Essential Books every Gentleman Should Have?

[Frykitty]

My bookcase (only about 18") consists of
-a field guild to birds
-dinner wit da dons; a mafia cookbook
-short stories by Italo Calvino
-Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead
-Holy Blood Holy Grail
-Goethe’s Maxims and Reflections
-Grapes of Wrath
and last but not least Funk+wags dictionary

 

[WH1]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand excellent choice
Agree with Der Mann anything by Wodehouse, just makes a day a little brighter
The Sea Wolf by Jack London Great book about the nature of man.
The Mask of Command and Face of Battle by John Keegan
The Virginian by Owen Wister, the quintessential western novel
The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

 

[Frykitty]

yess

Jack London definitely needs to be on the list. IMO.

 

[Bourbon Guy]

I've only seen one general reference in this thread, so let's get specific:

1. The KJV (the authorized King James Version of the Bible).

2. Book of Common Prayer.

Now, with that established, after that:

Hemingway (pick 'em. All great. Filll it up with as much as you want. This is a guy's list, after all).

Raymond Chandler. (again, pick 'em). If space is limited, I'd leave out the Hammett. Chandler is better.

Gatsby, definitely. Put as much Fitz in as you want.

Tinker Tailor. The best of le Carre'.

Dump Steinbeck. Not enough room in 3 feet. Not enough room in 300 feet.

Nessmuk's letters.

Longfellow. Fits in one volume. The intellectual snobs don't like him. Tough. Good American stuff. Warm fuzzies in front of the fire.

More Hemingway.

Dump Salinger and dump Catcher in the Rye. Replace it with This Side of Paradise. Much better, if you are into reliving your youth.

OK, the classics, like the Aeneid, that if you didn't read in college you never will, but you can put them on your shelf anyway just to show off and pose. Add to that section Milton, Shelley, Keats, Sartre, and Proust. Guys don't read that stuff unless they had to take the class in school, and even then most of us faked it. It's boring crap. Actually, now that I think about it, if you only have 36 oinches of space, it is probably better assigned to old 19th Century issues of Outdoor Life. On the other hand, you only included the classics to impress the ladies anyway, and, well, if it is a guy's place, why not set it up to try to impress the ladies with your intellect and "feelings." So, just fill it with the classic intellectual crap and Oprah's book club list. Keep the stuff you like in the closet.

 

[DerMann]

OK, the classics, like the Aeneid, that if you didn't read in college you never will, but you can put them on your shelf anyway just to show off and pose. Add to that section Milton, Shelley, Keats, Sartre, and Proust. Guys don't read that stuff unless they had to take the class in school, and even then most of us faked it. It's boring crap. Actually, now that I think about it, if you only have 36 oinches of space, it is probably better assigned to old 19th Century issues of Outdoor Life. On the other hand, you only included the classics to impress the ladies anyway, and, well, if it is a guy's place, why not set it up to try to impress the ladies with your intellect and "feelings." So, just fill it with the classic intellectual crap and Oprah's book club list. Keep the stuff you like in the closet.

So, what's the point of reading any book considered a classic?

Considering it has been read by man since it was published in 19BC, I'd think it's fairly important to even consider reading.

This is the wrong place to be knocking on classics, old boy.

 

[HungaryTom]

Start from here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12914/12914-8.txt
ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS

With Commentary and an Essay on Books and Reading

by

JOHN COWPER POWYS

1916

He had a Hungarian admirer, whom I do admire, Béla Hamvas - http://www.powys-lannion.net/Powys/LettrePowysienne/BH14.pdf

Hamvas also selected his 100 books
Here: http://www.terebess.hu/keletkultinfo/hamvasbela.html#

He did his selection in 1945 - there are tons of post WW2 books that are also worthy to read.

Hamvas said in his Preface of the 100 books that this is odd to reduce things to 100 volumes since this results in reducing Goethe to one book although he has a complete oeuvre that are worthy to read and the same goes for Dostojevskij and Tolstoi just to name a few examples.

Why did I link deliberately a site with non-English content? To indicate that there are so many cultures outside the English world from the last 5000 years with important books which can be accessed only in translations and lot is lost in translation.

However to read them all is quite long especially if one does them in the grown-up working age. In Hungary the secondary school literature promulgates a lot of reading of classic authors and works that are frankly not written for teenagers. Later there is much less spare time left but it is so good to re-read books with different experience and attitude as time goes along.

Other thing: as mentioned before one can have specific interests which have also literature of their own, these "100 books" do not contain book on fine arts, nature, political science etc, plus they do not mention national literature or poetry either.

And it is too difficult to squeeze all those books - still I like to surround myself with books.

Tom

 

[WH1]

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Le Morte De Arthur by Mallory read this when I was 12 and have revisited it many times. The essential arthurian legends.

Christopher Buckley, Thank You For Smoking or Florence of Arabia or Little Green Men or Boomsday or any of his other classic satires.

Waterloo: Day of Battle by David Howarth an excellent volume on one of the most important actions in european history.

 

[Bourbon Guy]

This is the wrong place to be knocking on classics, old boy.

Old boy? No more classics for you, young man.

 

[Lone_Ranger]

I share some of captcouv's library.




*U. S. Constitution
*The Art of War - Sun Tzu
*The Prince - Machiavelli
*Common Sense - Paine
*Starship Trooper - Heinlen
-forget the movie, the book is required reading on individual responsibility

I'd add,
*The Compleat Gentleman, by Brad Miner.
*On Combat, by Lt Col Dave Grossman
*Fate is the Hunter, by Ernest K. Gann

For a fun read.
*Death of a Citizen, Donald Hamilton's first Matt Helm book. (Forget the movie, and read the book. Hamilton's Helm, makes Flemming's Bond look like an amateur.)

and any one of Raymond Chandler's books.

 

[Bourbon Guy]

Start from here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12914/12914-8.txt
ONE HUNDRED BEST BOOKS

With Commentary and an Essay on Books and Reading

by

JOHN COWPER POWYS

1916

He had a Hungarian admirer, whom I do admire, Béla Hamvas - http://www.powys-lannion.net/Powys/LettrePowysienne/BH14.pdf

Hamvas also selected his 100 books
Here: http://www.terebess.hu/keletkultinfo/hamvasbela.html#

He did his selection in 1945 - there are tons of post WW2 books that are also worthy to read.

Hamvas said in his Preface of the 100 books that this is odd to reduce things to 100 volumes since this results in reducing Goethe to one book although he has a complete oeuvre that are worthy to read and the same goes for Dostojevskij and Tolstoi just to name a few examples.

Why did I link deliberately a site with non-English content? To indicate that there are so many cultures outside the English world from the last 5000 years with important books which can be accessed only in translations and lot is lost in translation.

However to read them all is quite long especially if one does them in the grown-up working age. In Hungary the secondary school literature promulgates a lot of reading of classic authors and works that are frankly not written for teenagers. Later there is much less spare time left but it is so good to re-read books with different experience and attitude as time goes along.

Other thing: as mentioned before one can have specific interests which have also literature of their own, these "100 books" do not contain book on fine arts, nature, political science etc, plus they do not mention national literature or poetry either.

And it is too difficult to squeeze all those books - still I like to surround myself with books.

Tom

My guess is that this works for you in Hungary. Probably work for you here too. Go for it!

 

[vintage68]

I love the handy size of the Everyman's Library, and these editions include almost everthing worth reading.

If I think I'll hold on to a copy of a certain book then I try and find it in an EL edition. They're also small enough for lugging around to work or the plane.

 

[MikeBravo]

Thought I'd get a second opinion ... by travelling back in time!!

Maybe not quite, but I did Google. I discovered an online copy of

The English Gentleman's Library Manual; or a Guide to the formation of a library

Published in 1827

The author lists topics such as Theology, History, British antiquities and topography, Biography, Geography, English Literature, Lounging books, Mathematics, Physics, Mental science, Moral science and the Arts.


A lounging book is one "taken up in times of gout, low spirits, ennui or when one is waiting for company; some novels, gay poetry, old whimsical authors."

 

[Randy]

Heh, ask a thousand people this question and you'll get a thousand different answers That said, I cannot think of so few essential books that could fit, even stacked up, in that small a space. I read constantly, revise my list of great books constantly, and would play the role of the lady in the opening chapters of Fahrenheit 451 if anyone told me that I could only have enough books to fit 36" of shelf space.

My Librarything page

- Randy

 

[ET]

The book I have enjoyed most lately out of 5-6000 in my house is "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. I think I would be disheartened with 36 inches of space on a shelf. I have read most of the classics mentioned so far but would probably include a book about or by the explorer Richard Francis Burton in addition to what is already there. He translated the 1001 Nights from the Arabic and was the first westerner to see the Kaaba in Mecca.

 

[demian]

Poetry:

Homer, Virgil, Auden, Borges, Lorca, Stevens, Walcott

Prose:
Austen, Camus, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Sophocles, Shakespeare,

Non-Fiction:
Camus, Augustine, Emerson, Nietzsche, Plato, J.S. Mill

Of course there are countless others, but the emotional and intellectual variety presented here should do a true gentleman justice.

Yes, this is a good list.

I would substitute Tolstoy for Dostoevsky...Dostoevsky is just so....

I would also include Sartre with Camus, and of course Hermann Hesse!

Absolutely the works of Plato, Nietzsche, Kant, Kierkegaard, Descartes, Goethe "Sorrows of Young Werther"....Voltaire is very smart and a wit difficult to surpass and one that would be overwhelmingly missed if lost from the face of the earth.

Otherwise, substituting some poets (W.H. Auden is a favorite too) that would be enough for a lifetime if forced.

Each "bible" from each of the world's religions would also be important as a broad understanding of humanity....but we are running out of space now.

CIAO!

 

[demian]

Wow, of all things documented in history it is very, umm, interesting that these are the books you guys would choose!

No offense. If you enjoy it, don't allow anyone else to tell you otherwise.... I'm speaking in ignorance as I haven't read any of them.

Combat is, well, important I guess...it is important to learn to get back up when you fall down.


Thanks for posting them though. Very telling of a person what books they read and music they listen to.

What is interesting is how completely, seemingly unrelated subjects can express a very strong ideal or concept.

In other words, many of us share the same values, search for the same truth, but have *completely* different interests.

...interesting to see. It's all good....


PS: is that book really entitled, The "Compleat" Gentleman ?

That would be funny.


{EDIT: Well, did a search and so it is, "The Compleat Gentleman"...with very good reviews}

I share some of captcouv's library.




*U. S. Constitution
*The Art of War - Sun Tzu
*The Prince - Machiavelli
*Common Sense - Paine
*Starship Trooper - Heinlen
-forget the movie, the book is required reading on individual responsibility

I'd add,
*The Compleat Gentleman, by Brad Miner.
*On Combat, by Lt Col Dave Grossman
*Fate is the Hunter, by Ernest K. Gann

For a fun read.
*Death of a Citizen, Donald Hamilton's first Matt Helm book. (Forget the movie, and read the book. Hamilton's Helm, makes Flemming's Bond look like an amateur.)

and any one of Raymond Chandler's books.

 

[T.J. Godden]

A smattering of the following; Plum Wodehouse, John Buchan, Kenneth Grahame, Graham Greene, Pont, Seigfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, Bim Tennant, a few choice biographies and memoirs and, of course, a copy of Debretts.

Pip pip.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

My Secret Life, by "Walter". Very instructive reading.


.

 

[Spiffy]

The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Humor+Humility+SciFi=things all gentlemen (and ladies) need!

 

[Ethan Bentley]

The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Humor+Humility+SciFi=things all gentlemen (and ladies) need!

Good choice, humour is essential for a Gentleman.

The Prince - Machiavelli; a choice I very much agree with.

I've recently been impressed by "Geary's Guide to World's Great Aphorists" I think I'd have that.

Also 20,000 Leagues under The Sea