The New Lifetime Reading Plan

In any case, innovations of the information age have made it easier for you to find these books on your own. Most libraries and bookstores will have copies of the current Books in Print and Paperback Books in Print, both published (each in several volumes) annually by R.R. Bowker Co.; you can consult these to locate good and reasonably priced editions of the books listed in the Plan. Most bookstores and libraries also have on-line access to one or another database (including computerized ver- sions of Books in Print and Paperback Books in Print), which they will happily use to assist you in finding books. If a book or an edition that you are looking for is out of print, try to find a copy in your local library, or ask the library to obtain one on interlibrary loan. (Computer databases and the Internet have widened and simplified the process of interlibrary loans; even very small libraries are now often part of a lending network.) We also encourage you to look for copies of these books at secondhand bookstores, where you will have both the pleasure of browsing through shelves of interesting books and the satisfaction of buying copies of excellent books at reasonable prices.

The lists of books suggested for additional reading in most cases are both brief and basic. To save space, we list these books only by author and title. Again, new information technology makes it easier for you to go fur­ther on your own: Many school and public libraries, and ali large research- oriented libraries, have entered their holdings into database programs, and often have access via the Internet to other libraries' catalogues as well. It is a simple matter (and the librarians will be happy to help you) to search these databases by subject—for example, "Gilgamesh"—and compile a bibliography far larger and more complete than anything we could hope to provide here. Remember also that the Encyclopaedia Britannica remains an excellent and convenient source of sound biographical and background information on virtually ali of the authors listed in The New Lifetime Reading Plan.

Here, then, are our suggestions, to be considered as nothing more than a way to help you get started.

н. The Epic of Gilgamesh—Translations by R. Campbell Thompson (Clarendon); N.K. Sandars (Penguin); E.A. Speiser (Princeton U. Press); John Gardner and John Maier (Vintage); Maureen Kovacs (Stanford U. Press); Danny P. Jackson (Bolchazy-Carducci); David Ferry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Further reading: C. W. Ceram, Gods, Graves and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology; A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization; Jeffrey Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic; Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others.

2. Homer, The Iliad—The translations of Richmond Lattimore (Phoenix) and Robert Fitzgerald (Anchor) are excellent, as is the newer translation by Robert Fagels (Viking). Those by W.H. Rouse (Mentor) and E.V. Rieu (Penguin) are quite serviceable, the latter especially in the updated version published in 1991 by Penguin.

Further reading: Jasper Griffin, Homer; Michael Silk, Homer: The Iliad; Mark Edwards, Homer Poet of the Iliad.

A comprehensive reference volume covering both Greece and Rome is Paul Harvey, ed., Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. For mythology: Zimmerman, Dictionary of Classical Mythology; Edith Hamilton, Mythology; H.J. Rose, Gods and Heroes of the Greeks. A masterly general study of Greek culture: Werner Jaeger, Paideia.

Homer, The Odyssey—Versions by Richmond Lattimore (Harper Torchbooks); Robert Fitzgerald (Anchor); W.H. Rouse (Mentor), Robert Fagels (Viking). Avoid abridgements.

Further reading: M.I. Finley, The World of Ulysses; G.S. Kirk, Homer and the Epic.

Confucius—The standard translation is by Arthur Waley, The Analects of Confucius (Random House); equally good is that of D.C. Lau (Penguin). The translation by James Legge, in The Chinese Classics (5 vols., 1861-72, several reprint editions) is old but still much admired by scholars. The Original Analects, tr. E. Bruce Brooks (Columbia U. Press), gives a radically new interpretation.