10 Books

Imagine you are only able to read - read in a complete, cover-to-cover, studying, taking notes, thoroughly digesting manner - ten books before your death. And you had to choose the ten now, with no opportunity to change your choices.

You could read each of the ten more than once, but only ten until your death.

Which would you choose?

Obviously a person who has some real perspective on the entire field of the written word will have an advantage in choosing their ten. Let's assume you're capable of doing it basically well (i.e. let's assume you're not at a level of development and understanding that you will put the latest bestselling novel on your list; but if you do, you're stuck with it!)

Here's my list:

Holy Bible, AV1611
Iliad and Odyssey - Homer
Fourth Way - Ouspensky
Institutes of the Christian Religion - Calvin
On War - Carl von Clausewitz
Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
Works - Shakespeare
Lives - Plutarch
History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Gibbon