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 		My book pages aren't nearly as comprehensive or organized as I would like - and I'll never have the time to get them up to snuff; however, I continually search for other people's lists - it's so much fun to read them and find treasures of which I was unaware.  So, for your reading pleasure, I will include some of those that I find from time to time on this page.  Happy Reading!

Literary Lists
By George Grant

Readers are inveterate and unapologetic list makers. Indeed, according to Umberto Eco, "Lists are the most necessary literary accessories of all." There are lists of books that must be read. There are lists of books that must be reread. There are lists of books that must be read by others. There are lists of books that must be bought. There are best-seller lists. There are best of the best lists. There are the indispensable book lists-those titles readers might profess to be their preferred companions were they stranded on a desert isle. It seems that list-making simply goes with the territory-it is the natural accompaniment to the shelf life.
 
  T.S. Eliot quipped, "I love reading another reader's list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or predilections, I am provoked to compare, contrast, and contradict. It is a most healthy exercise, and one altogether fruitful." Here at King's Meadow, we share that sentiment wholeheartedly. So, we trust you'll enjoy mulling over, arguing with, and amending the following literary lists:
 
 
Modern Non-Fiction List:  Compiling a list of the twenty-five best non-fiction modern works is harder than it might appear at first glance-at least partly because most of the really good books written during the last hundred years or so are barely up to the standards of mediocre books written in earlier centuries. But, of course, in accord with God's good providence, there have been a number of happy literary aberrations. Almost any of the books by G.K. Chesterton, Abraham, Kuyper, Hilaire Belloc, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Niall Ferguson, Arthur Quiller-Couch, or Paul Johnson might have made the list-but we had to start and stop somewhere.
  1.   Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
  2.   The Stone Lectures, Abraham Kuyper
  3.   Knowing God, J.I. Packer
  4.   Mont St. Michel and Chartres, Henry Adams
  5.   The Servile State, Hilaire Belloc
  6.   Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington
  7.   The Birth of the Modern, Paul Johnson
  8.   Hero Tales of American History, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge
  9.   The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill
  10.   A World Torn Apart, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  11.   Home, Witold Rybczynski
  12.   A Texan Looks at Lyndon, J. Evetts Haley
  13.   How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis
  14.   My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers
  15.   I'll Take My Stand, Donald Davidson, et al.
  16.   George Whitefield. Arnold Dallimore
  17.   84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
  18.   The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, Henry Van Til
  19.   A Wake for the Living, Andrew Lytle
  20.   A Christian Manifesto, Francis Schaeffer
  21.   Where Nights Are Longest, Colin Thubron
  22.   Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman
  23.   Civil Rights, Thomas Sowell
  24.   Essays and Criticisms, Dorothy Sayers
  25.   Ideas Have Consequences, Richard M. Weaver
 
Modern Fiction and Verse List:  From this close distance, it is very difficult to tell which novels from our time will continue to have relevance in the days to come. Like any list, this one is subjective and reflects our peculiar interests, biases, and concerns. At the same time it is rather wide ranging. Many of the writers included on this list could have had any number of their works listed. And writers such as Robert Penn Warren, Larry Woiwode, T.H. White, Rudyard Kipling, Wendell Berry, Peter Ackroyd, Eudora Welty, Ellis Peters, James Blaylock, Walter Miller, Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, and Flannery O'Connor probably should have been included somewhere but there just wasn't room. 
  1. Oxford Book of English Verse, Arthur Quiller-Couch
  2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
  3. The Father Brown Stories, G.K. Chesterton
  4. Witch Wood, John Buchan
  5. The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot
  6. The Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis
  7. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  8. The Four Men, Hilaire Belloc
  9. Penhally, Caroline Gordon
  10. Collected Stories, William Faulkner
  11. The Wizzard of Oz, L.Frank Baum
  12. Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
  13. Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini
  14. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
  15. Kristen Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset
  16. Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy
  17. The Velvet Horn, Andrew Lytle
  18. The Footsteps at the Lock, Ronald Knox
  19. The Weekend Wodehouse, P.G. Wodehouse
  20. Falling, Colin Thubron
  21. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingles Wilder
  22. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
  23. Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
  24. Possession, A.S. Byatt
  25. At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon
 
Classic Theology List:   Anthony Trollope once asserted that, "A good catalog of the best books is a world of wisdom and adventure, virtue and valor, insight and experience all but for the asking. A young man who prefers other pursuits to the neglect of this goodly catalog may well be akin to the sloth; to be sure he is akin to the fool." Though the greatest ideas, the most influential concepts, and the most inspiring prose can hardly be reduced to a short list like this, it is a helpful exercise nevertheless. 
  1. City of God, St. Augustine
  2. Confessions, St. Augustine
  3. Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis and Gerhard Groote
  4. Institutes of Christian Religion, John Calvin
  5. Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther
  6. Westminster Confession of Faith
  7. On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius
  8. Merle D'Aubigne, The History of the Reformation
  9. Treasury of David, Charles Haddon Spurgeon
  10. Revolution and Unbelief, William Groen van Prinsterer
  11. John Knox, The History of the Reformation in Scotland
  12. Book of Martyrs, John Foxe
  13. Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards
  14. The Death of Death, John Owen
  15. Christie Magnalia Americana, Cotton Mather
  16. Practical Christianity, William Wilberforce
  17. Collected Sermons, Thomas Chalmers
  18. Journals, George Whitefield
  19. Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
  20. Scots Worthies, John Howie
  21. A Crook in the Lot, Thomas Boston
  22. The Bruised Reed, Richard Sibbes
  23. The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Henry Scougal
  24. The Covenant of Grace, Matthew Henry
  25. The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter
 
Bannockburn Reading Lists:   The Bannockburn Literary Fellowship reads through a number of classic works every year. Following Dr. Grant's four year cycle of Antiquity, Christendom, Modernity, and American, the reading program is not a comprehensive survey of the great Western Canon of literature, but it is a good, healthy survey. Below is a recent sampling of our aggressive reading agenda.
 
 
Antiquity:
  1. The Epic of Gilgamesh
  2. Ryken, Literature of the Bible
  3. Wines, The Hebrew Republic
  4. Aesop's Fables
  5. Johnson, Rasselas
  6. Eddershiem, Temple Worship
  7. Plato, Republic
  8. Aristotle, Rhetoric, Politics, and Poetics
  9. Portable Historians
  10. Plays, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles
  11. Bulfinch, Mythology
  12. Homer, Iliad
  13. Homer, Odyssey
  14. Plutarch, Noble Lives
  15. Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis
  16. Confucius, The Analects
  17. Bhagavad Gita
  18. Portable Reader
  19. Cicero, Orations
  20. Sparks, Apostolic Fathers
  21. Augustine, City of God
 
Christendom:
  1. Augustine, Confessions
  2. Athanasius, On the Incarnation
  3. Rushdoony, Foundations of Order
  4. Mallory, Le Mort d'Arthur
  5. Haney, Beowulf
  6. Tolkien, Sir Gwain
  7. Machiavelli, Prince
  8. Dante, Inferno
  9. Aquinas, Shorter Summa
  10. Runciman, First Crusade
  11. Scott, Talisman
  12. More, Utopia
  13. Scott, Ivanhoe
  14. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
  15. Shakespeare, Taming of Shrew
  16. Goethe, Faustus
  17. Scott, Great Christian Revolution
  18. Calvin, The Golden Booklet
  19. Vasari, Lives
  20. Shakespeare, Sonnets
  21. Westminster Confession
  22. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress
  23. Chalmers, Parish Life
  24. Spurgeon, All of Grace
  25. Pascal, Pensees
 
 Modernity:
  1. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
  2. Van Til, Calvinistic Concept of Culture
  3. Scott, Robespierre
  4. Austen, Pride and Prejudice
  5. Eliot, Silas Marner
  6. Scott, Antiquarian
  7. Johnson, Birth of the Modern
  8. Portable Romantic Poets
  9. Conrad, Heart of Darkness
  10. Dickens, Hard Times
  11. Grant, Big Stick
  12. Mansfield, Then Darkness Fled
  13. Ferguson, Pity of War
  14. Buchan, Greenmantle
  15. Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby
  16. Belloc, Servile State
  17. Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
  18. Mencken, Crestomathy
  19. Mansfield, Never Give In
  20. Quiller-Couch, Q and I
  21. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
  22. O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
  23. Hall, Arrogance of Modern
  24. Lewis, Experiment in Criticism
  25. Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House
  26. Powers, Dinner at Deviant's Palace
  27. Kunstler, Geography of Nowhere
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C.S. Lewis Institute - Recommended Reading

The Early Church Fathers

Christian Classics Ethereal Library - Recommended Reading (short list)

WEMSK - What Every Medievalist Should Know

Queen Mary University of London - School of English and Drama