Really Old Classics Challenge

Heather and I are hosting the Really Old Classics Challenge from November 2009 to the end of February 2010. I am so excited about it. I’ve enjoyed every really old classic I’ve read thus far, and I’m looking forward to a little motivation to read some more!

It’s a fairly simple challenge. To finish, you need to read one work written before 1600 A.D. That’s it. Read one thing and you’ve finished! To make it fun, though, we have an “extra credit” option (read a retelling) and a “Classicist” certification (read four works).

I’m so excited about this! I decided to share some of my favorite classics as well as those that I hope to read some day. I probably won’t get more than four read during the next four months, but at least I can dream about reading them over the course of the rest of my life! Continue reading »

Really Old Classics Challenge Retrospective

The Really Old Classics Challenge, which I’ve been hosting, ends this week.

If you participated in this challenge, I’d love to know what you think now that it’s coming to an end.

But first, if you’d like, go to the reviews post and leave a link to your reviews so we can come read your thoughts.

Continue reading »

Really Old Classics Mini-Challenge Round-Up

A number of people got some Really Old Classics read by the end of February. I’m sending a lucky winner a book of your choice. But first, here’s who participated in the first half of the Really Old Classics Challenge. I’ve formed it like a mini-blog carnival so you might get an idea for your next Really Old Classics read. Continue reading »

Reminder: Giveaway for Really Old Classics Reviews

Hey all, thanks for your well-wishes! All is going well with our packing and moving. Thanks to audiobooks, I still get some literature in my life these days.

This is just a reminder that there are still 18 days left to get your really old classics reviews posted here in order to be entered in a drawing for a book of your choice. So keep reading!

Ok, I’m off to my audiobook and boxes of stuff.

Really Old Classics Mini-Challenge + Giveaway

It’s the new year! New challenges are beckoning us, as are new books. But let’s not forget the really old ones!

How about a mini-challenge (with a giveaway) to remind you?

Continue reading »

Really Old Classics Challenge Reviews

If you would like to share your reviews for the Really Old Classics Challenge, please leave a link to your post in the comments to this post.

If you do not have a blog, feel free to share your thoughts to the works you’ve read in the comments as well.

Thanks, and enjoy!

Really Old Classics Challenge

Children 2,000 years ago read and memorized Virgil and Homer, and Aesop’s Fables were common knowledge. Even 200 years ago these classics were widely read. Now, there are thousands of new books published each year. But what about those really old ones? Have we read those yet? Any of them?

That’s why I’ve decided to host the Really Old Classics Challenge (including classics from pre-1600s), a ten-month challenge (October 2008-July 2009). I myself haven’t read many of the really old ones (Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, Dante, etc.), so this is a project I’m adopting for myself primarily, in addition to my How to Read and Why personal challenge. But I thought we could all use a little motivation, a reminder, to pick one the old classics. Continue reading »

Really Old Classics

Here is a sample of some Really Old Classics that were written pre-Shakespeare (i.e., pre-1600s). This list is, of course, not exclusive. You can purchase books through my Amazon Store.

• Gilgamesh
• Egyptian Book of the Dead
• Holy Bible
• The Apocrypha
• Bhagavad-Gita
• Homer Iliad, Odyssey
• Aeschylus Oresteia, Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound,
• Sophocles Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone
• Euripides Orestes
• Aristophanes
• Herodotus The Histories
• Thucydides  The Peloponnesian Wars
• Plato Dialogues
• Aristotle  Poetics, Ethics
• Plutarch Lives; Moralia
• “Aesop” Fables
• Cicero On the Gods
• Horace Odes
• Virgil Aeneid
• Ovid Metamorphoses
• Juvenal Satires
• Martial Epigrams
• Seneca Tragedies
• Apuleius The Golden Ass
• Saint Augustine City of God; Confessions
• The Koran (Al-Qur’an)
• The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night
• The Nibelungen Lied
• Beowulf
• The Poem of the Cid
• Dante The Divine Comedy
• Petrarch Lyric Poems; Selections
• Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron
• Michelangelo Buonarroti Sonnets and Madrigals
• Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince
• Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks
• Benvenuto Cellini Autobiography
• Giordano Bruno The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast
• Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales; Troilus and Criseyde
• Sir Thomas Malory Le Morte D’Arthur
• Sir Thomas More Utopia
• Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene
• Christopher Marlowe Poems and Plays
• The Song of Roland
• Michel de Montaigne Essays
• François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel
• Erasmus In Praise of Folly
• Christine de Pisan The Book of the City of Ladies
• Romances of the Three Kingdoms
• Sun Tzu’s Art of War
• Confucius’s The Analects