Summer Reading Plans

I belong to an online reading group that is reading “The Great Books”, as I wrote back in a post on April 2, 2006 . The group has gone through some changes since I wrote about The Great Conversation last April. The online reading group changed leadership and then it split into two different “tracks”, and then into two different groups. I am attempting to keep up with both of them.

One of the groups is (more or less) following Adler’s 10 year reading plan listed in the first volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica’s Great Books. We’re currently reading Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. If you're interested the website is at greatconversation. I was happy when the group decided to extend the reading time through July, since I am still on Book One. But I intend to finish it by the end of July to stay on track with the group. In August we’re reading Plato’s Statesmen, Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, Book 1, and Aristotle’s On Interpretation and Politics. That should keep me busy.

The other “track” is called “Mare Nostrum” and it’s focusing on Greek History for the rest of the year and then on Roman History next year. This group is finishing Thucydides in June and moving on to Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens by James Davidson
in July and Fox’s Alexander the Great in August. I have some reading to do…
(You can find the Mare_Nostrum reading group in yahoo groups.)

But I also have my own list of books I want to read this summer…

Books I’m currently reading:
Thucydides (as mentioned above)
The Holiest of All by Andrew Murray
Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis
Genesis and the Big Bang by Gerald L. Schroeder
Decoding the Universe by Seife
Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
Rahsi’s Daughter: Joheved by Maggie Anton
Under Crescent and Cross by Mark R. Cohen

Other Books I want to read:
Biography:
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace by Johnathan Aitken
Infernal World of Branwell Bronte By Daphne DuMarier
Time to be in Earnest by P.D. James

Science:
Privileged Planet by Guillermo Hernandez
The Edge of Evolution by Michael Behe

Novels
Waverly Novels Sir Walter Scott
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
Lucky Jim by Amis
The Collector by Balladuci
The Bronte Project by Jennifer Vandover
The Nanny Diaries Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus
How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved my Life by Mameve Medwed
The new Jasper Fford Novel: Thursday Next scheduled to be released on July 24

I've got to run, I've got some Thudydides to read!