I like also to roam around in the General Catalogue of the Oxford University Press, a publication that costs you nothing and is rich with peculiar treasures. There is nothing quite like these endless book titles and brief descriptions to produce in the reader a gentle, serene amazement at the quantity of extraordinary matters, from Acrocephaly and Acrocephalosyndactyly to the Zla-ba-Bsam-’grub, that have engaged the minds of our fellow human beings. Here we find Galen’s On Medical Experience, with this bit of useful information: “Since the original Greek text of this work was lost, except for two small fragments, this ninth-century Arabic translation is the earliest known complete version.” Who follows Galen? Why, no others than Gall, Alice and Crew, Fleming, whose Flat Tail is described as “The story of a beaver during the second and most interesting year of his life, told with imagination and accuracy.” What a brave and perennially new world this is that can contain cheek to cheek such creatures as Galen and Flat Tail!
Books about people who lived lives fantastically different from my own I have found excellent for the bedside. I like to read about the Middle Ages; you may prefer Polynesia or even more alien climes, such as William Faulkner’s Southland. Books of popular science please me, but there are few writers today who have the liveliness and wit of Eddington, Jeans, and H. G. Wells. (Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us and Guy Murchie’s Song of the Sky are delightful exceptions.) Nonacademic books about words and language are first-rate for me, but this may be a narrow professional interest.
As for novels, give me no profound Russians, no overlucid Frenchmen, no opaque Germans. Give me solid Englishmen of the nineteenth century or early twentieth—William De Morgan, Wilkie Collins, George Borrow, Charles Reade. (I omit Dickens and Thackeray as too obvious.) Above all give me Trollope, from whom I have received so much pleasure that I would willingly call him another St. Anthony; Trollope, who breaks through the time barrier and teleports the horizontal reader instantly to a divinely settled, comfortable, income-taxless vanished world. His half a hundred novels are good for five years of bedside reading. Of those who minister to the tired, night-welcoming mind, Trollope is king. He never fails to interest, but not too much; to soothe, but not too much. Trollope is the perfect novelist for the bedside.
The New Lifetime Reading Plan
BY CLIFTON FADIMAN AND JOHN S. MAJOR
Clifton Fadiman’s The Lifetime Reading Plan was first published in 1960, with revised editions in 1978 and 1986. It was but one gem in a lustrous career promoting reading and the joy of the printed word. The New Lifetime Reading Plan, written with John S. Major, the bare list of which is presented here, was published by HarperCollins in 1997. What is so interesting about the entire enterprise is the assertion, made with Fadiman’s customary confidence born of many decades of immersionin literature, that even in an age in which books are published in avalanche-like numbers, only a few endure and deserve special attention. The list is enlightening and enjoyable, but the comments on each title by the authors are even more joyous to anyone who loves books.
Anonymous, ca. 200 B.C.E. (Scribe Sin-Leqi-Unninni, ca. 700 B.C.E.), The Epic of Gilgamesh
Homer, ca. 800 B.C.E., The Iliad
Homer, ca. 800 B.C.E., The Odyssey
Confucius, 551–479 B.C.E., The Analects
Aeschylus, 525–456/5 B.C.E., The Oresteia
Sophocles, 496–406 B.C.E., Oedipus Rex; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone
Euripides, 484–406 B.C.E., Alcestis; Medea; Hippolytus; The TrojanWomen; Electra; The Bacchae
Herodotus, ca. 484–425 B.C.E., The Histories
Thucydides, ca. 470/460–ca. 400 B.C.E., The History of the PeloponnesianWar
Sun-tzu, ca. 450–380 B.C.E., The Art of War
Aristophanes, 448–388 B.C.E., Lysistrata; The Clouds; The Birds
Plato, 428–348 B.C.E., Selected Works
Aristotle, 384–322 B.C.E., Ethics; Politics; Poetics
Mencius, ca. 400–320 B.C.E., The Book of Mencius
Attributed to Valmiki, ca. 300 B.C.E., The Ramayana
Attributed to Vyasa, ca. 200 B.C.E., The Mahabharata
Anonymous, ca. 200 B.C.E., The Bhagavad Gita
Ssu-ma Ch’ien, 145–86 B.C.E., Records of the Grand Historian
Lucretius, ca. 100–ca. 50 B.C.E., Of the Nature of Things
Virgil, 70–19 B.C.E., The Aeneid
Marcus Aurelius, 121–180, Meditations
Saint Augustine, 354–430, The Confessions
Kalidasa, ca. 400, The Cloud Messenger and Sakuntala
Revealed to Muhammad, completed 650, The Koran
Hui-neng, 638–713, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
Firdausi, ca. 940–1020, Shah Nameh
Sei Shonagon, ca. 965–1035, The Pillow-Book
Lady Murasaki, ca. 976–1015, The Tale of Genji
Omar Khayyám, 1048– ?, The Rubaiyat
Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321, The Divine Comedy
Luo Kuan-chung, ca. 1330–1400, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Geoffrey Chaucer, 1342–1400, The Canterbury Tales
Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469–1527, The Prince
François Rabelais, 1483–1553, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Attributed to Wu Ch’eng-en, 1500–1582, Journey to the West
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, 1533–1592, Selected Essays
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 1547–1616, Don Quixote
William Shakespeare, 1564–1616, Complete Works
John Donne, 1573–1631, Selected Works
Anonymous, published 1618, The Plum in the Golden Vase ( Chin P’ing Mei )
Galileo Galilei, 1574–1642, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Thomas Hobbes, 1588–1679, Leviathan
René Descartes, 1596–1650, Discourse on Method
John Milton, 1608–1674, Paradise Lost; “Lycidas”; “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”; Sonnets; Areopagitica
Molière, 1622–1673, Selected Plays
Blaise Pascal, 1623–1662, Thoughts (Pensées )
John Bunyan, 1628–1688, Pilgrim’s Progress
John Locke, 1632–1704, Second Treatise of Government
Matsuo Basho, 1644–1694, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Daniel Defoe, 1660–1731, Robinson Crusoe
Jonathan Swift, 1667–1745, Gulliver’s Travels
Voltaire, 1694–1778, Candide and other works
David Hume, 1711–1776, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Henry Fielding, 1707–1754, Tom Jones
Ts’ao Hsüeh-ch’in, 1715–1763, The Dream of the Red Chamber (also called The Story of the Stone)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712–1778, Confessions
Laurence Sterne, 1713–1768, Tristram Shandy
James Boswell, 1740–1795, The Life of Samuel Johnson
Thomas Jefferson and others, Basic Documents in American History, edited by Richard B. Morris
Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, The Federalist Papers, 1787, edited by Clinton Rossiter
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, Faust
William Blake, 1757–1827, Selected Works
William Wordsworth, 1770–1850, The Prelude ; Selected Shorter Poems; Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772–1834, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; “Christabel”; “Kubla Khan” ; Biographia Liter-aria;Writings on Shakespeare
Jane Austen, 1775–1817, Pride and Prejudice; Emma
Stendhal, 1783–1842, The Red and the Black
Honoré de Balzac, 1799–1850, Père Goriot; Eugénie Grandet; Cousin Bette
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803–1882, Selected Works
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804–1864, The Scarlet Letter; Selected Tales
John Stuart Mill, 1806–1873, On Liberty; The Subjection of Women
Charles Darwin, 1809–1882
, The Voyage of the Beagle; The Originof Species
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, 1809–1852, Dead Souls
Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849, Short Stories and Other Works
William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811–1863, Vanity Fair
Charles Dickens, 1812–1870, Pickwick Papers; David Copperfield;Great Expectations; Hard Times; Our Mutual Friend; The Old Curiosity Shop; Little Dorrit
Anthony Trollope, 1815–1882, The Warden; The Last Chronicleof Barset; The Eustace Diamonds; The Way We Live Now; Autobiography
The Brontë Sisters 79A. Charlotte Brontë, 1816–1855, Jane Eyre 79B. Emily Brontë, 1818–1848, Wuthering Heights
Henry David Thoreau, 1817–1862, Walden; “ Civil Disobedience”
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, 1818–1883, Fathers and Sons
Karl Marx, 1818–1883, and Friedrich Engels, 1820–1895, The Communist Manifesto
Herman Melville, 1819–1891, Moby Dick; Bartleby the Scrivener
George Eliot, 1819–1880, The Mill on the Floss; Middlemarch
Walt Whitman, 1819–1892, Selected Poems; Democratic Vistas;Preface to the first issue of Leaves of Grass; A Backward Glance O’er Travelled Roads
Gustave Flaubert, 1821–1880, Madame Bovary
Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, 1821–1881, Crime and Punishment; The Brothers Karamazov
Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, 1828–1906, War and Peace
Henrick Ibsen, 1828–1906, Selected Plays
Emily Dickinson, 1830–1886, Collected Poems
Lewis Carroll, 1832–1898, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; Through the Looking Glass
Mark Twain, 1835–1910, Huckleberry Finn
Henry Adams, 1838–1918, The Education of Henry Adams
Thomas Hardy, 1840–1928, The Mayor of Casterbridge
William James, 1842–1910, The Principles of Psychology; Pragmatism;four essays from The Meaning of Truth; The Varieties of Religious Experience
Henry James, 1843–1916, The Ambassadors
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844–1900, Thus Spake Zarathustra;The Genealogy of Morals; Beyond Good and Evil; other works
Sigmund Freud, 1856–1939, Selected Works, including The Interpretation of Dreams; Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality; Civilization and Its Discontents
George Bernard Shaw, 1856–1939, Selected Plays and Prefaces
Joseph Conrad, 1857–1924, Nostromo
Anton Chekhov, 1860–1904, Uncle Vanya; Three Sisters; The
herry Orchard; Selected Short Stories 102. Edith Wharton, 1862–1937, The Custom of the Country; The Age of Innocence; The House of Mirth
William Butler Yeats, 1865–1939, Collected Poems; Collected Plays; Autobiography
Natsume Soseki, 1867–1916, Kokoro
Marcel Proust, 1871–1922, Remembrance of Things Past
Robert Frost, 1874–1963, Collected Poems
Thomas Mann, 1875–1955, The Magic Mountain
E. M. Forster, 1879–1970, A Passage to India
Lu Hsün, 1881–1936, Collected Short Stories
James Joyce, 1882–1941, Ulysses
Virginia Woolf, 1882–1941, Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse; Orlando; The Waves
Franz Kafka, 1883–1924, The Trial; The Castle; Selected Short Stories
D. H. Lawrence, 1885–1930, Sons and Lovers; Women in Love
Tanizaki Junichiro, 1886–1965, The Makioka Sisters
Eugene O’Neill, 1888–1953, Mourning Becomes Electra; The Iceman Cometh; Long Day’s Journey into Night
T. S. Eliot, 1888–1965, Collected Poems; Collected Plays
Aldous Huxley, 1894–1963, Brave New World
William Faulkner, 1897–1962, The Sound and the Fury; As I Lay Dying
Ernest Hemingway, 1899–1961, Short Stories
Kawabata Yasunari, 1899–1972, Beauty and Sadness
Jorge Luis Borges, 1899–1986, Labyrinths; Dreamtigers
Vladimir Nabokov, 1899–1977, Lolita; Pale Fire; Speak, Memory
George Orwell, 1903–1950, Animal Farm; 1984; Burmese Days
R. K. Narayan, 1906– , The English Teacher; The Vendor of Sweets
Samuel Beckett, 1906–1989, Waiting for Godot; Endgame; Krapp’s Last Tape
W. H. Auden, 1907–1973, Collected Poems
Albert Camus, 1913–1960, The Plague; The Stranger
Saul Bellow, 1915– , The Adventures of Augie March; Herzog; Humboldt’s Gift
Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, 1918– , The First Circle; Cancer Ward
Thomas Kuhn, 1922–1996, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Mishima Yukio, 1925–1970, Confessions of a Mask; The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Gabriel García Márquéz, 1928– , One Hundred Years of Solitude
Chinua Achebe, 1930– , Things Fall Apart
An ordinary man can . . . surround himself with two thousand books . . . and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.
—AUGUSTINE BIRRELL
Comfort Found in Good Old Books
BY GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH
For more than thirty years, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, George Hamlin Fitch wrote a weekly column for the Sunday book page of the San Francisco Chronicle. In this extraordinarily touching piece—first published in the Chronicle and later collected in Fitch’s 1911 book, Comfort Found in Good Old Books—he writes of the comfort he found in reading after the death of his son and of why it is so important to have favorite books: “So may you come into the true Kingdom of Culture . . . and may you be armed against the worst blows that fate can deal you in this world.”
Nothing Soothes Grief Like Sterling Old Books— How the Sudden Death of an Only Son Proved the Value of the Reading Habit
For the thirty years that I have spoken weekly to readers of the Chronicle through its book review columns, it has been my constant aim to preach the doctrine of the importance of cultivating the habit of reading good books, as the chief resource in time of trouble and sickness. This doctrine I enforced, because for many years reading has been my principal recreation, and I have proved its usefulness in broadening one’s view of life and in storing up material from the world’s greatest writers which can be recalled at will. But it never occurred to me that this habit would finally come to mean the only thing that makes life worth living. When one passes the age of forty he begins to build a certain scheme for the years to come. That scheme may involve many things—domestic life, money-getting, public office, charity, education. With me it included mainly literary work, in which I was deeply interested, and close companionship with an only son, a boy of such lovable personal qualities that he had endeared himself to me from his early childhood. My relations with my son, Harold, were not those of the stern parent and the timid son, as Edmond Gosse has depicted with so much unconscious pathos in his “Father and Son.” Rather it was the relation of elder brother and younger brother.
Hence, when only ten days ago this close and tender association of many years was broken by death—swift and wholly unexpected, as a bolt from cloudless skies—it seemed to me for a few hours as if the keystone of the arch of my life had fallen and everything lay heaped in ugly ruin. I had waited for him on that Friday afternoon until six o’clock. Friday is my day off, my one holiday in a week of hard work, when my son always dined with me and then accompanied me to the theater or other entertainment. When he did not appear at six o’clock in the evening I left a note saying I had gone to our usual restaurant. That dinner I ate alone. When I returned in an hour it was to be met with the news that Harold lay cold in death at the very time I wrote the note that his eyes would never see.
When the first shock had passed came the review of what was left of life to me. Most of the things which I had valued highly for the sake of my son now had little or no worth for me; but to take up again the old round of work, without the vivid, joyous presence of a companion dearer than life itself, one must have some great compensations; and the chief of the
se compensations lay in the few feet of books in my library case—in those old favorites of all ages that can still beguile me, though my head is bowed in the dust with grief and my heart is as sore as an open wound touched by a careless hand.
For more than a dozen years in the school vacations and in my midsummer holidays my son and I were accustomed to take long tramps in the country. For five of these years the boy lived entirely in the country to gain health and strength. Both he and his older sister, Mary, narrowly escaped death by pneumonia in this city, so I transferred them to Angwin’s on Howell Mountain, an ideal place in a grove of pines—a ranch in the winter and a summer resort from May to November. There the air was soft with the balsam of pine, and the children throve wonderfully. Edwin Angwin was a second father to them both, and his wife was as fond as a real mother. For five years they remained on the mountain. Mary developed into an athletic girl, who became a fearless rider, an expert tennis player, and a swimmer, who once swam two miles at Catalina Island on a foolish wager. She proved to be a happy, wholesome girl, an ideal daughter, but marriage took her from me and placed half the continent between us. Harold was still slight and fragile when he left the country, but his health was firmly established, and he soon became a youth of exceptional strength and energy.
Many memories come to me now of visits paid to Angwin’s in those five years. Coming home at three o’clock on winter mornings after a night of hard work and severe nervous strain, I would snatch two or three hours’ sleep, get up in the chill winter darkness, and make the tedious five-hour journey from this city to the upper Napa Valley, in order to spend one day with my boy and his sister. The little fellow kept a record on a calendar of the dates of these prospective visits and always had some dainty for me—some bird or game or choice fruit which he knew I relished.