# A classic read only by you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 19, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292 "2005-09-19T00:37:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/121 "2005-09-22T06:32:45Z")
Miracle on 34th Street. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/122 "2005-09-22T06:36:38Z")
> [@Hung Mung](#): > > While buying books for high school I picked up an anthology of Greek plays. I don’t really know anyone who’s read Antigone, Medea, etc., but I’m sure someone I know has. Other high school students, of course. 😉 I’m also 23, and I’ve read _Antigone_. Saw a boring production of it in high school, too. > [@](#): > > Catch-22, Heller > Starship Troopers & Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein > Principia Discordia (obviously) & Illuminatus! _Catch-22_ was part of my junior year reading. The teacher hated it, but I didn’t. I read _Illuminatus!_ and the Principia a little earlier, and I read _Stranger in a Strange Land_ at age 10 or so. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/123 "2005-09-22T12:13:50Z")
Oh, I have one. _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_, by John Cardinal Newman. Anyone? I read it, then read it _again_ for a class. I actually chose it to reread. That’s crazy talk. ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/124 "2005-09-22T12:37:07Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Oh, I have one. _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_, by John Cardinal Newman. Anyone? > > I read it, then read it _again_ for a class. I actually chose it to reread. That’s crazy talk. I never read that. But you reminded me that I did read Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey, wherein he blasted Newman. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/125 "2005-09-22T12:37:54Z")
> [@](#): > > And I doubt many even know of his first book, The Big U, let alone admit to having read it. But I do often wonder if there’s anyone who like me not only read it, but also the entire length of the book that inspired it “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” A friend sent me The Big U, but I have yet to read it. I’ve read and re-read Jaynes’ book many times. I’m impressed by some parts and annoyed by others. He wealks a fine line between brilliance and pseudoscience, not altogether successfully - he keeps falling into one or the other. As the years go by I find that I support less and less of his hypotheses, as I learn new things and as progress in understanding the ancient world increases. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/126 "2005-09-22T13:36:51Z")
> [@CBCD](#): > > I never read that. But you reminded me that I did read Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey, wherein he blasted Newman. I _love_ that book. I thought I was the only one! ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/127 "2005-09-22T16:29:52Z")
Wow, two others who read Jaynes? I have to confess I probably didn’t read every page. I mean, the entertainment value of watching someone seriously support a completely ludicrous thesis only goes so far. In fact, I might recommend **twickster** (and maybe **Cal** ) to read _the Big U._, just because at the moment when I realized Stephenson was referencing Bicameralism, I went “Hey! I finally got _something_ out of slogging through Jaynes.” ---
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/128 "2005-09-22T18:52:53Z")
To all the Greek and Roman classics that folks have listed, let me add Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) - a kind of ancient Latin physics book, written in verse. Some of the ideas are surprisingly good. E.g. lightning is recognized as the same thing as the static electicity you get by rubbing a cat. He speculates that it is caused by friction when storm clouds rub together. Others are charimingly loony: Everything is made of atoms (idea taken from the Greeks). Objects are continuously shedding atom-thick shells. We “see” an object when these shells strike our eyes. Sometimes shells collide and get intermingled. Hence, visions of centaurs, harpies, and other mythological hybrids. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/129 "2005-09-22T19:07:14Z")
I’ve read two translations of Lucretius – a verse translation by Rolfe Humphreys and the prose translation from Penguin. It is a great read. Fifteen hundred years before Galileo Lucretius says that, in the absence of atmosphere, different weight would fall at the same rate. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/130 "2005-09-22T20:26:18Z")
Lucretius really is amazing. He gives the lie to the very meme he spawns: he must somehow overcome the “poverty” of his mother tongue in order to address philosophical topics. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/131 "2005-09-22T20:52:09Z")
When I was a kid, my mom bought a children’s encyclopedia set, the Illustrated World Encyclopedia, 1970 edition. I still own it. Bizarrly, half of each book is devoted to encyclopedia articles and the second half to the “Library of the Literary Treasures: the novels, plays, poems, and other works of the most celebrated and historic writers of the English language in all lands and times”. There is a synopsis of the plot and main characters of each featured work of fiction. A few are Greek and Roman classics, some are popular or well known works; and many are (to me anyway) utterly obscure 18th, 19th, and early 20th century works. I can only suppose that the list of works covered is what someone who was in their sixties in 1970 would have been taught were “celebrated and historic writers” circa 1925. I happened to grab the V-Z volume, so let me give some examples: Volpone, by Ben Jonson The Wandering Jew by Eugene Sue Wild Animals I have Known, stories by Ernest Thompson Winesburg, Ohio, short stories by Sherwood Anderson The World of the Thibaults, by Roger Martin de Gard Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm If I were condemned in Hell to be in junior high again for all eternity, my time spent in English Literature class would no doubt be devoted to having to read and write book reports on these bone-dry character studies of people in the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/132 "2005-09-22T20:56:40Z")
Dude, while I didn’t particularly care for Winesburg, Ohio, I cannot fathom how anyone might call it “dry”. ---
**Author:** ![billfritter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@billfritter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfritter)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/133 "2005-09-22T21:42:05Z")
The Phantom Tollbooth is a classic, comparable to Alice in Wonderland. But I’m the only person who’s read it. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2005, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/134 "2005-09-22T22:50:14Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Dude, while I didn’t particularly care for Winesburg, Ohio, I cannot fathom how anyone might call it “dry”. Dry it ain’t, and it’s one of my favorite books, albeit one I came to know only recently. > [@billfritter](#): > > The Phantom Tollbooth is a classic, comparable to Alice in Wonderland. > > But I’m the only person who’s read it. Nope! 😃 Read it in 5-6th grade or thereabouts. My feeling was that it’s actually pretty well-known. How about: _The Ox-bow Incident_, by Walter Van Tilburg Clark? ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/135 "2005-09-23T00:31:41Z")
> [@middleman](#): > > Didn’t EVERYONE read Walden in 11th Grade? I must have been out that day because I have never read it until now. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/136 "2005-09-23T01:16:00Z")
Lord, I read _Zodiac_! That was the same Neal Stephenson? I bought it off a remainder table while traveling in Britain and liked it a lot. On a similar note, who else has read _The Monkey Wrench Gang_? I read \*The Phantom Tollbooth \* as a kid, and liked it enough to track down another copy as an adult. The re-mention of \*The Twelve Caesars \* reminds me: I read that because I’d already read and enjoyed \*I, Claudius \* and _Claudius the God_. I’m sure someone else has too, but has anyone else read Robert Graves’ collected poetry? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292.md?page=6)