(Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA) - From time to time, Bob is approached by several devoted readers of The Kohn Times who kindly ask that he prepare a reading plan that would both delight and instruct a person desiring to improve his mind and imbibe the best that western civilization has to offer.

At the risk of converting anyone who embarks upon such a plan into a white European male, may we offer the following compilation, listed in an order Bob especially recommends:

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders
Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice
George Elliot, Silas Marner
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds
Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Mortimer J. Adler, We Hold These Truths
Plutarch, Lives of Solon, Themistocles, and Aristides
Herodotus, The Histories
Mortimer J. Adler, Six Great Ideas
Aristotle, Ethics
Sophicles, Oedipus the King
Plutarch, Lives of Pericles, Alcibiades, and Alexander
Plato, The Apology
Plato, The Symposium
Aristophanes, Lysistrata
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Bacon, Wisdom of the Ancients
Shakespeare, Hamlet
Livy, Early History of Rome
Plutarch, Lives of Brutus, Mark Anthony, Pompey, Caesar, Cicero
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Cicero, On Old Age
Cicero, On Friendship
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews
Samuel Johnson, Rasselas
Boswell, Life of Johson
Plato, The Republic
Machiavelli, The Prince
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Genesis
Milton, Paradise Lost
Thomas Paine, Age of Reason
Mortimer J. Adler, Truth in Religion
Mortimer J. Adler, How to Think About God
Bob Kohn, Mind and Brain: The Genius of Fortune
Al Kohn & Bob Kohn, The Art of Music Licensing
Al Kohn & Bob Kohn, Kohn On Music Licensing

The preceding article was originally published in The Kohn Times, a popular holiday newsletter.
Copyright © 1994 The Kohn Family.