Sorento62’s Comments (group member since Jul 22, 2016)

Sorento62’s comments from the Reading Classics, Chronologically Through the Ages group.

My main reading project (though I am not making much headway on it yet) is a reading through history chronologically series of books using Martin Seymour-Smith's The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written as the main skeleton, interspersed with other books from or about the same time periods. This is a lot like Kenia's TWEM project, with her own additions interspersed. So this TWEM group is wonderful for me, partly because it gives me some company in pursuing the list I had started. You can see Martin Seymour-Smith's 100 Most Influential Books list at:
http://thegreatestbooks.org/lists/45
I am also reading his book of the same title. He is a bit like a cranky professor, giving his own idiosyncratic viewpoint on the books and authors he includes.
The books related to this project that I have read so far are mostly in preparation:

The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written, read Oct 2014 to Jan 2017

Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, read Feb 2014 with classics book club

History of the World, by Peter Somerset Fry (a Dorling Kindersley illustrated "children's" book, but great for adults too, for a sense of the rough outlines of history throughout the world, and again, chronologically) read Oct-Dec 2015

Prehistory and the First Civilizations, by J.M. Roberts (The Illustrated History of the World, Volume 1) read Jan-Oct 2016


I will be attempting to blend my project with the progress of the TWEM group here, starting with Herodotus' Histories.
The Landmark Herodotus, started November 2016

Hi, Everyone-

I'm so glad to have found a group of curious readers who want to learn by reading through history. I have started a similar project by reading The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written, and putting them on my To Read list in chronological order, also interspersing additional books from those time periods when I run across other things I'd like to read. For example, I recently added Gilgamesh.

Of course with all the modern fiction and other book club and personal interest books I'd like to read some day, my To Read list is impossibly long. So it will be great to have some companionship on the journey.

I haven't read TWEM yet, but I did add it to the To Read list as well -- possibly when I saw it in Sandy's news feed. I am also filling in some gaps in my knowledge of history, which I was never terribly interested in back in school. The Dorling Kindersley children's History of the World was good for giving me a general timeline of history to fill in some of the gaps in my schooling and general knowledge. (Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...)
Now I am learning more about pre-history and the earliest civilizations by reading Prehistory & the First Civilizations -- which is what piqued my interest in Gilgamesh.

Oh, and I am an engineer too. (saw some reference to the profession earlier in this thread)

Looking forward to getting to know you all better.

-Julie (Sorento62)