Brian J. Lacks A du Toitian Education

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.

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