A READER recently asked me to compile a homeschooling reading list. It’s a good idea, but I haven’t completed it as there is so much to include from both my own experience homeschooling one of two sons (as well as supplementing my other son’s education), and from the recommendations of others. I still hope to post one soon, but in the meantime, here is a list of the books my 16-year-old son read this year. It does not include science and math textbooks, reference works and a few odds and ends. As is noted in the list, not all of the works were read in their entirety.

1. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
2. Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare
3. Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
4. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
5. Plutarch’s Lives, Vol. 1, (selections) Plutarch
6. Bible, Proverbs
7. Bible, Ecclesiastes
8. Bible, Isaiah
9. Bible, Jeremiah
10. Bible, Lamentations
11. Bible, Ezekiel
12. Bible, Daniel
13. The Deceiver, Livio Fanzaga
14. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (selections)
15. The Landmark Thucydides (selections), Robert B. Strassler (ed.)
16. The Landmark Xenophon (selections), Robert B. Strassler (ed.)
17. Aspects of Greek History (selections), Terry Buckley
18. A History of the Greek City States (selections), R. Sealey
19. Collected Works of Plato (selections)
20. Collected Works of Aristotle (selections)
21. The Persians, Aeschylus
22. Wasps, Aristophanes
23. Antigone, Sophocles
24. Oedipus the King, Sophocles
25. Medea, Euripides
26. Hippolytus, Euripides
27. Into the Void, Joe Simpson
28. No Shortcuts to the Top, Ed Biesturs
29. Anna Purna, Maurice Herzog
30. Rock and Ice, Guy and Laura Waterman
31. The 4,000 Footers of the White Mountains: A Guide and History, Stephen D. Smith and Mike Dickerman
32. Walking the Appalachian Trail, Larry Luxenberg
33. Eiger Dreams, Jon Krakauer
34. America: A Narrative History, (selections) George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi
35. For the Record: A Documentary History of America, David Shi and Holly Mayer
36. The American Revolution, Gordon Wood

My son, William, took an ancient history and philosophy course from a woman who is a classics scholar with a doctorate in archaeology from one of the top classics departments in the country. She has worked on archaeology digs in Greece and for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is now a mother raising her own children at home. She teaches a small group of high school students in her book-crammed living room every week (it costs $20 per class) and they have all become close friends.

With his group of philosophy friends, William put on an all-teen performance of Hamlet at a local theater. They abridged the play themselves, created sets, co-directed it and then finagled the director of a professional theater to let them have the house for one night.  They practiced and worked on the play for many, many hours over a six-month period. (“You’re practicing again!?”) There was no adult participation in the entire production, except for the work of one father to help build sets. The group also put on the play for high school students and will be staging it at a retirement community for the elderly this weekend. They performed scenes from The Reduced Works of Shakespeare’s version of Hamlet at a university Shakespeare festival. William played Polonius and the grave digger (and also one of the actors in the traveling troupe) in the main production. He also did one of Hamlet’s soliloquies in the college festival. He is a gifted actor and that has been clear ever since he was a young child. “I will end up as a janitor someday,” he recently predicted.

You will notice a number of mountaineering books on the list. This was an obsession; at times, dreams of mountains were everything. We do not live near any substantial peaks, but my son climbed eight peaks over 4,000 feet in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He surreptitiously read mountain books that are not on this list when he was supposed to be engaged in more conventional subjects. He was so distracted by mountains that we finally had to drop trigonometry, which we hope to pick up at the local community college next year. I also added an “environmental science” course, with an emphasis on mountains, to his curriculum.  That’s the beauty of homeschooling: you work with what is there. William followed the weather conditions almost daily at the top of Mount Washington, which has some of the most volatile weather in the world and a famous weather observatory. He wanted to be there, even – or especially – when conditions were at their worst.

                                           — Comments —

Jim B. writes:

I was heartened to see so much about the Ancients on your list.  I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a Classics professor the other day, and he was lamenting that he can’t take for granted that his students (and this is at one of the most prestigious Universities in the country) know even the basics about Roman history (i.e., he needs to explin to them what “crossing the Rubicon” refers to).  It appears that studying Western history is the doubleplusungood, these days.

Laura writes:

I got very little ancient history when I was growing up and in college. It really bothered and embarrassed me. I felt I was deliberately shut out from understanding so much since the influence of the Ancients is everywhere.

Kevin writes:

I note a distinct lack of Twain. Though by many not considered as “weighty” as the various Greeks and Romans his travel works of visits west, to Hawaii, and Europe subtly stand up to anything ever written.  

The 20 book “Master & Commander” works by Patrick O’Brian are also written with an elegance no longer seen today. They are a joy to read every bit as much as any of the “great” American and European contemporary fiction writers. 

Finally, and this is a bias on my part, I feel anyone seeking a rounded education should read at least some of the landmark science fiction works starting with Jules Verne. In all this I am not suggesting replacing Cicero or the like, but this “lighter” fare is as important in a different way in my opinion.

Laura writes:

Good suggestions. This is only one year’s reading list. My children have read Jules Verne and some Twain. Patrick O’Brian is a good idea, especially for a boy’s list.

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