I have a couple of goals for 2012. I would like to repair my science-fiction and fantasy deficiencies, cover some of the classical territory I’ve missed (or re-read some I’ve been away from too long), and I’d like to finally buckle-down and learn a bit of Latin. To those ends I have assembled a couple of lists. I hope to finish them all by the end of 2012. An asterisk indicates that I own, or have access to, the title. Looks like I’ll be buying or borrowing lots of books this year! Bolding and a star-rating (out of five) indicates I have finished the book.

Reading total: 24

Science Fiction and Fantasy

*Adams, Richards - Watership Down

*Asimov, Isacc - I, Robot

*Bradbury, Ray - Something Wicked This Way Comes

*Brooks, Max - World War Z ****

*Brooks, Terry – The Shannara Trilogy

Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange

Burroughs, William S. – Naked Lunch

*Butler, Octavia – Kindred ****

Card, Orson Scott - Seventh Son *** Ender’s Game *** & Speaker for the Dead ****

Clarke, Arthur C. - 2001: A Space Odyssey

Collins, Suzanne – The Hunger Games **

Dick, Philip K. - Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? & Flow My Tears the Policeman Said

Disch, Thomas M. Camp Concentration & The Word of God

Eddings, David - The Belgariad

*Fforde, Jasper - The Eyre Affair ***

*Gaiman, Neil - Neverwhere ***

Gibson, William – *Neuromancer **** & The Sprawl Trilogy

*Heinlein, Robert - Stranger In A Strange Land * & Starship Troopers ***

Howard, R.E. – Conan the Barbarian

Jordan, Robert - The Wheel Of Time Series

Keys, Daniel - Flowers For Algernon

Lovecraft, H.P. – The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales

*McCaffrey, Ann - Dragonflight **

*Maguire, Gregory – Wicked **

Moore, Alan - Watchmen

Pratchett, Terry – Small Gods

Pynchon, Thomas – Gravity’s Rainbow

*Stephenson, Neal - Snow Crash & *Diamond Age

Tolkien, J.R.R. - The Silmarillion & *The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

Vonnegut, Kurt - Slaughterhouse-Five & Cat’s Cradle

 

Classical Reading  

Aeschylus – The Orestia

Aristotle – Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics, De Anima, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals

*Arrian – The Campaigns of Alexander

Athanasius – On the Incarnation

*Augustine – City of God

*Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde & The Book of the Duchess

Juvenal – The Satires

Livy – The History of Rome

*Lucretius – On the Nature of Things

*Pascal – The Pensees *****

Plutarch – Lives

*François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel

*The Song of Roland

Sophocles – The Theban Plays & Philoctetes

*Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica
Thucydides - The Peloponnesian War 

 

Other 

*Austen, Jane – Mansfield Park ***** Sense and Sensibility ***** Pride and Prejudice *****

*Barfield, Owen – Poetic Diction

*Burney, Francis – Evelina

*Chesterton, G.K. – Complete Works (approximately 25 volumes) Heretics *****, Wine Water and Song ****

*Cook, Robert Francis – The Sense of the Song of Roland

Highet, Gilbert – *The Classical Tradition & The Art of Teaching

Jerome, Jerome K. – Three Men in a Boat

Leithart, Peter – *A House for My Name, Against Christianity, & Deep Exegesis

*Radcliff, Ann –  The Mysteries of Udolpho *

Morris, William – The Well at the End of the World

Wodehouse, P.G. – A Wodehouse Bestiary ***** The Man with Two Left Feet *** Service with a Smile ****

 

Latin Learning

I will view all the videos available on this site, at the rate of three per week. I will also use the grammar helps and vocabulary lists they offer.

To aid in the memorization of vocabulary I will be using the “Fluent” app on my iPod.

Finally, I will be reading some Latin works in an interlinear translation (the Summa and, perhaps, others).