Bibliothèque Idéale

A list of books that have contributed to my understanding, with the understanding that it could be different on the next blue moon.

Homer: The Iliad (850 B.C.)

Herodotus: Histories (480-425 B.C.)

Plato: Dialogues (427-348 B.C.)

Aeschylus: Oresteia (459 B.C.)

Sophocles: Oedipus (496-406 B.C.)

Lycophron: Alexandra (285-247 B.C.)

Vergil: Aeneid (19 B.C.)

The Bible

Petronius: The Satyricon (66)

Damascius the Diadoque: The First Principles (533?)

The I Ching

Confucius and Mencius: The Four Books

Lao-tse: Tao te Ching

Li-Po: The Poetry and Career of Li Po

Murasaki Shikibu: Tale of Genji (1015?)

Sei Shonogon: Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

Dante: Divina Commedia (1321)

Villon: Le Petit et Le Grand Testament (1456 & 1461)

Rabelais: The Five Books (1532-1564).

Montaigne: Essays (1580)

Cervantes: Don Quixote (1605)

Shakespeare: Complete works (1590-1612)

Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

Molière: Théatre (1661-1673)

Pascal: Pensèes (1670 & 1844)

DeFoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719-20)

Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

Richardson: Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740-42)

Fielding: Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)

Rousseau: Confessions (1775-76)

Kant: Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

Kant: Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789-94)

Hegel: The Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807)

Fourier: Théorie des Quatre Mouvements (1808)

Equiano: The Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

Goethe: Faust (1808)

Goethe: Conversations (1836)

Poe: Complete works (1809-1849)

Stendhal: Le Rouge et le Noir (1830)

Stendhal: La Chartreuse de Parme (1839)

Gogol: Dead Souls (1842)

Whitman: Leaves of Grass (1855)

Baudelaire: Les Fleurs de Mal (1857)

Dostoyevsky: The Idiot (1868)

Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Marx: Capital (1867)

Lautrèmont: Les Chants de Maldoror (1868)

Flaubert: L’Education Sentimentale (1869)

Flaubert: Bouvard et Pècuchet (1881)

Rimbaud: Une Saison en Enfer (1873)

Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-92)

Mallarmè: Oeuvres Complètes (1893)

Wilde: The Importance of being Earnest (1895)

Valèry: Monsieur Teste (1896)

Jarry: Oeuvres Complètes (1900)

Freud: Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

Cavafy: Poems (1904)

H. James: Notebooks.

Grahame: The Wind in the Willows (1908)

G. Stein: Three Lives (1909)

R. Roussel: Impressions d’Afrique (1910).

G. Stein: The Making of Americans (1911)

Joyce: Ulysses (1921)

Proust: A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (1913-27).

Vaihinger: The Philosophy of ‘As if” (1924)

Herriman: Krazy Kat (1913-44)

Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925)

Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Cather: My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Suzuki: Essays in Zen Buddhism (1927)

Breton: Nadja (1928)

Musil: Man without Qualities (1930-42)

Celine: Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (1932)

Celine: Mort à Credit (1936)

H. Green: Party Going (1939)

Joyce: Finnegans Wake (1939)

Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)

Garcia Lorca: Poeta en Nueva York (1940)

M. Moore: Collected Poems (1951)

Adorno: Minima Moralia (1951)

W. Stevens: The Necessary Angel (1951)

Tutuola: The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952)

O’Connor: Wise Blood (1952)

Queneau: La Dimanche de la Vie (1952)

Beckett: Watt (1953)

W. Stevens: Collected Poems (1954)

Mann: Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (1954)

Nabokov: Lolita (1955)

Achebe: Things Fall Apart (1958)

Southern: The Magic Christian (1960)

Cabrera Infante: Tres Tristes Tigres (1965)

Capote: In Cold Blood (1966)

Berryman: The Dream Songs (1969)

Stoppard: Travesties (1975)

Portis: The Dog of the South (1979)

Von Rezzori: Memoirs of an Anti-Semite (1981)

R.F. Thompson: The Flash of the Spirit (1983)

Chatwin: The Songlines (1987)

Arenas: Before Night Falls (1993)

James: A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014)

Comments
4 Responses to “Bibliothèque Idéale”
  1. Julie says:

    what a list! May I ask you, do you know Foucaults The Order of Discourse? I will use your list. thank you.

    • KT says:

      I’ve read Foucault but not the the Order of Discourse. Could you mean The Order of Things? If so, I’ll order it on your recommendation.

  2. KT says:

    Good Lawd, Feb 23 and I’ve just caught this now, June 1st. Just to say thank you for your kind words. You can also follow me on my somewhat autobiographical site, http://www.booksareweapons.com.
    All amities,
    Kurt

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