Paradise Lost

There's a lovely and eccentric quiz show on the BBC called Only Connect. Last year the host as part of her bit to fill time tried to fill it with reading excerpts from Paradise Lost. It was funny, and the in-joke I think was to remind us all of what Samuel Johnson once said of it: > "Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is." "working through it" does indeed seem like the right phrasing from what little I've been exposed to. Good luck!

Paradise Lost, Gravity's Rainbow, Middlemarch, and 2666. edit: The short stories which have stuck with me the most over the years are probably Joyce's "The Dead," O'Connor's "Good Country People," and a solid half of Borges's "Ficciones."

* Philosophy Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation. Surprisingly readable and insightful, even if you don't buy his metaphysics. Einstein had Schopenhauer's portrait on his wall and considered him a genius. * Poetry John Milton - Paradise Lost Powerful and beautiful writing. * Fiction Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel. Funny and a real feast of words (the translation is a work of art in itself) Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain. Haunting and moving Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Dangerous Liaisons. Scandalous, gripping. Ivan Turgenev - First Love. A masterclass in writing. Short, sensitive and exquisitely told. Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time. Exceptionally rich and a beautiful study of love. Reading it is like living another life. PG Wodehouse - the Jeeves series. Hilarious, perfectly frivolous, light and sunny * Non-fiction Stuart Russell - Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control. Potential bad outcomes from AI and what we might be able to do about them Noam Chomsky - Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. How public discourse is shaped and controlled…

Fiction War and Peace Crime and Punishment Count of Monte Christo 1984 God of Small Things Paradise lost Divine comedy Non fiction Selfish gene Meditations Madness explained (the best book I've encountered for explaining how the mind works) The Red Queen Tao te Ching

Great question. Reminds me of what Samuel Johnson had to say about Paradise Lost ("great, but nobody ever wished it was longer") My $0.02: Andy Groves - High Output Management fits your bill Most Seneca Robert Frost poems (but maybe S/N is TOO high for comfortable consumption here)