigone
Plato, Symposium
Aristotle, Poetics
Catullus, Carmina
Vergil, Aeneid
Seneca, everything he wrote, especially The Trojan Women
Cicero, De Senectute, Pro Caelio
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Heroides, Amores
Propertius, Elegies (Many read Catullus and Ovid and unfortunately bypass Propertius. But his poems are just as good and important.)
Lucan, The Civil War (A very underappreciated epic from the Latin Silver Age)
Everything Else:
Tolstoy, War and Peace
James M. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad
Pascal Quignard, The Roving Shadows and The Sexual Night
Jean-Luc Nancy, Corpus and Coming
John Wiliams, Augustus and Stoner (Stoner is his more popular novel, but Augustus is brilliant!)
Anne Carson, Nay Rather, The Bakkhai
Christopher Logue, War Music
Antal Szerb, Journey by Moonlight
Christa Wolf, Medea
Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
R.D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
George Eliot, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda
Sandford Friedman, Conversations with Beethoven
Derek Walcott, Omeros
Georgi Gospodinov, The Physics of Sorrow
Sergei Lebedev, Oblivion and The Year of the Comet
Stuart Shotwell, Edmund Persuader, Tomazina’s Folly
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Jane Austen, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice
Teffi, Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others and Me
Kleist, Penthesilea
Of course all of this is subject to change according to the year, my mood, the weather, etc.
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You’re a fan of Shotwell! Very pleased to meet you, indeed!
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By MR Graham on August 23, 2015 at 6:38 pm
Edmund Persuader and the sequel are two of my all-time favorite books! Nice to meet you too!
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By Melissa Beck on August 23, 2015 at 6:40 pm
I only finished the first book yesterday, and I am already champing at the bit to get my hands on the sequel.
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By MR Graham on August 23, 2015 at 7:13 pm
I’ve recently just got into Jane Austen, and I am loving her work! You seem to be quite the expert on classics, I might ask you for some recommendations 🙂
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By coffeebookworm on March 24, 2016 at 11:28 pm
I’m so glad to hear that! My favorite Austen books are Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. But you really can’t go wrong with any of her books! Feel free to stop by any time and ask me for more recommendations!
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By Melissa Beck on March 25, 2016 at 10:31 am
That sounds great, I’ll put them on my TBR! I will definitely be back to ask for some. I also was wondering if you would like to be a guest post on my blog by filling out the questions to the Classics Book Tag? If you would, that would be great. My blog is recently made, and is growing steadily. Thank you again, and if you would not like to do this, there’s no problem at all!
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By coffeebookworm on March 25, 2016 at 8:23 pm
Sure, I would love to do a guest post and fill out the questions. Just give me the details on what I need to do. Thanks so much for asking me! I was so nervous when I started my blog. But the community of book bloggers is so nice and supportive!
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By Melissa Beck on March 25, 2016 at 8:49 pm
Of course! I knew when I saw your blog there was a very home like vibe, and your content is really wonderful! I agree, I still am a little nervous, but I’m trying to reach out to people. If you ever need me for a Guest Post or anything of that sort just let me know! I’ll send you the link to your once I’ve posted it
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By coffeebookworm on March 26, 2016 at 6:28 pm
Here are the questions, thank you again!
1. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
2. How you first got involved in with blogging?
3. What do you find most challenging about blogging about your topic?
4. Tell me about some of the people you’ve met while working on your blog?
5. How would (someone) describe your blogging style?
6. What do you do when you aren’t working on your blog?
7 .Are you a full time blogger? How did you get into blogging and why?
8. What networking do you do that you feel helps your blogging business?
9. How do you keep coming up with material/content for your blog? Many people struggle with coming up with different articles/posts and they only have one blog.
10. What’s your strategy with your blog in general?
11. Do you think Page rank plays a vital role in a blog’s life?
12. What would you prioritize? Content? SEO? Traffic? Readers?
13. What’s the best thing a blogger can give to his readers?
14. A lot of people are interested in blogging for the money earning potential. What are some tips for people interesting in making money from blogging? What are some realistic expectations in regards to what can be made?
15. Do you think Page rank plays a vital role in a blog’s life?
16. What has been your strategy for creating visibility to yourself and your blog?
17 What was the most challenging moment in your blog content development process and why?
18. Everyone has a favorite/least favorite post. Name yours and why?
19. What’s your take on sponsored reviews?
20. Name some of the bloggers whom you look up to and why?
21. If someone was interested in blogging, what would be a few things you would suggest?
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By coffeebookworm on March 26, 2016 at 6:28 pm
So many on this list that I love too — Mrs. Gaskell (I think my favourite is Cranford), Precious Bane (and Gone To Earth), Augustus, etc. And I wonder who your favourite Gk and Roman authors might be?
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By theresakishkan on May 4, 2016 at 10:26 pm
I think it’s much harder to make a list of my favorite Greek and Roman works-there are just so many. The Aeneid and the Iliad, of course. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Amores, Seneca’s tragedies, the poems of Catullus. That’s a start anyway!
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By Melissa Beck on May 5, 2016 at 7:46 am
I would hope Herodotus’s THE HISTORIES would be discussed when great and important ancient writers are discussed.
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By Thomas Roberdeau on May 4, 2020 at 7:10 pm
This isn’t a discussion of important writers, ancient or otherwise. It’s a list of personal favorites.
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By Melissa Beck on May 4, 2020 at 7:36 pm
Glad I’m not the only one who enjoys the poetry of Derek Walcott! Great list and a great blog. Keep up the good work!!
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By maphead on September 25, 2017 at 7:18 pm
Thanks so much! That’s so kind of you to say.
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By Melissa Beck on September 25, 2017 at 7:18 pm
This is so inspiring. I want to spend this winter immersed in these worlds.
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By sarahbeth98 on October 28, 2019 at 6:40 pm
Thank you!
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By Melissa Beck on October 28, 2019 at 7:10 pm
…the weather… 🙂 🙂
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By Anna Bidoonism on January 12, 2020 at 3:37 am
😊
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By Melissa Beck on January 12, 2020 at 10:17 am
Wondering if you can give me contact info for people that do appraisals of rare books I would like to get for my books, thank you
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By g h on August 29, 2020 at 5:40 pm
If you are near NYC I would recommend The Strand Books. In Boston Commonwealth books is excellent.
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By Melissa Beck on August 29, 2020 at 5:51 pm
I came across your wonderful blog as I was looking for information about Sappho’s 16, brought to my attention while reading Suzanne Buffam’s Past Imperfect (the poem “Anaktoria”). Thanks, very enlightening! I like your site. Meggie, the bookbinder’s daughter in Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart series, would like it too, I’m sure! (Sorry, can’t find italics for book titles here.)
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By Barbara Nickel on March 5, 2021 at 3:59 pm
Hi Melissa
First, I think it’s so cool that you are a book binder’s daughter, and I am an ardent fan of the classics too. While I haven’t read some of the hard-core novels you mention, I have enjoyed many famous characters and have never forgotten how they influenced my life. I’ve read Jane’s Pride and Prejudice at least 25 times and love Persuasion just as much. I regret that her library is rather small.
I also appreciate that you support the small press.
Cheers
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By Monika R. Martyn on March 15, 2021 at 3:08 pm
Thank you! And yes, Jane Austen novels made me the reader I am today.
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By Melissa Beck on March 15, 2021 at 3:18 pm
Now those who is looking for deep literature are on the verge of extinction. My favorite poet is the killed by society 200 years ago Karoline von Günderrode and her verse: “That’s why I live — to see my dreams.”
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By Valeri Stanoevich on December 11, 2021 at 3:13 pm
James Redfield was a professor of mine.
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By Mark Brooker on January 5, 2023 at 12:40 am
His book is the best I’ve ever read on The Iliad.
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By Melissa Beck on January 5, 2023 at 8:07 am
The mythological images that are the most profound for me are Medea and Meleager because they lead the mind to other worlds.
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By stanoevichv on January 5, 2023 at 4:36 pm
John Cowper Powys baffled and enthralled me with the book Wolf Solent and I searched the net to find people who have read him and what they make of him. I found you. I was unnerved by his writing. Amazed by the range and depth of the characters, puzzled and sometimes frustrated with the choices of the protagonist. What unnerved me was the thought that I was learning about my own absurdly misplaced egocentricity.
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By Bruce Hunt-Hughes on December 10, 2024 at 3:08 am
Baffling is a good word for Powys! I’m so glad you enjoyed this novel, it is difficult to find anyone who reads him. The fact that the protagonist was a Latin teacher intrigued me. Interesting choice!
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By Melissa Beck on December 10, 2024 at 7:55 am
Teaching was his fall-back option, his heart was never in teaching. But he began his sojourn in Dorset with such refinement and sensitivity, high ideals, exquisite appreciation of nature, animal and human, and foundered when his over-egged intellect and impractical values made him implode on himself. I got to like him increasingly through the book, then my liking for him plateaued, and I ended up disillusioned and disappointed with Wolf, and preferring the naughty but good-humoured lord!
I see now how it is possible to puff oneself up for years, while totally overestimating one’s positive impact on one’s nearest and dearest. A humbling realisation!
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By Bruce Hunt-Hughes on December 12, 2024 at 8:19 pm