10 books like The Symposium

By Plato, Christopher Gill (editor),

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like The Symposium. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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The Landmark Thucydides

By Robert B. Strassler (editor),

Book cover of The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides, along with Herodotus a generation earlier, created history as we know it. Herodotus added to narrative the analysis of cause: ‘why’ as well as ‘what’. Thucydides added different levels of causation: the immediate reasons for the war and the long-term causes. He studied how the dynamics of fear and power drive states into warfare. He took the gods out of history (it is hard to remember how radical that was). He studied the corruption of moral language and behaviour under the pressure of conflict. In Pericles’ Funeral Speech he set out the theory of Athenian democracy (Pericles would have denied that our own society was democratic—a challenging thought). Thucydides’ eye is not exactly cold, but it is unblinking: no historian seems so free of illusion.

The Landmark Thucydides

By Robert B. Strassler (editor),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Landmark Thucydides as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Thucydides called his account of two decades of war between Athens and Sparta "a possession for all time," and indeed it is the first and still the most famous work in the Western historical tradition.

Considered essential reading for generals, statesmen, and liberally educated citizens for more than 2,000 years, The Peloponnesian War is a mine of military, moral, political, and philosophical wisdom.

However, this classic book has long presented obstacles to the uninitiated reader. Written centuries before the rise of modern historiography, Thucydides' narrative is not continuous or linear. His authoritative chronicle of what he considered the greatest war…


The Golden Ass

By Apuleius, Sarah Ruden (translator),

Book cover of The Golden Ass

The narrator is turned into a donkey and undergoes various tribulations before recovering his human form. The only Latin novel to survive complete, it is a unique curiosity shop of diverse treasures: fantastical, comic, bawdy, beautiful, violent, and finally—biggest surprise of alldevoutly religious. "It smells of incense and urine," Flaubert said. Much of the work consists of tales related by the characters whom the donkey comes across, of which the longest is Cupid and Psyche, a fabulously rococo display of exquisite and enchanted storytelling. The virtuoso beauty of the description of Cupid’s wings is unbeatable. "Reader, listen up: you’ll love it," says the narrator at the start. You will. Again, go for Ruden’s translation.

The Golden Ass

By Apuleius, Sarah Ruden (translator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Golden Ass as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Acclaimed poet and translator Sarah Ruden brilliantly brings Apuleius's comic tale to life

"A rollicking ride well worth the fare, . . . marvelously, sidesplittingly ridiculous. . . . It's a story, not a homily, and Sarah Ruden has re-bestowed it with artful aplomb."-Tracy Lee Simmons, National Review

"A cause for celebration. . . . We owe Sarah Ruden a great debt of thanks for [this] English translation that is no less inventive, varied, and surprising than the original."-G. W. Bowersock, New York Review of Books

With accuracy, wit, and intelligence, this remarkable new translation of The Golden Ass breathes…


The Aeneid (Translated by Sarah Ruden)

By Virgil, Sarah Ruden,

Book cover of The Aeneid (Translated by Sarah Ruden)

The supreme classic of western literature and all that, but what fascinates me is the paradoxes. Here is a poem about success, victory, and empire, yet it is suffused with grief and melancholy. It is an imperfect poem written by a perfectionist; it wears a sovereign authority, but no epic poem seems more personal. None ends so abruptly, yet the ending seems entirely complete. Virgil is a ‘civilised’ poet, literary, self-conscious, and controlled, but he is also intuitive and instinctive: he finds dark and wonderful places, and who can match his sense of mystery, his power to evoke the indescribable? Dryden’s translation is an English classic, or if you prefer a modern version, I recommend Sarah Ruden.

The Aeneid (Translated by Sarah Ruden)

By Virgil, Sarah Ruden,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Aeneid (Translated by Sarah Ruden) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The translation is alive in every part. . . . This is the first translation since Dryden's that can be read as a great English poem in itself."-Garry Wills, New York Review of Books

This extraordinary new translation of Vergil's Aeneid stands alone among modern translations for its accuracy and poetic appeal. Sarah Ruden, a lyric poet in her own right, renders the classic poem in the same number of lines as the original work-a very rare feat that maintains technical fidelity to the original without diminishing its emotional power.

Ruden's translation follows Vergil's content faithfully, and the economy and…


The Iliad

By Homer, Martin Hammond,

Book cover of The Iliad

‘Wrath’ is the first word, beginning European literature not with the whimper of infancy but with a bang. The Iliad is ferociously intense, the action remarkably compressed in time and place, despite the poem’s great length (most of it takes place on the plain of Troy over two or three days). It is the quintessence of tragedy, declaring that the quest for glory, the hero’s duty, is inseparably bound up with humiliation and death. But it is a high-spirited tragedy, immensely energetic, with a lust for the ordinary appetites of life. Life is so good: that is what makes the warriors’ deaths so terrible. The gods look on, both fascinated and detached, and through their eyes we see man as both small and great. I recommend Martin Hammond’s prose translation.

The Iliad

By Homer, Martin Hammond,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Iliad as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The best modern prose translation of The Iliad' Robin Lane Fox, The Times

The first of the world's great tragedies, The Iliad centres on the pivotal four days towards the end of the ten-year war between the Greeks and the Trojans. In a series of dramatic set pieces, it follows the story of the humiliation of Achilleus at the hands of Agamemnon and his slaying of Hektor: a barbarous act with repercussions that ultimately determine the fate of Troy. The Iliad not only paints an intimate picture of individual experience, but also offers a universal perspective in which human loss…


The Complete Works of Plato, Volume I

By Plato,

Book cover of The Complete Works of Plato, Volume I

After 2,400 years, Plato finally won the battle against Socrates, Aristotle, Avicenna, Rousseau, Locke, Freud, French and Neo-Liberalism, and most parents of two-year-olds. According to 21st-century neuroscientists, as Plato provided in the Allegory of the Cave, the prescient idea is that we are not born as blank slates, but rather have the basic knowledge of beauty, good and evil baked into our prenatal brain (genetically preformed circuits!)

The Complete Works of Plato, Volume I

By Plato,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Complete Works of Plato, Volume I as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Collected here in two volumes are the complete works of Plato, in the classic translation by Benjamin Jowett. One of the most influential thinkers of Ancient Greece or any other era, Plato formed the basis of Western philosophy. Mostly written in the form of dialogues with his teacher Socrates as the protagonist, his works address themes as varied as metaphysics, psychology, pedagogy, politics, and ethics. Despite the weighty subject matter, Plato's writing remains accessible to the general reader, and infused with wit and humor. Why is Plato worth reading today? His dialogues are vitally concerned with how we should live.…


Plato

By John M. Cooper, G.M.A. Grube, Plato

Book cover of Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

These dialogues introduce the ideas that gave birth to western philosophy and its contributions to civilization. Providing the foundations of rational thought and theoretical knowledge in multiple domains, Greek philosophers, especially Socrates and Plato, imbued the search for truth with the urgency of both a personal, and a communal, quest for meaning. Just as the advances of Greek mathematics required concepts that are precisely defined or rigorously governed by axioms, so, the dialogues teach, advances in our knowledge of the world, and of ourselves, require well-regulated concepts like truth, knowledge, justice, virtue, and happiness. In these dialogues, we see the birth of philosophy's two great projects--providing concepts needed to advance theoretical knowledge in every domain and charting the path to wisdom in leading a good and meaningful life.

Plato

By John M. Cooper, G.M.A. Grube, Plato

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Plato as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The second edition of Five Dialogues presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works . A number of new or expanded footnotes are also included along with an updated bibliography.


The Shape of Ancient Thought

By Thomas C. Mcevilley,

Book cover of The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies

This is the best book in English that illuminates the intensive interpenetration of Eastern and Western thought that took place in the ancient world, when half-naked yogis wandered the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, and Greek philosophers traveled to the Hindu Kush to study Buddhism. This brilliant book helped me make sense of the Eastern and Western parts of myself, reflections of my former incarnations in Greece, Tibet, and Japan, and helped me to understand that we are all of one mind.  

The Shape of Ancient Thought

By Thomas C. Mcevilley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Shape of Ancient Thought as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This revolutionary study by the renowned classical philologist reveals the interplay of Greek and Indian thought at the roots of Western culture.

Thomas C. McEvilley’s magisterial work demonstrates that Eastern and Western civilizations have not always had separate, autonomous metaphysical schemes, but have mutually influenced each other over a long period of time. Examining ancient trade routes, imperialist movements, and migration currents, he shows how some of today’s key philosophical ideas circulated freely in the triangle between Greece, India, and Persia, leading to an intense metaphysical interchange between Greek and Indian cultures.

While scholars have sensed a philosophical kinship between…


The Nature of Things

By Lucretius, Coralie Bickford-Smith (illustrator), A.E. Stallings (translator)

Book cover of The Nature of Things

It’s the oldest book I know of that tries to explain the mutable material world in strictly material terms. Appropriately, or maybe paradoxically, Lucretius puts his treatise into the form of poetry, following strict rules of prosody, as if the conventions of verse could create order out of chaos. Two thousand years later, the master poet A.E. Stallings translates it into formal English poetry. Nothing remains fixed, especially not language, and yet we never quit trying.

The Nature of Things

By Lucretius, Coralie Bickford-Smith (illustrator), A.E. Stallings (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Nature of Things as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of a major new Classics series - books that have changed the history of thought, in sumptuous, clothbound hardbacks.

Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is mortal, and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature and not by gods; and that by believing this men can live in peace of mind and happiness. He bases this on the…


On the Nature of Things

By Lucretius, Martin F. Smith (translator), W.H.D. Rouse (translator)

Book cover of On the Nature of Things

Lucretius’ poem De rerum natura is the longest ancient work we have outlining Epicurean ideas. It’s also a masterpiece in its own right, covering everything from the origins of the cosmos, the rise and fall of civilizations, and the development of human culture to the nature of sensation and how to think about death. There are numerous translations out there; this one is a reliable translation into prose that has the original Latin verse on the facing page, along with helpful notes.

On the Nature of Things

By Lucretius, Martin F. Smith (translator), W.H.D. Rouse (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On the Nature of Things as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) lived ca. 99 ca. 55 BCE, but the details of his career are unknown. He is the author of the great didactic poem in hexameters, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). In six books compounded of solid reasoning, brilliant imagination, and noble poetry, he expounds the scientific theories of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, with the aim of dispelling fear of the gods and fear of death and so enabling man to attain peace of mind and happiness.

In Book 1 he establishes the general principles of the atomic system, refutes the views of rival…


Lectures on Ancient Philosophy

By Manly P. Hall,

Book cover of Lectures on Ancient Philosophy

Hey, this non-fiction book I’ve read has a lot to offer. Great study for those who wants to understand more about metaphysical world!

This is his fourth book that I’ve read besides Reincarnation, The Secret Teaching of All Ages, and The Wisdom of the Knowing Ones. I love his books, because can I learn a lot of mystical things which is related to the fantasy series that I’ve been working on. And it has a great impact on my writing for the first book in my series.

It taught me that we are not alone in this world. There are a lot that we don’t know about spiritual dimension that can’t be seen with our mundane eyes. As within, so without. Our inner wisdom creates the reflection of our reality.
I feel contented with the knowledge shared in this book. It helped me to enlighten my perspective…

Lectures on Ancient Philosophy

By Manly P. Hall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lectures on Ancient Philosophy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Complete in itself, this volume originated as a commentary and expansion of Manly P. Hall's masterpiece of symbolic philosophy, The Secret Teachings of All Ages.
In Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, Manly P. Hall expands on the philosophical, metaphysical, and cosmological themes introduced in his classic work, The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Hall wrote this volume as a reader's companion to his earlier work, intending it for those wishing to delve more deeply into the esoteric philosophies and ideas that undergird the Secret Teachings. Particular attention is paid to Neoplatonism, ancient Christianity, Rosicrucian and Freemasonic traditions, ancient mysteries, pagan rites…


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