In his book
The Case for Classic Christian Education (Crossway,
2003), Doug Wilson offers a list of “foundational” books for Western
Civilization (some of which, but not all, would make their way onto his
desert-island reading list.)
I’ve reproduced his list below, along with my own parenthetical recommendations on some translations, editions for kids, etc.
The Scriptures
Of course, the Scriptures are not included in the list of twenty-five
books. The Bible is necessarily in a class by itself and forms the
center of every class a student takes. But at the same time, the Bible
is an important part of our broader literary heritage, particularly in
the Authorized Version, popularly known as the King James. . . .
The Iliad
Written by Homer (c. 750 B.C.), this great work is about the fall of
Hector in one sense, as well as the tragic fall of Achilles during the
siege of Troy. The Trojan War is the setting, but this is not what
The Iliad
is about. Homer’s poetic gifts were great, but we should remember C. S.
Lewis’s comment that it was his giftedness that made his granite
despair shine as though it were marble.
[See
Robert Fagles's translation. For kids, see Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling,
The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of the Odyssey---or wait until July 2014 for a
new edition of this retelling with illustrations by Alan Lee. For a Christian literary guide to the book, see
Leland Ryken's work.]
The Odyssey
Mark Twain once quipped that we now know that Homer was not the
author of these works, but they were rather to be attributed to another
blind Greek poet with the same name.
The Odyssey, more accessible to many modern readers than
The Iliad, is about the return of Odysseus from a life of freebooting to his home country and his adventures on the way.
[See
Robert Fagles's translation. For children, see Rosemary Sutcliff's
Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of 'The Iliad.' Or wait till August 2014 to get her
version with Alan Lee's illustrations.]