primsong: (books)
I noted the 100+ title "what books have you read" meme going by and wondered if I might find somewhere a comparable sort of list to use that focused instead on titles considered a part of being classically educated or similar. Here's a compilation of gleanings from three such lists.

As is commonly done with such things, I've put the ones I've read in bold, the ones I intend to read in the reasonably near future in italics (in my case, this means I now own a copy and it is literally waiting in a pile). Feel free to pass it on, or adjust as needed.  Some of these I don't think I would ever read, but who knows? Perhaps.
Classical Book Meme List under here )
primsong: (books)
Yoinked from [livejournal.com profile] lothithil just because my curiosity got the better of me.

1. Take five books off your bookshelf
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph

I really thought about 'cherry picking' some books for this based on what I know of their literary styles, but thought "Naaah - really pick up those five books!" The five books in question were the actual stack I currently have by my bed which happen at the moment to all be nonfiction and I just wondered what they would look like in a blender. It really isn't always like this...

Book #1 Parkinson's Law, Prof. C. Northcote Parkinson
Book #2 The Essential Erasmus, Desidarius Erasmus, Dolan trans.
Book #3 Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart
Book #4 On Government, Cicero, Grant trans.
Book #5 On Old Age, Friendship and Divination, Cicero, Falconer trans.

*place in a box and shake vigorously*

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. I feel that entirely too many people confuse what are really natural gifts or endowments with virtues! If we choose to behave as if there is a God and we get to the end and it turns out there isn't, it's not a big deal (well, maybe we've lost the ability to thoroughly enjoy the Seven Deadly Sins, but that's small potatoes compared to the alternative), if we bet there isn't a God, and get to the end only to find out there is a God, we've lost the Big Enchilada. For neither the Spartans, who invented your life-style and way of talking and who recline daily at their meals upon couches of wood, nor even the Cretans, who never even reclined at meal-times at all, maintained their states more successfully than the Romans - who find time to enjoy themselves as well as to work. "Nothing could please me better," Quintus said, and when this was said, we arose.

Whew!
primsong: (Default)
Having finished the amazing On Old Age and other essays, I've picked up a copy of Cicero's oratories and essays On Government - even just the first one, a legal opposition to a corrupt governor, is already giving me some deja-vu on some of the abuses of power and position we have now, the pulling strings for favorites and cronies, setting up straw men to hide money-grabs etc. etc. going on now. And the defense trying to say 'well, yeah, he did some things that probably weren't so great but he's such a great leader, we really can't afford to lose great leaders like him...he's a hero!" (then Cicero proceeds to reveal the truth behind his so-called nonexistent 'heroism', all manufactured for appearance, I love it)

The defense demanded it be argued before a jury of Senators only, then when that was accepted, they stuffed the pool of Senators with 300 newbies of their choosing... even stacked 'town-halls' are recycled news here. *rolls eyes* Reminds me of the Senators in Letters that hired men to holler and protest around someone's house to make it look like their cause was 'popular' with the citizens when it wasn't.

I wish all of our legislators were required to study what happened to Rome - not the final collapse so often referred to but why the Republic crumbled until tyranny was possible.

I <3 Cicero and how his 'voice' comes through in his writing so after a while you get to 'know him' - it helps that I'd already read the excerpts from his Letters and knew something of the man behind the speech. He really was amazing - yes, he had his human foibles, but I would have loved to have heard him speak.
primsong: (flower)
I got a copy of three of Cicero's essays - very cool book with the Latin on one side and the English on the other so you can compare straight across. First of all let me say On Old Age should be required reading - seriously! Fabulous stuff. Anyone middle-aged and up should totally get forthwith to the nearest library or bookstore and find this to read.

Secondly, his On Divination has been vastly amusing to me. Snippets just in what I read last night )

I would have loved to have seen Cicero in a televised debate. X-D
primsong: (books)
Just finished reading the Letters of Cicero (excerpts, that is - not the whole bazillion of them) and then Octavius went and totally betrayed him and let Antony kill him! Aaaaaaighh! Noooo! Noooo!

> - <

It's worse because it isn't even a fictional hero dying...! even if it *was* a loooong time ago. That's the thing about history, sometimes the plot just suddenly veers right off a cliff.

*wants to bludgeon Octavius, the @!&#*%! traitorous little power-grabber*

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