John Mark Reynolds was asked on the Hugh Hewitt show to name thirty books every college student should read. He names the bible first and then offers this list.
Iliad, Odyssey, History of the Peloponnesian War, Ethics (Aristotle), Metaphysics (Aristotle), Meno, Republic, Timaeus, Oedipus Rex, Bacchae, Orestia, On Friendship and On Duties (Cicero), Aeneid, Meditations, History of the Church (Eusebius), Confessions, City of God, Histories (Tacitus), Consolation of Philosophy, Summa Theologica (selections!), Divine Comedy, Canterbury Tales, The Prince, The Institutes (selections from Calvin), Shakespeare (Hamlet, Lear, As You Like It, Henry V, Julius Caesar), Faerie Queen (at least Book I), Leviathan, Second Treatise on Government, Pensees.
I wonder how many students graduate from college having read even half of these.
Reynolds goes on to identify ten novels everyone should read on their own and ten works American students should read. He lost me a little bit here because I don't understand what Marx, Darwin, Nietszche, Freud and Sartre have to do with American students in particular. Anyway, it's a good list and it's hard to quibble with his recommendations (Except I would definitely include the unabridged Les Miserables by Victor Hugo in his list of important novels).
If you're a college student you might want to ask yourself how your reading measures up.
Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost makes some interesting additions.
RLC
