100 Books to Read in a Lifetime (That Are Older Than 200 Years)

Veilleur_de_nuit: Parce que ce long poème dit les horreurs de la guerre et les douceurs de l'amour, et parce qu'il a façonné l'imaginaire occidental.

Mapguy314: Means I have it in my library, not necessarily that I have read it, although I have read some of them

-pilgrim- : There is another version on page 1 of list

CGlanovsky: Published in 1818

Edward: These are currently ranked separately as #1 and #2. There's no need to list a compilation as well.

cemanuel : Agreed. The purpose of this list is specifically for alternatives to Amazon's. Great book though.

lorax : If you're going to read Don Quijote, read it, don't read a summary and pretend you read it.

aulsmith : The whole thing??? Are you folks crazy? Why would anyone who isn't a Catholic even care? (ETA: some good rebuttal points, but still, in my opinion, not worth reading in it's entirety. I found a few samples a good lesson on the limits of formal logic.)

cemanuel: Ridiculing those you disagree with? Nice demonstration of maturity. This is probably the most important book written between about 420 and the end of the Middle Ages about the most influential social institution in Western Civilization. Anyone interested in the development of Christianity would learn a LOT from it. In fact, if you're interested in the topic it's probably more important for non-Catholics to read it. And yes, if you're going to tackle it, you should read it in its entirety. Personally I think everyone should care about how our society developed. But I won't make fun of you for disagreeing.

Betelgeuse: Not the whole thing. I own an abridged version that suffices.

lorax : I really don't think everyone needs to read a book that's been called "the book nobody read" (see http://www.librarything.com/work/16335 ). I have a PhD in astronomy and even I never read this; it's important to know about it, and why it was important, but actually reading it? Reading the old, old primary sources isn't important in science the way it is in history.

karenb: Squeaking by, barely (published 1812)