Ranking the Classics: Week One of the 60 in 60, with Seneca in the Lead

When I'm not blogging for Omnivoracious, I'm primarily a fiction writer and anthology editor. This year, with an incredibly busy schedule, I decided to more or less go offline for six months to finish my latest novel, Finch. No personal blogging at my Ecstatic Days site, just guest bloggers. For my return, I thought it might be nice to give myself a little challenge, so I wrote to my friend Colin Brush at Penguin Books UK and said, "If you'll send me the 60 books in your Great Ideas series, I'll review one a day for 60 days." These beautifully designed little books are usually abridgments of longer works. Authors include the likes of Edward Gibbon, Karl Marx, and Virginia Woolf.



Brush replied that he liked the idea and sent me the books. This past week I started in on what has been called by at least one friend "foolish" and by another "the endeavor of a madman." Penguin's own blog questioned my sanity.

Yet, I have persevered to the end of the first week, during which my 60 in 60 audacity was rewarded by attention from among others, the (as book site of the week) and the Harvard University Press, which urged its readers to emulate my craziness.Every Saturday, then, I will report back to Omnivoracious readers on the prior week's reading, Guardian ranking each book I've read and turning a spotlight on the best.

First Week's Reading
1 - Seneca's On the Shortness of Life : Succinct, readable, still relevant, and often profound. Available in the Great Ideas edition or Oxford World's Classics edition. As I wrote in my review, "it offers prescient advice on combating the shortcomings of a modern life in which personal technology like cell phones and computers, coupled with internet addiction, have given human beings ever more ways to distract themselves from the fundamental questions of their existence, including the fact that all of us will eventually be dust."

2 - Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince : The classic strategic and tactical guide, which I found surprisingly honorable as well.

3 - Marcus Aurelius' Meditations : At times repetitious, but still engaging and full of insights that demonstrate keen insight about the world.

4 - Michel de Montaigne's On Friendship : Although some of the digressions weaken the lesser essays, the title piece and "On the Art of Conversation" are relative classics.

5 - Thomas a Kempis' The Inner Life : Aimed at fellow clergy, this inspirational tome, including a call-and-response between Jesus and a disciple, has provided comfort to many over the centuries.

6 - St Augustine's Confessions of a Sinner : An exploration of personal sin in the context of greater salvation.

Article was published in : Omnivoracious.com at 10:07 AM PST, December 20, 2008 Re-Publised again, here.