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1. I would put Paul Johnson’s Modern Times on the list pronto -a prophylactic against bien-pensant misinterpretations of 20th century history – made a big impact on my SDS sefl at age 23 or so. Other thoughts: Seven Pillars of Wisdom; Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta, Candide, Duby’s L’an mille, Belloc’s The Path to Rome, Bernanos Memoirs of a Country Priest, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (to show that Brits can have faith, up to a point), Christ Stopped at Eboli (to show Europe profonde), Junger’s Storm of Steel (to teach that some men -many men – really enjoy fighting in wars)… more TK.

   — Sam Schulman · Oct 4, 09:25 AM · #

2. Great, forgotten math fantasy book, “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” – visits to a 2-dimensional world – charming, mathematically wonderful, stretches the imagination to absorb scientific concepts.

   — Sam Schulman · Oct 4, 09:30 AM · #

3. My suggestions in philosophy : Tocqueville (Democratie en Amérique, t. II), Mill (On Liberty, Subjection of Women), some Raymond Aron (his introduction to political philosophy drawn from his lessons at ENA are quite good and easy to read).

   My suggestions in litterature : Plutarch’s Parallel Lives are a must, I’d strongly suggest Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Moby Dick. Slaugtherhouse 5. As for poetry, your catholic soul might be interested by the wonderful Manley Hopkins.

   My suggestions in history : Braudel’s Grammaire des civilisations is a good starting point. The Debate on the French Revolution, A. Cobban (sort of TL;DR of François Furet). Schama’s The Embarrasment of Riches would be a bit tough to read but is fascinating.

   A small Levi-Strauss could aso be worth it (e.g. L’Anthropologie face aux problèmes du monde moderne, or the more classical “Tristes Tropiques”). Around 18, “La pensée sauvage” is a must-read.

   Two good books to have, not necessarily to be read entirely : “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” and “Guns, germs and steel”.

   — Raveline · Oct 4, 09:57 AM · #

4. I am not much of a reader. Here are some books that I have enjoyed:

   Boats with an Open Mind
   Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets of Baltimore
   Fooled By Randomness: The Role of Chance in Markets and Life
   Guns, Germs and Steel (for the approach to the question more than than Diamond’s answer, I lack the expertise to have an opinion about his answer)
   What Hath God Wroght
   Gates of Fire

   — David Ryan · Oct 4, 11:07 AM · #

5. Thanks to everyone, and please keep ‘em coming.

   David Ryan: Googling reveals two “What Hath God Wrought”—which one do you mean? And thank you for your contribution.

   — PEG · Oct 4, 12:21 PM · #

6. One of the books that changed my life when I was that age was “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. It’s worth reading, despite who the author is. The most magnificent thing about it— it encourages child autonomy and independent thinking.

   Stephen King’s “On Writing” is probably the best book on the subject.

   Church fathers: Origen, Clement.

   For modern American literature, Art of Fielding is one of my favorites.

   Also, anything by Aldous Huxley.

   — Samantha · Oct 4, 01:15 PM · #

7. With a couple of yours, these are our musts, some begat others by the author.

   Fountainhead
   Snowcrash
   Gorgias
   Run With Horsemen
   Ishmael
   Tractatus
   Florida Roadkill
   Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
   Anarchy, State, and Utopia
   The Prince

   and earlier in life

   Soup
   The Great Brain

   — morgan warstler · Oct 4, 01:17 PM · #

8. For fiction, I can’t recommend highly enough Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Polish Trilogy (With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Pan Michael). Wonderful stories, memorable characters, and gung-ho Catholic so you’ll love them.

   — John O'Herron · Oct 4, 01:26 PM · #

9. I highly recommend J.K. Galbraith’s “The Affluent Society”. If you want to understand left-liberal economic thinking in the broadest sense (i.e. in the sense of “what should be the economic goals of policymaking”, rather than more technical stuff) it’s a very good explanation, and it’s pretty clearly written and easy to understand.

   — Dan Miller · Oct 4, 01:34 PM · #

10. Kierkegaard : Fear and Trembling. Hans Jonas, The Concept of God after Auschwitz. François Varillon : L’humilité de Dieu, La souffrance de Dieu. Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity.

    Let’s go medieval : Chanson de Roland, Tristan et Iseult, anything by Chrétien de Troyes, Marco Polo’s Travels, Vie de Saint Louis (Joinville), the two trials (condemnation and appeal) of Joan of Arc. Some Icelandic sagas.

    Lazarillo de Tormes and Don Quixote. Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses. Xavier de Maistre, Voyage autour de ma chambre. Potocki, Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse. Lucien Rebatet, Les deux étendards.

    Jules Verne : 20 000 lieues sous les mers, De la terre à la lune + Autour de la lune, Le Tour du monde en 80 jours, Cinq semaines en ballon.

    Ernst Jünger : Heliopolis, On the Marble Cliffs, Eumeswil. Luttwak : Coup d’État, a practical handbook.

    — Baroque · Oct 4, 01:43 PM · #

11. Agree with Raveline about putting Plutarch on the list. Gibbon is also very good just for the quality of his English prose if nothing else.

    Huck Finn is one of those books I’ve read many times. I’ve outgrown it’s implicit Rousseauianism but it’s still a great book.

    Mauss. The Gift (or Essai sur le don since Michele can read the original)

    Also, in the spirit of your Principa Mathematica comment, I’m gonna make the heretical suggestion that sometimes it’s better to go with secondary summaries of scientific fields than with great books that launched them. When I wanted to learn more about evolution I read Futuyama’s textbook, not Origin of Species. One of my frustrations with my own discipline of sociology (as expressed here in the form of satire http://soc2econ.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/theoretical-pedagogy-contextualized-in-sociology-vs-black-boxed-in-economics/) is that we learn only through primary sources and aren’t willing to focus on concepts as they have developed. That may make me a bad conservative but it is how science is supposed to work. I’m willing to make exceptions (like Mauss) but in general there’s no shame in picking up a textbook.

    — Gabriel · Oct 4, 01:44 PM · #

12. A few thoughts:

    I’m sure as Frenchman you wouldn’t leave this off, but The Pensees is a must. One of the most penetrating looks at humanity ever written.

    Put some Kierkegaard in there, but in particular his essay “The Present Age”. Fairly straight forward and easier to read that some of his stuff, and also the best encapsulation and take down of modernity I’ve read.

    T.S. Eliot will surely be on there, but make sure you include The Four Quartets, which many ignore but in fact represent the summation of his entire career as a poet, and also are the greatest religious poetry since the Psalms. Along that vein, Czeslaw Milosz is also great.

    And, if your kids are up to it, some macro histories. Anything by McLuhan or Girard, and if you want them to understand America, Christopher Lasch.

    — Asher Gelzer-Govatos · Oct 4, 02:24 PM · #

13. In American education there is a tradition that on some days the teacher just isn’t prepared, so slacks off and shows a movie.

    That Very Munchausen (Mark Zacharov, director)- has entertainment value, but there is good food for thought. English subtitles are available.

    Pokayanie – directed by Tenghiz Abuladze. I happen to like it with Russian voiceover and English subtitles. Maybe a bit advanced for a 12-year-old, but I wish I had seen things like that when I was 12.

    And for entertainment, almost anything done by Eldar Ryazanov. Enjoyable on many levels. One can learn how people cope with the kind of society ours is coming to be.

    — John Gorentz · Oct 4, 02:44 PM · #

14. I’m getting some good ideas for my own reading here.

    About a year ago I started, but did not complete, a Frost canon of books which are required reading for our children before they leave the house. So far:

    Going after Cacciato
    True Grit
    The Winter Journey from The Worst Journey in the World
    Jane Eyre
    Kristin Lavransdatter
    Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
    The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
    Atheist Delusions (oh how I wish there were a version geared at 12 year olds)

    As for patristic era, I would vote for homilies or letters over most doctrinal works. “On Marriage and Family Life” is a good collection of homilies from John Chrysostom. Excerpts from Egeria’s letter. Ignatius of Antioch’s letters. I’ve thought about compiling my own primer on theological anthropology for my children. I want them to understand the continuum of thought on who we are and why we are, but I don’t want to inflict, say, the entirety of Irenaeus’ Against the Heresies on them. (I’ll be sure to send you a copy, PEG.)

    — Carrie Frederick Frost · Oct 4, 03:02 PM · #

15. I was happy to see that you’ve added my favorite book of all time, Invisible Man, to the list already! I’d like to suggest that you add:

    James Baldwin – Notes of a Native Son
    Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
    Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin

    As for film, I’d like to suggest a somewhat unconventional pick that nevertheless I truly enjoyed as a kid:

    Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life.

    — David Bacon · Oct 4, 03:14 PM · #

16. Endo – Silence
    Manhae – Everything Yearned For
    Lowry – The Giver
    Lazarillo de Tormes
    Osamu – Run, Melos!
    Natsume – Kokoro
    Sato Takako – Yellow Eye Fish [if it’s translated by then!]

    — James Smyth · Oct 4, 04:11 PM · #

17. what fun! Of course, I think that teenagers should be forced to read a few crucial books and fed the best books possible on whatever they’re interested in. That said:

    Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis is a book that changed my life. It’s a retelling of the myth of Cupid & Psyche that somehow manages to go a lot of really interesting places. Especially during the emotional turmoil of adolescence, this story was really helpful for me in thinking through relationships, faith, and love.

    It’s very evangelical, but I consider “Let The Nations Be Glad!” by John Piper a very important book, mostly because I think that every Christian ought to be thinking about/praying for/supporting missions to unreached peoples.

    I’m surprised that no one has mentioned short stories yet— Flannery O’Connor has to be in there and I think “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” a good one for teenagers. I’d also make sure that there’s some Wendell Berry and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in here, too.

    Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson are both very important novels about human relationships, faith, family, and loving the place that you live.

    A Tale of Two Cities makes it to a lot of Great Books lists, but I think it’s important not only because of the historical context, but also because the ending is one of the great Christ-parables. Same with Les Mis (the eager beavers can read the unabridged version or settle for the unabridged.)

    If they’re ever going to live/work in an American city, The Corner by David Simon and To Live In Peace by Mark Gornik are require reading— I’ll contradict David Ryan here and say that both are more interesting/useful than Homicide. If they’re ever going to work in a 3rd world country or in some kind of development work, they’ll have to read When Helping Hurts and The Poisonwood Bible.

    A solid graphic novel, like Maus, Watchmen, or Persepolis.

    Totally agree with Ender’s Game and T.S. Eliot. For English poetry would undoubtedly add Donne and Seamus Heaney.

    — Matthew Loftus · Oct 4, 05:57 PM · #

18. In some ways I think I only started reading seriously around 17 or 18 years old, so it’s hard for me to give recommendations for the mid-teen years. I think if someone had given me really great stuff at 14 or 15 I probably would have read it in a really superficial way.

    That said, here are some suggestions.

    Sam Schulman’s suggestion of Paul Johnson’s “Modern Times” is a great one—it is a narrative style history (i.e. not only for academics) and is just iconoclastic enough to make you really look at history in a new way. I read it at 17 and it made a big impact.

    Eugen Weber’s “Peasants into Frenchmen” is a real mind-blower—really long but you could do selections.

    John Lukacs’s “Democracy and Populism” could be a cool intro to political theory. Essayistic and accessible.

    As for 20th century American literature, I’m partial to Saul Bellow—there are a lot of good novels, some monstrously long (Augie March), some very short (Seize the Day). I am a big Cheever fan, and since he wrote mostly short stories you can always choose a few. John Updike has a big oeuvre with some clunkers in there, but some really good stuff, and engages with Christianity in an interesting way. “The Sun Also Rises” by Hemingway is a good choice because it’s good and just the right length.

    Joan Didion’s essays (for example, “The White Album”) are great from a literary perspective but also for learning about a certain era of American history.

    Someone mentioned Tom Wolfe—I’d recommend his short books about art and architecture (From Bauhaus to our House, The Painted Word)—they are funny and well-written in their own right, and are also a fun introduction to thinking about criticism of art.

    I know you’ve talked about C.S. Lewis a little bit in earlier posts, but “Mere Christianity” and “The Screwtape Letters” are great for that age.

    — Gaius · Oct 4, 05:59 PM · #

19. Church fathers: – Von Balthasar’s Origen anthology is still the best introduction – Gregory the Great: Life of St Benedict, Introduction to the Moralia on Job (if you can get your hands on one of the old Sources chretiennes editions w/ the French translation) – Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses (can’t recommend this one strongly enough … a structural pillar of eastern xtian spirituality) – Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection – Irenaeus, Against Heresies (I. has the most biblical imagination of the early fathers, really wonderful stuff) – Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word (this really needs to be on your list … available from St. Vladimir’s press)

    In general, you might just look at the SVS (St Vlad seminary) “popular patristics” series for ideas. Lots, lots of good stuff in there.

    BY THE WAY how about some medieval stuff: say, Bonaventure’s ITINERARIUM or his TREE OF LIFE.

    Blessings!

    — Rob S. · Oct 4, 06:38 PM · #

20. I mentioned this on Twitter, but thought I’d expand on why I think you ought to put Thomas Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” on the list. It’s a really fascinating look at how science is actually done and how fields develop, and gets beyond the highly simplistic version of the scientific method that gets taught in most schools. I think it’s a nice (albeit partial) antidote to crude scientism and its various myths as well. So if your kids are interested in growing up to Science!, this will give them some great context as to its history and culture.

    It’s also relatively accessible. I don’t think a teenager would have too much trouble reading it, as opposed to, say, Foucault, who is great for contextualizing science but also extremely dense.

    — Richard Mehlinger · Oct 4, 09:01 PM · #

21. I’d also like to suggest Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, which I loved reading in grad school, as a really stellar example of a non-materialist take on history that shows how religious ideas have impacted economic development. As with Kuhn, while the analysis and ideas are complex and brilliant, I found it to be quite readable.

    — Richard Mehlinger · Oct 4, 09:04 PM · #

22. Lots of good suggestions here, but I’m surprised no one has mentioned Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain. Your kid can skim the really involved theological meditations if (God forbid) they want, but it’s one of the best autobiographies of the 20th c. I’d also put Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed at the top of any great books list. (On sci-fi in general: Ender’s Game is age-appropriate, but there’s so much better stuff out there, it’s hard to recommend in a short list).

    My academic field is Jewish philosophy, but, to be honest, there’s very little modern stuff I’d recommend to your child – or to your adult, for that matter. Maybe something by Heschel: The Prophets, or God in Search of Man. I’ll keep thinking.

    — Emily · Oct 5, 02:55 PM · #

23. + 1 to Eugen Weber’s Peasants into Frenchmen. Goes well with Essai sur le don, Seeing Like a State, Quicksilver, etc, in terms of showing just how radical a break modernity is from the vast bulk of human experience.

    Weber also had a very informative and entertaining intro to Western Civ class on American public tv about 25 years ago. You can still watch it on the internet. http://www.learner.org/resources/series58.html?pop=yes&vodid=629577&pid=867#

    I still occasionally laugh about his lecture on the influence of Marx on left-wing parties when he quotes some labor party leader as saying “I don’t read that crap, I prefer adventure novels.”

    — Gabriel · Oct 5, 04:15 PM · #

24. Whatever you do, please keep your children away from Diamond (and instead, if you want to give them a big, sweeping book about ‘why the West and not the rest’, try Clark’s “A Farewell to Alms”).

    I thought Hawking was an interesting choice, but I found that he’s not the most accessible writer (despite his reputation). I think a better all around, fun introduction to modern physics is Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”.

    Also, I don’t know if you have boys or not, but I would recommend Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” if you do (I wasn’t a big fan of Card’s “Ender’s Game”, but will see the film precisely because of who he is, pace Samantha’s silly comment). Girls might like the “Hunger Games” novels — I couldn’t be bothered to read them although my daughter loved them (and my wife said they were O.K.)

    Finally, I wonder if Barzun’s “From Dawn to Decadence” will be too much for a student in high-school. If not, it would compliment Johnson’s “Modern History” nicely.

    — Fake Herzog · Oct 7, 07:44 PM · #

25. I would like to recommend Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” for a look at culture, the history of communication from oral to print to video. I would also recommend The Microbe Hunters for a living book Science study. I recommend this one based on the recommendations made to me, not by my own reading of it.

    — Shelley Dorman · Oct 8, 01:42 AM · #

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