I've owned Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind for two years now. I've been trying to educate myself for some time and the best way to do that is to read. Unfortunately, I don't get through many books very quickly (I think I'm doing well if I manage to complete two books a month). I decided long ago that I would work through SWBs recommendations in a four-yearly rotation, in chronological order. Basically, I have put her list into chronological order and split that list into four, roughly based on epoch: Ancient World; Middle Ages; Early Modern Age; and Modern Age.
Beginning with the Ancient World in the first year, I selected a couple of books from the list and tried to include them in my normal reading list. Instead of just reading the book, however, I tried to ask it questions and acknowledge good prose or interesting points (by using a highlighter-pen or writing in the margins). I also kept a chapter summary, a list of characters and a list of words that were new to me (with their meaning of course).
In the second year, I took the next epoch, the Middle Ages, and I'll continue in this way until I have reached the end of the fourth year having read a couple of books from the Modern Age (I'm currently in the Middle Ages still). Once I get to the end of the fourth year, I start back at the Ancients picking another book from the list repeating the process every four years until the list is complete.
The most recent book I've finished off the list is Confessions by Saint Augustine. A remarkable work that taught me a few things about Genesis, the opening chapter to the Old Testament of the Bible.
So, here's the complete list in chronological order. I've highlighted those that I have already read in green:
ANCIENT WORLD
- BC 2000 - POEM - The Epic of Gilgamesh - UNKNOWN
- 800 - POEM - The Iliad - HOMER
- 800 - POEM - The Odyssey - HOMER
- 600 - POEM - Greek Lyrics - GREEK LYRICISTS
- 458 - DRAMA - Agamemnon - AESCHYLUS
- 450 - DRAMA - Oedipus the King - SOPHOCLES
- 441 - HIST - The Histories - HERODOTUS
- 431 - DRAMA - Medea - EURIPIDES
- 400 - HIST - The Peloponnesian War - THUCYDIDES
- 400 - DRAMA - The Birds - ARISTOPHANES
- 375 - HIST - The Republic - PLATO
- 330 - DRAMA - Poetics - ARISTOTLE
- 65 - POEM - Odes - HORACE
- AD 100 - HIST - Lives - PLUTARCH
- 400 - BIOG - The Confessions - AUGUSTINE
- 426 - HIST - The City of God - AUGUSTINE
MIDDLE AGES
- 731 - HIST - The Ecclesiastical History of the English People - BEDE
- 1000 - POEM - Beowulf - UNKNOWN
- 1265 - POEM - Inferno - DANTE ALIGHIERI
- 1300 - DRAMA - Everyman - UNKNOWN
- 1350 - POEM - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - UNKNOWN
- 1350 - POEM - The Canterbury Tales - GEOFFREY CHAUCER
- 1430 - BIOG - The Book of Margery Kempe - MARGERY KEMPE
- 1513 - HIST - The Prince - NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
- 1516 - HIST - Utopia - SIR THOMAS MORE
- 1564 - POEM - Sonnets - WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
- 1572 - POEM - Poems - JOHN DONNE
- 1580 - BIOG - Essays - MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
- 1580 - BIOG - The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself - TERESA OF AVILA
- 1588 - DRAMA - Doctor Faustus - CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
- 1592 - DRAMA - Richard III - WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
- 1594 - DRAMA - A Midsummer Night's Dream - WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
- 1600 - DRAMA - Hamlet - WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
EARLY MODERN AGE
- 1605 - NOVEL - Don Quixote - MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
- 1611 - POEM - Psalms - KING JAMES BIBLE
- 1611 - POEM - Paradise Lost - JOHN MILTON
- 1641 - BIOG - Meditations - RENE DESCARTES
- 1666 - BIOG - Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners - JOHN BUNYAN
- 1669 - DRAMA - Tartuffe - MOLIERE
- 1679 - NOVEL - The Pilgrim's Progress - JOHN BUNYAN
- 1682 - BIOG - The Narative of the Captivity and Restoration - MARY ROWLANDSON
- 1690 - HIST - The True End of Civil Government - JOHN LOCKE
- 1700 - DRAMA - The Way of the World - WILLIAM CONGREVE
- 1726 - NOVEL - Gulliver's Travels - JONATHAN SWIFT
- 1754 - HIST - The History of England, Volume V - DAVID HUME
- 1757 - POEM - Songs of Innocence and of Experience - WILLIAM BLAKE
- 1762 - HIST - The Social Contract - JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
- 1770 - POEM - Unknown - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
- 1772 - POEM - Unknown - SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
- 1773 - DRAMA - She Stoops to Conquer - OLIVER GOLDSMITH
- 1776 - HIST - Common Sense - THOMAS PAINE
- 1776 - HIST - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - EDWARD GIBBON
- 1777 - DRAMA - The School for Scandal - RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
- 1781 - BIOG - Confessions - JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
- 1791 - BIOG - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
- 1792 - HIST - A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
- 1795 - POEM - Unknown - JOHN KEATS
- 1807 - POEM - Unknown - HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
- 1809 - POEM - Unknown - ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
- 1815 - NOVEL - Pride and Prejudice - JANE AUSTEN
- 1819 - POEM - Unknown - WALT WHITMAN
- 1830 - POEM - Unknown - EMILY DICKINSON
- 1830 - POEM - Unknown - CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
- 1835 - HIST - Democracy in America - ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
- 1838 - NOVEL - Oliver Twist - CHARLES DICKENS
- 1844 - POEM - Unknown - GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
- 1847 - NOVEL - Jane Eyre - CHARLOTTE BRONTE
- 1848 - HIST - The Communist Manifesto - KARL MARX & FRIEDRICH ENGELS
MODERN AGE
- 1850 - NOVEL - The Scarlet Letter - NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
- 1851 - NOVEL - Moby Dick - HERMAN MELVILLE
- 1851 - NOVEL - Uncle Tom's Cabin - HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
- 1854 - BIOG - Walden - HENRY DAVID THOREAU
- 1857 - NOVEL - Madame Bovary - GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
- 1860 - HIST - The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy - JACOB BURCKHARDT
- 1861 - BIOG - Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself - HARRIET JACOBS
- 1865 - POEM - Unknown - WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
- 1866 - NOVEL - Crime and Punishment - FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
- 1872 - POEM - Unknown - PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
- 1874 - POEM - Unknown - ROBERT FROST
- 1877 - NOVEL - Anna Karenina - LEO TOLSTOY
- 1878 - NOVEL - The Return of the Native - THOMAS HARDY
- 1878 - POEM - Unknown - CARL SANDBURG
- 1879 - DRAMA - A Doll's House - HENRIK IBSEN
- 1881 - BIOG - Life and Times of Frederick Douglass - FREDERICK DOUGLASS
- 1881 - NOVEL - The Portrait of a Lady - HENRY JAMES
- 1883 - POEM - Unknown - WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
- 1884 - NOVEL - Huckleberry Finn - MARK TWAIN
- 1885 - POEM - Unknown - EZRA POUND
- 1888 - POEM - Unknown - T.S. ELIOT
- 1895 - NOVEL - The Red Badge of Courage - STEPHEN CRANE
- 1899 - DRAMA - The Importance of Being Earnest - OSCAR WILDE
- 1901 - BIOG - Up From Slavery - BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
- 1902 - NOVEL - Heart of Darkness - JOSEPH CONRAD
- 1902 - POEM - Unknown - LANGSTON HUGHES
- 1903 - HIST - The Souls of Black Folk - W. E. B. DU BOIS
- 1904 - HIST - The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - MAX WEBER
- 1904 - DRAMA - The Cherry Orchard - ANTON CHEKHOV
- 1905 - NOVEL - The House of Mirth - EDITH WHARTON
- 1907 - POEM - Unknown - W.H. AUDEN
- 1908 - BIOG - Ecce Homo - FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
- 1921 - HIST - Queen Victoria - LYTTON STACHEY
- 1922 - POEM - Unknown - PHILIP LARKIN
- 1924 - DRAMA - Saint Joan - GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
- 1925 - BIOG - Mein Kampf - ADOLF HITLER
- 1925 - NOVEL - The Great Gatsby - F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
- 1925 - NOVEL - Mrs Dalloway - VIRGINIA WOOLF
- 1925 - NOVEL - The Trial - FRANZ KAFKA
- 1926 - POEM - Unknown - ALLEN GINSBERG
- 1929 - BIOG - An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth - MOHANDAS GANDHI
- 1932 - POEM - Unknown - SYLVIA PLATH
- 1933 - BIOG - The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas - GERTRUDE STEIN
- 1934 - POEM - Unknown - MARK STRAND
- 1934 - POEM - Unknown - ADRIENNE RICH
- 1935 - DRAMA - Murder in the Cathedral - T. S. ELIOT
- 1937 - HIST - The Road to Wigan Pier - GEORGE ORWELL
- 1938 - DRAMA - Our Town - THORNTON WILDER
- 1939 - HIST - The New England Mind - PERRY MILLER
- 1939 - POEM - Unknown - SEAMUS HEANEY
- 1940 - NOVEL - Native Son - RICHARD WRIGHT
- 1940 - DRAMA - Long Day's Journey Into Night - EUGENE O'NEILL
- 1940 - POEM - Unknown - ROBERT PINSKY
- 1942 - NOVEL - The Stranger - ALBERT CAMUS
- 1944 - DRAMA - No Exit - JEAN PAUL SARTRE
- 1947 - DRAMA - A Streetcar Named Desire - TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
- 1947 - POEM - Unknown - JANE KENYON
- 1948 - BIOG - The Seven Storey Mountain - THOMAS MERTON
- 1949 - NOVEL - 1984 - GEORGE ORWELL
- 1949 - DRAMA - Death of a Salesman - ARTHUR MILLER
- 1952 - NOVEL - Invisible Man - RALPH ELLISON
- 1952 - DRAMA - Waiting for Godot - SAMUEL BECKETT
- 1952 - POEM - Unknown - RITA DOVE
- 1955 - HIST - The Great Crash 1929 - JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
- 1955 - BIOG - Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life - C. S. LEWIS
- 1956 - NOVEL - Seize the Day - SAUL BELLOW
- 1959 - HIST - The Longest Day - CORNELIUS RYAN
- 1960 - DRAMA - A Man For All Seasons - ROBERT BOLT
- 1963 - HIST - The Feminine Mystique - BETTY FRIEDAN
- 1965 - BIOG - The Autobiography of Malcolm X - MALCOLM X
- 1967 - NOVEL - One Hundred Years of Solitude - GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
- 1967 - DRAMA - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - TOM STOPPARD
- 1972 - NOVEL - If On A Winter's Night A Traveler - ITALO CALVINO
- 1973 - BIOG - Journal of a Solitude - MAY SARTON
- 1973 - BIOG - The Gulag Archipelago - ALEKSANDR I. SOLZHENITSYN
- 1974 - HIST - Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made - EUGENE D. GENOVESE
- 1974 - DRAMA - Equus - PETER SHAFFER
- 1977 - BIOG - Born Again - CHARLES W. COLSON
- 1977 - NOVEL - Song of Solomon - TONI MORRISON
- 1978 - HIST - A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century - BARBARA TUCHMAN
- 1982 - BIOG - Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez - RICHARD RODRIGUEZ
- 1985 - NOVEL - White Noise - DON DELILLO
- 1987 - HIST - All the President's Men - BOB WOODWARD & CARL BERNSTEIN
- 1988 - HIST - Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era - JAMES M. McPHERSON
- 1989 - BIOG - The Road From Coorain - JILL KER CONWAY
- 1990 - HIST - A Midwife's Tale: The life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 - LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH
- 1990 - NOVEL - Possession - A. S. BYATT
- 1992 - HIST - The End of History and the Last Man - FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
- 1995 - BIOG - All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs - ELIE WIESEL
