137 Great Books Reading Tracker
Mortimer Adler believed the best way to understand civilization was to read the works that shaped it.Great Books tradition , covering philosophy, literature, science, politics, and theology.
Books Read: Books In Progress: Total Books: 137
Ancient Greek Literature
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes The Iliad Homer The Odyssey Homer Complete Plays Aeschylus Complete Plays Sophocles Complete Plays Euripides The Histories Herodotus History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides
Greek Philosophy
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Dialogues Plato Politics Aristotle Ethics Aristotle Metaphysics Aristotle Physics Aristotle On the Soul Aristotle
Hellenistic & Roman Thought
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Parallel Lives Plutarch Enchiridion Epictetus Meditations Marcus Aurelius Letters from a Stoic Seneca On Duties Cicero The Aeneid Virgil
Early Christian & Medieval Thought
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Confessions Augustine City of God Augustine Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas The Divine Comedy Dante Canterbury Tales Chaucer
Renaissance
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes The Prince Machiavelli Essays Montaigne Don Quixote Cervantes
Shakespeare
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Complete Plays William Shakespeare
Early Modern Philosophy
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Novum Organum Francis Bacon Leviathan Thomas Hobbes Discourse on Method René Descartes Meditations René Descartes Ethics Spinoza Two Treatises of Government John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke
Enlightenment
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Candide Voltaire The Social Contract Rousseau Confessions Rousseau Critique of Pure Reason Kant Critique of Practical Reason Kant Critique of Judgment Kant
Political Philosophy
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes The Federalist Papers Hamilton / Madison / Jay Democracy in America Tocqueville
Science
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Copernicus Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Galileo Principia Mathematica Newton The Origin of Species Darwin
Economics & Social Thought
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith The Communist Manifesto Marx / Engels Capital Karl Marx
19th Century Philosophy
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel Either/Or Kierkegaard Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche
Major Literature
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes Faust Goethe War and Peace Tolstoy Anna Karenina Tolstoy The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky Madame Bovary Flaubert Moby-Dick Herman Melville The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
20th Century Thought
Book Author Status Difficulty Notes The Interpretation of Dreams Freud Civilization and Its Discontents Freud Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein
Personal Notes Section
As I read through these works, I will add:
• summaries
The goal is not just to read these books, but to participate in the great conversation of Western thought .
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Mortimer Adler's Reading List 