# A Gentleman's Reading List



## green_isle (Oct 16, 2009)

Seeing as the days are growing darker and we are spending more and more time indoors, I feel it is a good time to start a "Gentleman's Reading List". This should be along the lines of hierarchy of quality threads or forum favorites for clothing brands, except in this case the aim is to enhance our literary "wardrobe". The books can certainly be stylish but they should not be books about clothes. 

Here are a few examples of authors to get the list going. 

Ernest Hemingway 

Alexandre Dumas

Ian Fleming


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

William Faulkner

Patrick White

John Dos Passos

Sir Noel Coward


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## Acacian (Jul 10, 2007)

John O'Hara


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## Mad Hatter (Jul 13, 2008)

John Steinbeck

O. Henry

Nathaniel Hawthorne

James Herriot


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## mxgreen (Jan 18, 2009)

Arthur Conan Doyle


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## Coleman (Mar 18, 2009)

F. Scott Fitzgerald

J. D. Salinger

Albert Camus

Kurt Vonnegut


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## DCLawyer68 (Jun 1, 2009)

I just picked up a copy of the Library of America's volume of Liebling, which includes The Sweet Science, Between Meals and other great books of his.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598530402/

I highly recommend purchasing LOA titles when they're available for what you want in American authors:

Check out their website:


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

Patrick O'Brian, specifically his multi-book saga about characters in the Royal Navy circa early 1800s. I think that this forum must be chock full of just the sort of man these books would appeal to. Adventure, history, travel, friendship, romance, humor... just about every virtue of good literature is to be found. It's as much about human relationships as it is about war and naval life. By way of analogy, it's more like a Merchant-Ivory film than a Hollywood action-thriller.

There are two caveats. The first is that these are nautical books set in the age of sail, and the author mercilessly uses naval terminology. One of the main characters, Dr. Maturin, the ship's surgeon, is a land-lubber however and so the author will contrive to have the sailors explain to him anything technical that the reader really must grasp when it's a crucial point in the plot. The second caveat is that, whereas most demanding books might take about 100 pages before you feel like you've been really hooked, the first book in the series, called _Master & Commander, _doesn't really seem to pick up steam until about 200 pages into it. And yet once you're hooked you'll be sorry that the whole saga is in all a mere 2000 or so pages long.

They made a movie with Russell Crowe that is sort of an amalgam of bits and pieces from different episodes in the various books. I saw the movie first, and I enjoyed it, but it's actually quite different from the any one of the books.


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## FlashForFreedom (May 16, 2009)

+1 on John O'Hara... a slightly more gritty, less whimsical, and less Saturday Evening Post version of Fitzgerald. Appoint in Samarra is a good place to start, or his short stories. If Fitzgerald did not exist, he would be the author people referred to for the social scenes of the 1920s.

For Southern Trads, Walker Percy - The Moviegoer is a good starting point.

For Worldly Trads, Graham Greene - The Quiet American, Short Stories, or many others

For Cocaine snorting 80s Trads, Brett Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero 

Well before Bond, Britain had Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC KCB KCIE... formerly of Thom Browne's School Days, and chronicled in a series of novels by George MacDonald Frazier.

And of course, P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves series.


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

The Bible.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Paradise Lost.


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## EastVillageTrad (May 12, 2006)

I too endorse:

Patrick O'Brian
- Aubrey Maturin

George MacDonald Fraser
- Flashman

P.G. Wodehouse
- Jeeves & Wooster

John Buchan
- The 39 Steps & Greenmantle


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

Some other recommendations:

_The Dangerous Summer_ by Ernest Hemingway. A non-fiction account of spending a season with a Spanish bullfighting team as it travels around Spain. It's like a really great article from Sports Illustrated.









_Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy_ by John Le Carre.

_Moby Dick_ by Herman Melville. Sure it's a long book, but I loved it and didn't want it to end. It's a very funny book, too, a fact which hardly anyone seems to notice.

_Day of the Jackal_ by Frederick Forsyth.

_The Polish Officer_ by Alan Furst. Furst has written several WWII spy novels, all of them entertaining and atmospheric. This one is my favorite so far.

_Horatio Hornblower_ series by Robert Forster. These too feature the Royal Navy in the age of sail, but they are more action-packed and less complicated. If Patrick O'Brian's books are like a Merchant-Ivory film, the Hornblower books are like Saturday morning matinees.


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## fenway (May 2, 2006)

John Marquand


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## Cowtown (Aug 10, 2006)

I just finished Appointment in Sammarra by O'Hara. Highly recommend.


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## smujd (Mar 18, 2008)

Ken Follett (although not so much for his more recent works).


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## mxgreen (Jan 18, 2009)

EastVillageTrad said:


> I too endorse:
> 
> Patrick O'Brian
> - Aubrey Maturin
> ...


Good ones.


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## Spats (Dec 3, 2008)

*The Riddle of the Sands*

Erskine Childers. Early (1903) spy novel. British gents on a "working" holliday. Interesting comments on dress, at times; and good depiction of yachting under sail if you like that sort of thing.


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## Dingo McPhee (Aug 13, 2009)

Sherlock Holmes! Pipes, tweed, hansom cabs, calling cards, country estates, servants, what's not to like?


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## mjc (Nov 11, 2009)

"The Wind in the Willows", if you're reading to kids. It's amazing how many later adult books build on it...


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## KCKclassic (Jul 27, 2009)

playboy?
high times?
:icon_smile_big: :icon_smile_big: :icon_smile_big: :icon_smile_big: :icon_smile_big:


errrrr, howzabout evelyn waugh?


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## CrackedCrab (Sep 23, 2008)

_The Good Soldier_, Ford Madox Ford

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard..."


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## WindsorNot (Aug 7, 2009)

Mad Hatter said:


> John Steinbeck


Egads man! Steinbeck almost single-handedly ruined reading for me in primary school. Great napping material, though.

Tom Wolfe - Charlotte Simmons or Bonfire of the Vanities are modern classics.


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## JDC (Dec 2, 2006)

After seeing a recent episode of Secrets of the Dead, I've begun reading "The Airmen and the Headhunters".

If only half of this story is true, it would make an amazing film.
​


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## Quay (Mar 29, 2008)

A gentleman should read widely, fearlessly and constantly.

"The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind." -- Jacques Barzun


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

FrankDC said:


> After seeing a recent episode of Secrets of the Dead, I've begun reading "The Airmen and the Headhunters". If only half of this story is true, it would make an amazing film.


I Tivo'd that last night and am looking forward to watching it.

Getting back to book recommendations: _The Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ by T.E. Lawrence is another good read.


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## martylane (May 28, 2008)

I have a couple of recommendations I'd like to share. Both are captivating, and perfect for winter reading. 

The first is "A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes and the Eternal Passion for Books" by Nicolaus Basbanes. This is a book about American book collectors and their collections. It might not seem like it would be riveting reading, but it is. I was very sad when I finished reading the final page of "A Gentle Madness", but I'm very happy to have it in my collection.

The other is "The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin, which is a well known history of science. Written by a Librarian, it is more of an extensively annotated bibliography of recorded knowledge. I wish I had read this book as an undergraduate. There is a two-volume illustrated edition that, though out of print, shouldn't be too difficult to find.


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## PorterSq (Apr 17, 2008)

I really enjoyed "Letters of a Nation," edited by Carroll.

It's a collection of letters stretching back from the Pilgrim days to present. Written by all sorts of folks, many of whom were famous, some of whom weren't. Each letter is selected to reflect something about the times in which it was written and/or about the way folks treated an issue in their era.

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Nati...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258050753&sr=8-1

Since each letter is an actual letter, most can be read in a few minutes, making it a nice bedside read or good for folks with short attention spans. I wanted to read the whole thing in one sitting but made myself stretch it out to enjoy the experience.


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## Acacian (Jul 10, 2007)

How about "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt?


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## PorterSq (Apr 17, 2008)

Acacian said:


> How about "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt?


Great call. An excellent read plus a heavy trad element.


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## phyrpowr (Aug 30, 2009)

For mysteries, Dorothy Sayers "Lord Peter Wimsey" books, though she sort of turned him into a superhero in the later ones.

Ditto on CS Forester "Hornblower"

Thomas Wolfe and Kerouac.

Will & Ariel Durant's "Story of Civilization": you can substitute names from 500BC and today, and still have the same old "us vs. them"

Janet Flanner's ("Genet") New Yorker letters , "Paris was Yesterday"


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

John Updike is my favorite author, and a recently lost American treasure who has diminished the world of letters with his departure. I also like Sinclair Lewis and William Golding quite well among many of those already mentioned. For the brave of heart, Golding's stark and unsparing look at a man and human nature, _Pincher Martin._
_ 
_Just finished _Hobo, A Depression Odyssey_ a self-published novel by Richard Kilroy O'Malley an AP war correspondent with a long and storied career. While structurally imperfect, it contains some exceptionally fine and muscular prose, reminiscent of Hemmingway at his best, and it is a very entertaining read.


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## Sir Cingle (Aug 22, 2009)

How about Evelyn Waugh? Or Saki? And, I suppose, one should always read Homer, Thucydides, Vergil, and Tacitus.


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## ashcroft99 (Dec 12, 2008)

How about selections from the works of Walter Bagehot? Supplemented by the novels of Anthony Trollope, and why not add the histories and memoirs of Winston Churchill....I like the Shakespeare recommendation--though you could narrow this to the histories and the tragedies. Not a bad idea to include some well written war memoirs..."Sagitarrius Rising," by Cecil Lewis--he was a teenage -- sixteen, at the start --combat pilot in WW I, went on to have a hand in establishing the BBC, adapted Pygmalion for the movies....and of course, "Goodbye to All That," and the memoirs of St. Exupery, "Wind, Sand, and Stars," and "Flight to Arras." And, of course, there's the foundational "trad" literature: Addison's Spectator, the Roger De Coverley essays in particular.


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## theCardiffGiant (Sep 16, 2007)

I'll second John Dos Passos.

And moving away from fiction, what about _Memoirs of a Superfluous Man_, by Albert Jay Nock?


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

KCKclassic said:


> playboy?


Actually back in the early to mid 70's they had some great reading material. A lot of authors of note wrote for them and the interview subjects were stimulating. :icon_smile_big:


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

ajo said:


> Actually back in the early to mid 70's they had some great reading material. A lot of authors of note wrote for them and the interview subjects were stimulating. :icon_smile_big:


Yeah I've gotten quite a lot of stimulation from Playboy over the years myself. The interviews and literature I mean. Not the pictures of, say, Liz Glazowski. No sir, such dull sublunary pleasures are not for me.


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## Josey (Apr 30, 2008)

Henry David Thoreau
Rex Stout
Walter Mosley
Michael Chabon
Tom Robbins especially "Another Roadside Attraction"
Cormac McCarthy "The Border Trilogy"
Winston Churchill "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."


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## jamgood (Feb 8, 2006)

Loo reading

The English Gentleman
The English Gentleman Abroad
The English Gentleman's Good Shooting Guide
The English Gentleman's Wife / Mistress / Child

All by Douglas Sutherland https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-douglas-sutherland-1600567.html


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## Grundie (Oct 17, 2007)

I'm rather fond of the works of Douglas Adams. Admittedly, not real 'gentlemanly' reading material, but he does make you think and chuckle.


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## Coleman (Mar 18, 2009)

Josey said:


> Henry David Thoreau
> Rex Stout
> Walter Mosley
> Michael Chabon
> ...


If one likes Tom Robbins, I think _Still Life with Woodpecker _is a must.


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## aikon (Jan 29, 2007)

Bret Easton Ellis


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## KCKclassic (Jul 27, 2009)

I'd agree with the Ellis recommendations. FYI he has a new book coming out in the spring......a sequel to Less Than Zero. We'll see how that pans out, but since I've read everything else I will be getting it.
There are also rumours of a movie sequel, with Ellis hoping to re-unite the original cast.


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## 88 Pelican (Dec 8, 2008)

I'm on something of a Russian kick lately - Tolstoy and Dostoevsky make for great reading on a cold night, provided you have the available time to work your way through them.

P.G Wodehouse has been mentioned a few times, but I highly recommend you expand your selection beyond Jeeves and Wooster. He wrote a large number of short stories that don't involve his most famou duo, but are excellent reading.

Classic mysteries are always a great choice - Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie are still some of the best.


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## harland (Oct 13, 2008)

WindsorNot said:


> Tom Wolfe - Charlotte Simmons or Bonfire of the Vanities are modern classics.


Huh? I'd say _The Right Stuff_ is more of a modern classic than either of those two.


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## CMDC (Jan 31, 2009)

^ I haven't read the other two but The Right Stuff is amazing. Not sure it's curl up by the fire reading, but it definately gave me an appreication for what the space program did.


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## DCLawyer68 (Jun 1, 2009)

How about Louis Auchincloss?

https://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/10790/

A good place to start is his acknowledged classic, The Rector of Justin.

Others of interest include Skinny Island and Tales of Old Manhattan for those seeking a NY focus. For a Washington focus, The House of the Prophet.


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## Pleasant McIvor (Apr 14, 2008)

Bonfire of the Vanities is certainly a classic, I'd say. And Charlotte Simmons is spot-on accurate. He did some tremendous research for it.

As for Ken Follett, I think Pillars of the Earth is quite good. The sequel is decent too.

Of course, you can see Tacitus and Thucydides in Tom Wolfe and Homer in Follett. Ad fontes!



harland said:


> Huh? I'd say _The Right Stuff_ is more of a modern classic than either of those two.


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## Acacian (Jul 10, 2007)

For what its worth, I'm currently in the middle of 2 interesting non-fiction books that are interesting in that they examine the role of tradition and change in American history:

_The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America_ by E. Digby Baltzell (1964)

_The Birth of the Nation: A Portrait of the American People on the Eve of Independence_ by Arthur M. Schlesinger (1968)

Also, another nomination for the fiction realm: _The Lawrenceville Stories _by Owen Johnson.


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## DCLawyer68 (Jun 1, 2009)

Acacian said:


> For what its worth, I'm currently in the middle of 2 interesting non-fiction books that are interesting in that they examine the role of tradition and change in American history:
> 
> _The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America_ by E. Digby Baltzell (1964)
> 
> ...


I'll commend to you Gordon Wood's newest, Empire of Liberty, to you based on that list.


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## HistoryDoc (Dec 14, 2006)

DCLawyer68 said:


> I'll commend to you Gordon Wood's newest, Empire of Liberty, to you based on that list.


+1 for Gordon Wood. It is outstanding.


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## Valkyrie (Aug 27, 2009)

Every gentlemen should know his Bible (King James Version) and his Shakespeare. At least so he can catch all the references.

Every American gentlemen needs some classic Americana: a little Faulkner (Absalom, Absalom!) and some Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises), some Kerouac (On the Road, of course), Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn), Thoreau. 

Lots of good modern suggestions already. Here's mine: Everyone should at least try a little Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49 is probably easiest) and some William Gaddis (The Recognitions, JR). Other important things: Catch 22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Infinite Jest.


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## theCardiffGiant (Sep 16, 2007)

Some more selections off the top of my head:

Literary Prose:
Paul Theroux
V.S. Naipaul

Essayists:
Christopher Hitchens
Joseph Epstein

Poets:
A.E. Housman
The great epics: Homer, Vergil, Dante, and Milton

Scholars:
Anthony Grafton
A.D. Momigliano


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## aelred (May 26, 2007)

The following is the list I'm currently using for my lifetime reading plan. I'm only just finished Caesar's commentaries on the conquest of Gaul, and am augmenting with the Roman Civil War. I estimate a lot of catching up in decades when I retire. :icon_smile_big:

The Bible

History:
Greece & Rome :
Herodotus: Histories
Thucydides:The Peloponnesian War
A History of Greece, by J.B. Bury & Russell Meiggs

Livy: History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita)
Caesar:The Gallic War
Tacitus: The Annals
Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. D.M. Low
A History of Rome, by M. Cary & H.H. Scullard
Roman Imperialism, by Frank Tenney

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges: Ancient City

Europe:
Tacitus: Germania
Jordanes: History of the Goths
Gregory of Tours: History of the Franks
Gesta Danorum
A History of Europe, H.A.L. Fisher (Oxford, 1939).
Oswald Spengler: Decline of the West
UK:
Bede: History of the English People
Godefridus Monmouth: Historia Britonum
David Hume: History of England
Frank Stenton: Anglo-Saxon England
Chadwick: Origin of the English Nation
United States:
M.E. Bradford: Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution
Russell Kirk: John Randolph of Roanoke, Roots of American Order
Thomas DiLorenzo: The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War

Literature
Greece:
Homer: Iliad and Odyssey
Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days
Aeschylus: Oresteia.
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex
Euripides: Bacchae
Aristophanes: Clouds
Rome:
Plautus: Pseudolus
Catullus: Poems
Cicero: Orations Against Catiline, Philippics
Vergil: Aeneid, Eclogues, and Georgics
Horace: Odes; Satires, Book I
Ovid: Art of Love (Ars Amatoria).
Juvenile: Satires
Petronius: Satyricon
Old Norse / Germanic Mythology:
Voluspa
Poetic Edda
Prose Edda
Saga of the Volsungs
Nibelungelied
Heimskringla
Saga of Thidrek of Berne
Jakob Grimm: Germanic Mythology
Celtic Mythology:
Labor Gabala Erenn
Cath Maige Tuired
Story of the Tuatha De Danaan
Ulster Cycle
Fenian Cycle
Maginogion
England:
Beowulf
Deor
Battle of Finnsburgh
Chaucer: Canterbury Tales
Fitzstephen, William: Caedes in Ecclesia (Thomas Becket)
Malory: Morte D’Athur
Sir Thomas More: Utopia, Epigrammata
Shakespeare: Hamlet, King Lear, Henry IV, et al.
Donne: Poetry
Milton: Paradise Lost, Latin Poems
Pope: Essay on Man, (Horatian) Satires, Translations of Homer
Poetry: Tennyson, Coleridge, Yeats
Rudyard Kipling: "The Children's Song," "A Song of White Men," "The Stranger," and "Song of the Fifth River."
Germany:
Nibelungelied
Goethe: Sufferings of Young Werther, The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister, Faust
Friedrich Holderlin: Hyperion
France:
Song of Roland
Racine: Plays
La Fontaine: Fables
Moliere: Plays
Claudel, P.: Poetry
Mallarme: Herodiade; Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui...
Jean Raspail: Camp of the Saints
Italy:
Dante: Divine Comedy
Petrarch: Italian and Latin poems
Boccaccio: "Decameron," Latin poems, et al.
Spain:
Cervantes: Don Quixote
Holland:
Erasmus: The Praise of Folly, De Copia Verborum, De Ratione Studii
United States:
Early American Latin Verse: An Anthology, ed. Leo M. Kaiser
Relatio Itineris in Marilandiam, Andrew White
T.S. Eliot: The Wasteland and Prufrock

Aesthetics / Literary Criticism:
Aristotle: Poetics
Horace: Ars Poetica
Quintilian: The Orator’s Education
Isidore of Seville: Etymologiae
Burke: On the Sublime and Beautiful
Schiller: “On Naive and Sentimental Poetry”
Matthew Arnold: Culture & Anarchy
T. S. Eliot: “Tradition and Individual Talent” in The Sacred Wood

Political Philosophy:

Plutarch: Lives: Lycurgus and Solon
Plato:The Republic, The Laws
Aristotle: Politics, Nicomachean Ethics
Cicero: The Republic, The Laws, On Duties (De Officiis).
Thomas Aquinas: Treatise on Law
Machiavelli: The Prince
Hobbes: Leviathan
Filmer: Patriarcha
Locke: Second Treatise of Civil Government
Edmund Burke: Reflections on the French Revolution
Joseph de Maistre: Considerations on France
Chateaubriand: Essai historique, politique et moral sur les revolutions anciennes et modernes; Genie du christianisme.
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morality; Beyond Good and Evil
F.H. Bradley: “My Station and Its Duties” in Ethical Studies


Tocqueville: Democracy in America
U.S. Constitution, Federalist Papers

Contemporary Conservative Thought:
Twelve Southerners: I'll Take My Stand
Russell Kirk: The Conservative Mind
Thomas Fleming: Politics of Human Nature; The Morality of Everyday Life: Rediscovering an Ancient Alternative to the Liberal Tradition
Sam Francis: Shots Fired, Essential Writings on Race
Paul Gottfried: Conservatism in America
Patrick J. Buchanan: State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America; Death of the West
Chilton Williamson Jr.: The Conservative Bookshelf
Tomislav Sunic: Against Democracy and Equality
Frank Salter: On Genetic Interests


Philosophy:
The Oxford History of Western Philosophy, ed. Anthony Kenny
Modern Philosophy: Introduction and Survey, Roger Scruton

Plato: Republic, Meno, Apology
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Metaphysics
Cicero: On Duties (De Officiis), On the Ends of Good and Evil (De Finibus), On the Nature of the Gods (De Natura Deorum), Academics (Academica), Tusculan Disputations (Tusculanae Disputationes), Stoic Paradoxes (Paradoxa Stoicorum), The Republic (De Re Publica), The Laws (De Legibus)
Seneca: Moral Essays
Augustine: Confessiones
Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica
Descartes: Meditationes De Prima Philosophia, Discours de la methode
Vico: The New Science
Berkeley: Treatise the Concerning Principles of Human Knowledge
Spinoza: Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demostrata
Locke: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Treatise of Human Nature
Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
Hegel: Philosophy of History

Science:
Plato: Timaeus
Aristotle: Physics, Heavens, Parts of Animals, On Plants
Euclid: Elements
Lucretius: De Rerum Natura
Pliny: Historia Naturalis
Galilei: Sidereus Nuntius
Bacon, R.: Opus Maius
Bacon, F.: Novum Organum
Kepler: Astronomia Nova
Newton: Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Other:
A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler, J.L.E. Dreyer
Frank Salter: On Genetic Interests


Anthropology & Sociology:
Emile Durkheim: Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Roger Pearson: Introduction to Anthroplogy


Economics:
Xenophon: Oeconomicus
Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class
Josef Pieper: Leisure: The Basis of Culture
Wilhelm Ropke: A Humane Economy


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## smujd (Mar 18, 2008)

"The Road To Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek


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## P Hudson (Jul 19, 2008)

William Martin's _Harvard Yard_ might qualify. It's not Updike, but it's alright. Same with _Back Bay_ and _Annapolis_. I like Shelby Foote on the Civil War as well as his smaller works. He could put a sentence together well.


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## stcolumba (Oct 10, 2006)

Mystery

Three great British writers--Colin Dexter, Dorothy Sayers, and P.J. Burley. All well are well crafted and are examples of English at its most beautiful.


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## mxgreen (Jan 18, 2009)

Valkyrie said:


> Lots of good modern suggestions already. Here's mine: Everyone should at least try a little Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49 is probably easiest) and some William Gaddis (The Recognitions, JR). Other important things: Catch 22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Infinite Jest.


All attorneys out there should read Gaddis' A Frolic of His Own.

For literary criticism and reference anything by Harold Bloom.


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## AdamsSutherland (Jan 22, 2008)

Ayn Rand- Atlas Shrugged


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## oldschoolprep (Jun 21, 2007)

This question is a simple one:

The Road to Serfdom by Frederick Hayek

If Men Were Angels by James Lane Buckley, former US Senator from New York amd US Appeals Judge.

Deliverance by James Dickey



Corcovado said:


> I Tivo'd that last night and am looking forward to watching it.
> 
> Getting back to book recommendations: _The Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ by T.E. Lawrence is another good read.


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

theCardiffGiant said:


> I'll second John Dos Passos.
> 
> And moving away from fiction, what about _Memoirs of a Superfluous Man_, by Albert Jay Nock?


I recently read 1959 The Year Everything Changed by Fred Kaplan along with Eiffels Tower by Jill Jones. Both highly recommended.


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## zzdocxx (Sep 26, 2011)

I don't know how I got started on this thread, searching for something about neckties.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

WouldaShoulda said:


> The Bible.
> 
> The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
> 
> Paradise Lost.


Cor Blimey!

It's taken a trawl of the archives, right back to November 2009 but - finally, here it is!

It's the Holy Grail! 
A WouldaShoulda post that I wholeheartedly endorse. :devil:


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## Fading Fast (Aug 22, 2012)

I don't think I was even a lurker on this board when this thread was in its heyday, but I will go back and slowly read it (after this morning's speed read). Two additions that came immediately to mind is 

"House of Mirth" - a gentleman can learn a lot about what to and to not do from this classic

"Winds of War" - Pug Henry is a man who faces a lot of challenges and shows us how a man (a flawed but always trying to be a good man) deals with them.


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## ashcroft99 (Dec 12, 2008)

What about a handful of selections from the works of Walter Bagehot?


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## pwalsh33 (Oct 29, 2007)

Terrific suggestions so far. I have always loved the novels of Ludwig Bemelmans and tried to point people in his direction. Best known for the "Madeline" books, his novels are terrific as are the illustrations that accompany them. In particular:

Hotel Bemelmans
How to Travel Incognito
My War With the United States


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

Just finished reading Flann O'Brien's _The Third Policeman_, for what must be about the 20th time. Outstanding.

Other recommendations off the top of my head would be Graham Greene's _Brighton Rock_, (had a copy in the house for years and I never read it. Something about English gangsters didn't really appeal. But what a masterpiece of a novel it is. Really takes you inside the mind of a psychopath)

_Journey Into Fear_ by Eric Ambler.
_I Wake Up Screaming_ by Steve Fisher.
Any of the Chandler novels, (and short stories), although _Playback_ isn't really that good.
Anything by Dashiell Hammett that features The Continental Op. _Red Harvest_ is the best.

Poetry.... Wilfred Owen.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Odradek said:


> Just finished reading Flann O'Brien's _The Third Policeman_, for what must be about the 20th time. Outstanding.
> 
> Other recommendations off the top of my head would be *Graham Greene's Brighton Rock*, (had a copy in the house for years and I never read it. Something about English gangsters didn't really appeal. But what a masterpiece of a novel it is. Really takes you inside the mind of a psychopath)
> 
> ...


Ahh.... God bless Pinkie Brown, the loveable scamp.


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## Lord Elgin (Jan 26, 2014)

A timeless thread and indeed time for a revival. Already took up some notes from previous messages.

I noticed that W. Somerset Maugham has not yet been mentioned: For example Razor's edge, Mrs. Craddock and Of human bondage are three books which both entertain and also provoked some thinking. Great reads!

Patrick deWitt: The Sisters Brothers is just so plain dark and funny at the same time, and besides also an easy read even for us non-native English speakers. I recall laughing out loud every few pages.


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## WillBarrett (Feb 18, 2012)

Walker Percy...


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## WouldaShoulda (Aug 5, 2009)

Shaver said:


> Cor Blimey!
> 
> It's taken a trawl of the archives, right back to November 2009 but - finally, here it is!
> 
> ...


Those were much simpler times...


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## Walter Denton (Sep 11, 2011)

American Pastoral - Philip Roth.
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
All Quiet on The Western Front - Eric Maria Remarque


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