What to read?

What to read? I pose it as an open ended question. It's a question I feel hopelessly unqualified to answer. If there's anything I've learned in life, it's that I really don't know much of anything at all. Socrates's old saying..."the more I learn, the more I learn how little I know"...seems a fitting description for how I feel in attempting to answer this question. It's a troublesome fact of life that we only seem to know which path we should have chosen, after we've walked down the wrong one, and I'm afraid of wasting time with the wrong books.

So, what to read? Millions of books have been written over the course of human history. But it seems that most of those millions have come, had some little moment of time in the sun, and then, like their authors, died. Forever lost to history, never again to carry their creators thoughts to someone else's mind. Causing their authors to die a kind of second death. This seems to be the fate of most of mans penmanship, I suppose it will ultimately be the fate of my own. But, there are a few books which, while others move all around them in and out of the bookstore shelf, remain constant. A few which never seem to fall out of favor. We call them classics.

Seriously though, what to read? Are the classics, as they're called, really worth reading today, or are they just relics for the home library. Do people read them, or collect them. Are they still relevant? I don't know the answer to that. I can tell you that Epictetus was relevant to me when I read it (see previous post), but when it comes to classic literature, I don't really know if that's the exception, or the rule. I don't know if I'll be able to answer that question until I've walked far enough down that path, and as my intent is to understand what thoughts led us to the world we live in today, I don't know of any better path to walk down.

So I've narrowed the list down to classics but , which of them should I read? I've looked online (couldn't think of a better place to look) for complete listings of classic literature, and most especially, influential books. The kind that are most likely to have shaped our world. I really don't know how much I should rely on these lists, but since I have nothing else to go on, they'll have to at least serve as a starting point. The result is a long list of books I'm hesitant to post here, mainly because I think the list is in no way static. As I read one book I'm sure it will refer me to another I haven't considered and my list will grow, shift, and hopefully be refined. My list is also open to suggestions, please, if you've read some classic that you feel has helped mold this world into what it is, let me know.

What to read first? I once herd a conversation where a woman was trying to tell someone a story and said..."I'm not really sure where to begin"...to which the other person simply replied..."how about at the beginning". I can't think of a better place to start. Chronology seems to be the best way of sorting my list.

So with that in mind, the first book will be...