Greater Books

Clifton Fadiman and John S Major, The New Lifetime Reading Plan [1997]

672 entries: 565 monographical, 107 otherwise

Unranked—arranged chronologically (nos. 1-360) and alphabetically by author (no. 361-567)

The New Lifetime Reading Plan is the fourth, final edition of The Lifetime Reading Plan, originally published in 1960. In this version, John S. Major contributes, but it is still overall Fadiman's work. Finished just before his death, this list is one the "big five" of "great books" lists, alongside Charles W. Eliot's, Mortimer Adler's, Phillip Ward's, and Harold Bloom's. Adler and Fadiman both attended Columbia University in the early Nineteen-Twenties when John Erskine and others were developing the kind of educational programs that came to be associated with the concept of "great books"; they remained friends and Fadiman supported Adler's Great Books project. Overall, Fadiman's literary career (editor at Simon and Schuster, the New Yorker magazine, and the Book of the Month Club) reflects the intellectual milieu of mid-Twentieth-Century America that produced and supported projects such as Adler's. Fadiman also became known as a radio and television host.

For this list, both the authors' commentaries and the bibliography in the back of the book clarify their choices. For example, though Fadiman lists "selected works" for Plato, he explains in the accompanying text that certain works are especially important. At times, the bibliography's recommended edition of an author's collected poems or stories does not exactly match what was listed in the text, most of all their recommendation of Hemingway's complete stories despite only listing "stories," which in this project we would not assume is a "complete" listing. In this case, I go with the relatively-specific listing in the bibliography.

In some cases, such as the Federalist Papers or The Berlin Stories, the authors especially recommend portions of a work; however, these particular references do not discount the recommendation of the work as a whole.

In other cases, Fadiman and Major recommend books other than those in the chapter heading; these are included as well. However, books that are simply noted in the essays—referring to, say, another critic's opinion or general consensus—are not considered part of the list; only those directly recommended, or given high accolades, are included. For example, despite only listing Stendhal's The Red and the Black, Fadiman then notes that many consider the The Charterhouse of Parma to be "equal" to the former, concluding, "Try it." Merely noting that others rank Charterhouse with Red would not suffice; that extra short sentence puts it in the list. In Thomas Hardy's chapter, The Mayor of Casterbridge is the work listed at the top; the other major novels are noted, but only as being "generally admired"; Fadiman says nothing more about them. But he does note earlier that "many rate his verse above his novels" and "he is one of two dozen or so English poets you may wish to read most closely." Having noted "his gigantic cosmic panorama of the Napoleonic wars, The Dynasts," and given those remarks about the high quality of his poetry, I see fit to include it. At other times, the authors recommend further reading if the participants in their reading plan come to especially appreciate a certain author. For example, Major says, "If you find yourself drawn into Mishima's weirdly brilliant mind, you might also want to try The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea and his four-volume masterpiece and final testament, The Sea of Fertility." And sometimes they do both, as with Kawabata Yasunari, in whose entry Major recommends Snow Country despite not listing it, and later adds that those "becoming a fan" should read The Master of Go.

When you reach the Richard Adams listing, you've entered the second part of this list, entitled 'Going Further'. As the authors explain, these works are Twentieth-Century "temporary classics" ("important in our time, if not forever") by authors "whose works [...] will be of interest to readers of The New Lifetime Reading Plan." These authors "fall into at least three subgroups": "acknowledged modern masters"; "writers whom we believe are of the first rank but who so far have not had the widespread recognition they deserve"; and "writers of the post-war period whose books [...] helped to define the literary and intellectual terrain of our time." These entries are included, especially as Harold Bloom's canon has a similar, massive section of contemporary literature.

Sha Naqba Imuru

The Epic of Gilgamesh; He Who Saw the Deep
Eighteenth-Tenth centuries B C—Sumerian; Akkadian

Homer

Iliad

ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

Odýsseia

The Odyssey
ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C—Greek

Confucius (Kŏng Zǐ) (Kŏng Fūzǐ) (K'ung Fu-tzu)

Analects

Lún Yǔ
written and compiled by the author's pupils; ca. Fifth Century B C-Second Century—Chinese

Aeschylus

Oresteia

The House of Atreus
458 B C—Greek

Sophocles

Oidipous Tyrannos

Oedipus Rex; Oedipus the King
ca. 429 B C—Greek

Oidipous epi Kolōnō

Oedipus at Colonus
401 B C—Greek

Antigone
ca. 441 B C—Greek

Euripides

Alkēstis

Alcestis
438 B C—Greek

Mēdeia

Medea
431 B C—Greek

Hippolytos

428 B C—Greek

Trōiades

The Trojan Woman
415 B C—Greek

Ēlektra

Electra
written ca. 413 B C—Greek

Bakchai

The Bacchae
405 B C—Greek

Herodotus

Historiē

History
Fifth Century B C—Greek

Thucydides

History of the Peloponnesian War

early Fifth Century B C—Greek

Sūnzǐ (Sun-tzu)

Sūnzǐ Bīngfǎ

The Art of War
written ca. Fifth-Third centuries B C—Chinese

Aristophanes

Lysistrate

Lysistrata
411 B C—Greek

Nephelai

The Clouds
423 B C; revised 417 B C; only revised version remains—Greek

Ornithes
The Birds
414 B C—Greek
- Plato

Selected works