Mortimer Adler's Reading List

A list of recommended books for challenging yourself, becoming a better reader, and reading analytically from "How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading" by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren.

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About This List


I read How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading because I had been reading a lot of textbooks, and I also planned on reading some history, expository works, research papers, and fiction in the future. I wanted to see how to best read all of these different genres. The book is a great guide, and I discovered a lot about my own reading habits from the book. The reading list below is a suggested reading list offered in Appendix A of the book.


Reading List


  1. HomerIliadOdyssey
  2. The Old Testament
  3. Aeschylus: Tragedies
  4. Sophocles: Tragedies
  5. HerodotusHistories
  6. Euripides: Tragedies
  7. ThucydidesHistory of the Peloponnesian War
  8. Hippocrates: Medical Writings
  9. Aristophanes: Comedies
  10. Plato: Dialogues
  11. Aristotle: Works
  12. EpicurusLetter to HerodotusLetter to Menoecus
  13. EuclidElements
  14. Archimedes: Works
  15. Apollonius of PergaConic Sections
  16. Cicero: Works
  17. LucretiusOn the Nature of Things
  18. Virgil: Works
  19. Horace: Works
  20. LivyHistory of Rome
  21. Ovid: Works
  22. PlutarchParallel LivesMoralia
  23. TacitusHistoriesAnnalsAgricola Germania
  24. Nicomachus of GerasaIntroduction to Arithmetic
  25. EpictetusDiscoursesEncheiridion
  26. PtolemyAlmagest
  27. Lucian: Works
  28. Marcus AureliusMeditations
  29. GalenOn the Natural Faculties
  30. The New Testament
  31. PlotinusThe Enneads
  32. St. Augustine: On the Teacher; ConfessionsCity of GodOn Christian Doctrine
  33. The Song of Roland
  34. The Nibelungenlied
  35. The Saga of Burnt Njál
  36. St. Thomas AquinasSumma Theologica
  37. Dante AlighieriThe Divine Comedy;The New LifeOn Monarchy
  38. Geoffrey ChaucerTroilus and CriseydeThe Canterbury Tales
  39. Leonardo da Vinci: Notebooks
  40. Niccolò MachiavelliThe PrinceDiscourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
  41. Desiderius ErasmusThe Praise of Folly
  42. Nicolaus CopernicusOn the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
  43. Thomas MoreUtopia
  44. Martin Luther: Table Talk; Three Treatises
  45. Francois RabelaisGargantua and Pantagruel
  46. John CalvinInstitutes of the Christian Religion
  47. Michel de MontaigneEssays
  48. William GilbertOn the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
  49. Miguel de CervantesDon Quixote
  50. Edmund SpenserProthalamionThe Faerie Queene
  51. Francis BaconEssaysAdvancement of LearningNovum OrganumThe New Atlantis
  52. William ShakespearePoetry and Plays
  53. Galileo GalileiStarry MessengerDialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
  54. Johannes KeplerEpitome of Copernican AstronomyConcerning the Harmonies of the World
  55. William HarveyOn the Motion of the Heart and Blood in AnimalsOn the Circulation of the BloodOn the Generation of Animals
  56. Thomas HobbesLeviathan
  57. René DescartesRules for the Direction of the MindDiscourse on the MethodGeometryMeditations on First Philosophy
  58. John Milton: Works
  59. Molière: Comedies
  60. Blaise PascalThe Provincial LettersPensees; Scientific Treatises
  61. Christiaan HuygensTreatise on Light
  62. Benedict de SpinozaEthics
  63. John LockeLetter Concerning TolerationOf Civil GovernmentEssay Concerning Human UnderstandingThoughts Concerning Education
  64. Jean Baptiste Racine: Tragedies
  65. Isaac NewtonMathematical Principles of Natural PhilosophyOptics
  66. Gottfried Wilhelm von LeibnizDiscourse on MetaphysicsNew Essays Concerning Human UnderstandingMonadology
  67. Daniel DefoeRobinson Crusoe
  68. Jonathan SwiftA Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver’s Travels; A Modest Proposal
  69. William CongreveThe Way of the World
  70. George BerkeleyPrinciples of Human Knowledge
  71. Alexander PopeEssay on CriticismRape of the LockEssay on Man
  72. Charles de Secondat, baron de MontesquieuPersian LettersSpirit of Laws
  73. VoltaireLetters on the EnglishCandidePhilosophical Dictionary
  74. Henry FieldingJoseph AndrewsTom Jones
  75. Samuel JohnsonThe Vanity of Human WishesDictionaryRasselasThe Lives of the Poets
  76. David HumeTreatise on Human NatureEssays Moral and PoliticalAn Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  77. Jean-Jacques RousseauOn the Origin of Inequality; On the Political Economy; EmileThe Social Contract
  78. Laurence SterneTristram ShandyA Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
  79. Adam SmithThe Theory of Moral SentimentsThe Wealth of Nations
  80. Immanuel KantCritique of Pure ReasonFundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of MoralsCritique of Practical ReasonThe Science of RightCritique of JudgmentPerpetual Peace
  81. Edward GibbonThe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography
  82. James Boswell: Journal; Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D.
  83. Antoine Laurent LavoisierTraité Élémentaire de Chimie (Elements of Chemistry)
  84. Alexander HamiltonJohn Jay, and James MadisonFederalist Papers
  85. Jeremy Bentham: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions
  86. Johann Wolfgang von GoetheFaustPoetry and Truth
  87. Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier: Analytical Theory of Heat
  88. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelPhenomenology of SpiritPhilosophy of RightLectures on the Philosophy of History
  89. William Wordsworth: Poems
  90. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poems; Biographia Literaria
  91. Jane AustenPride and PrejudiceEmma
  92. Carl von ClausewitzOn War
  93. StendhalThe Red and the BlackThe Charterhouse of Parma; On Love
  94. Lord ByronDon Juan
  95. Arthur Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism
  96. Michael Faraday: Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity
  97. Charles LyellPrinciples of Geology
  98. Auguste Comte: The Positive Philosophy
  99. Honore de BalzacPère GoriotEugenie Grandet
  100. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative Men; Essays; Journal
  101. Nathaniel HawthorneThe Scarlet Letter
  102. Alexis de TocquevilleDemocracy in America
  103. John Stuart MillA System of LogicOn Liberty; Representative Government; UtilitarianismThe Subjection of Women; Autobiography
  104. Charles DarwinThe Origin of SpeciesThe Descent of ManAutobiography
  105. Charles DickensPickwick PapersDavid CopperfieldHard Times
  106. Claude BernardIntroduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
  107. Henry David ThoreauCivil DisobedienceWalden
  108. Karl MarxCapitalCommunist Manifesto
  109. George EliotAdam BedeMiddlemarch
  110. Herman MelvilleMoby-DickBilly Budd
  111. Fyodor DostoevskyCrime and PunishmentThe IdiotThe Brothers Karamazov
  112. Gustave FlaubertMadame Bovary; Three Stories
  113. Henrik Ibsen: Plays
  114. Leo TolstoyWar and PeaceAnna KareninaWhat is Art?; Twenty-Three Tales
  115. Mark TwainThe Adventures of Huckleberry FinnThe Mysterious Stranger
  116. William JamesThe Principles of PsychologyThe Varieties of Religious ExperiencePragmatismEssays in Radical Empiricism
  117. Henry JamesThe American; ‘The Ambassadors
  118. Friedrich Wilhelm NietzscheThus Spoke ZarathustraBeyond Good and EvilThe Genealogy of MoralsThe Will to Power
  119. Jules Henri PoincareScience and HypothesisScience and Method
  120. Sigmund FreudThe Interpretation of Dreams; Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
  121. George Bernard Shaw: Plays and Prefaces
  122. Max Planck: Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography
  123. Henri BergsonTime and Free WillMatter and MemoryCreative EvolutionThe Two Sources of Morality and Religion
  124. John Dewey: How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience and Nature; Logic; the Theory of Inquiry
  125. Alfred North WhiteheadAn Introduction to MathematicsScience and the Modern WorldThe Aims of Education and Other EssaysAdventures of Ideas
  126. George SantayanaThe Life of ReasonSkepticism and Animal Faith; Persons and Places
  127. LeninThe State and Revolution
  128. Marcel ProustRemembrance of Things Past
  129. Bertrand RussellThe Problems of Philosophy; The Analysis of Mind; An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth; Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits
  130. Thomas MannThe Magic MountainJoseph and His Brothers
  131. Albert Einstein: The Meaning of Relativity; On the Method of Theoretical Physics; The Evolution of Physics
  132. James Joyce: ‘The Dead’ in DublinersA Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManUlysses
  133. Jacques MaritainArt and ScholasticismThe Degrees of KnowledgeThe Rights of Man and Natural LawTrue Humanism
  134. Franz KafkaThe TrialThe Castle
  135. Arnold J. ToynbeeA Study of HistoryCivilization on Trial
  136. Jean Paul SartreNauseaNo ExitBeing and Nothingness
  137. Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe First CircleThe Cancer Ward


Additions


  • Bertrand Russell: A New History of Western Philosophy
    • It goes against Adler's recommendation about reading compendiums of philosophy, but I already have it
  • Martin Heidegger: Being and Time, What Is Called Thinking?
    • Some claim Heidegger to have a great influence on American society today

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