| Interesting idea! Anyone who likes the idea of a great books program should check out St. John's College in Annapolis MD and their curriculum: Suggested book curriculum by year: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-bo... All in one PDF: https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4115/4810/0934/St_John... There's also the old Britannica Great books printed book set. You can just look at their book list and get them one by one when you're ready: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_Wor... Also, almost all of these books are old enough that their copyrights have expired so you can download them for free from the Gutenberg e-library: https://gutenberg.org/ For example, here is a free copy of Plato's Gorgias: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1672/pg1672-images.html One feature I've wished for is some way to format these free books and make them more reader-friendly. That would save future readers time to do it themselves. I would pay for something like that. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics
A Great List of Great Book Lists:
http://sonic.net/~rteeter/greatbks.html
[EDIT] On this:
> Also, almost all of these books are old enough that their copyrights have expired so you can download them for free from the Gutenberg e-library: https://gutenberg.org/
I'd caution readers to also evaluate in-copyright editions, especially in the case of works in translation. Used books are cheap and it's worth getting the best possible translation (however one chooses to evaluate that) if one is going to spend hours with it.
And:
> One feature I've wished for is some way to format these free books and make them more reader-friendly. That would save future readers time to do it themselves. I would pay for something like that.
Standard Ebooks?
https://standardebooks.org
Not comprehensive, but they've got a lot.