Kim du Toit has posted a list of things he encouraged his children to read while homeschooling them.
A list of books? That’s a quiz!
So how do I do compared to a du Toit?
Once again, I will bold the things I’ve read and underline the things I own but have not yet read.
- 1984 George Orwell
- Animal Farm George Orwell
- Of Civil Government John Locke
- On Liberty John Stuart Mill
- Our Enemy, The State Albert Jay Nock
- The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli
- Basic Economics Charles Sowell
- The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith
- From Dawn To Decadence Jacques Barzun
- Heroes Paul Johnson
- A History Of The American People Paul Johnson
- A History Of The Jews Paul Johnson
- The Iliad Homer
- The Odyssey Homer
- The Proud Tower Barbara Tuchman
- United States Declaration of Independence
- The Articles of Confederation
- United States Constitution
- The Federalist Papers
- Carnage And Culture Victor Davis Hanson
- The First World War Martin Gilbert (or John Keegan)
- A History Of Warfare John Keegan
- The Second World War John Keegan
- A War Like No Other Victor Davis Hanson
- The Bible (The NIV, so one of the short ones)
- The Book of Journeyman Albert Jay Nock
- Confessions St. Augustine
- Essays Moral and Political David Hume
- Intellectuals Paul Johnson
- Meditations Marcus Aurelius
- Memoirs of a Superfluous Man Albert Jay Nock
- The Republic Plato
- Summa Theologica St. Thomas Aquinas
- Coriolanus William Shakespeare
- Hamlet William Shakespeare
- Julius Caesar William Shakespeare
- King Lear William Shakespeare
- Macbeth William Shakespeare
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream William Shakespeare
- Othello William Shakespeare
- Richard III William Shakespeare
- Romeo & Juliet William Shakespeare
- Billy Liar Keith Waterhouse
- Faust Goethe
- The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde
- Lysistrata Aristophanes
- ‘Tis A Pity She’s A Whore John Ford
- Waiting For Godot Samuel Becket
- “The Eagle”, “Charge Of The Light Brigade” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- “Dover Beach” Matthew Arnold
- “The Soldier” Rupert Brook
- “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “The Good Morrow” and “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” John Donne (I’m not sure if the first is in the Selected Poems I read in 2011, and I can’t find it quickly to see.)
- “Ode To A Nightingale” John Keats (If not now, then by the time I finish the complete works I’ve been working on for a year or so).
- “The Gods Of The Copybook Headings” Rudyard Kipling (I haven’t alluded to it in a whole week!)
- “To Althea, From Prison” Richard Lovelace
- The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
- “Ozymandias” Percy Bysshe Shelley
- “Leaves of Grass” Walt Whitman
- “Tintern Abbey”, “The Solitary Reaper” William Wordsworth
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
- Alice In Wonderland — Lewis Carroll
- The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
- The American Henry James
- Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
- As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
- Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
- A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh
- The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis
- The Count Of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
- Don Quixote Cervantes
- A Farewell To Arms Ernest Hemingway
- Emma Jane Austen
- To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
- The Invisible Man H.G. Wells
- Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis
- Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift
- The Mayor Of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
- The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
- Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev
- Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein
- Les Misérables Victor Hugo
- Carry On, Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse
- Lord Of The Flies William Golding
- Crime and Punishment Feodor Dostoyevsky
- Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
- The Harry Potter Stories by J.K Rowling
- Women In Love D.H. Lawrence
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (probably not all of them, but I did read The Return of Sherlock Holmes this year.)
- Catch-22 Joseph Heller
- The Portrait Of A Lady Henry James
- The Wind In The Willows Kenneth Grahame
- Rebecca Daphne du Maurier
- Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
- Sons And Lovers D.H. Lawrence
- Uhuru Robert Ruark
- “The Birds“, “Don’t Look Now” Daphne du Maurier
- “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, “The Killers” Ernest Hemingway (likely, but I’m not 100% sure.)
- “The Pit And The Pendulum” Edgar Allan Poe
- “Bartleby the Scrivener” Herman Melville
- “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Ambrose Bierce
- The Jungle Books Rudyard Kipling
- “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, “Good Country People” Flannery O’Connor (although perhaps they’re in a collection I bought in 2008 and deserve an underline.)
- “Boule de Suif”, “The Necklace” Guy de Maupassant (although I also have a collection of his gathering dust which might mean the first need underlining.)
- “The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty”, “The Unicorn in the Garden” James Thurber<
- “The Gift Of The Magi“, “The Cop And The Anthem” O. Henry
- “Where I’m Calling From”, “Little Things” Raymond Carver
- “Sredni Vashtar”, “The East Wing” Saki
- “Mountain Victory”, “A Rose For Emily” William Faulkner
- Ars Amatoria Ovid
- Delta Of Venus Anaïs Nin
- Lady Chatterley’s Lover D.H. Lawrence
- Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure (or Fanny Hill) John Cleland
- The School of Whoredom Pietro Aretino
How did I do?
Not good enough.
Especially since I have not made much progress in thirteen years on improving my score on the list of Kim du Toit’s favorite short stories.