The ideal home library
The ideal home library.
And here we are again at Sweet blog, the sweetest blog online.
And today, we will walk with you into the gates of your magical kingdom of knowledge and the place with the most significant educational and cultural impact on your home - your library.
In one form or another, she is in almost every home, hence the importance of talking about her.
Albert Einstein once said:
"The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the library's location."
As everyone usually knows, the dude above knows what he's talking about, so let's do ourselves a favor and take from these words a certain perspective on the importance of our home library.
In this article, we will review certain aspects of your home library for you, from the type of books, which in our opinion, a rich and family home library should contain, through design aspects, to suggestions for its ideal physical location in your home.
The ideal home library.
Hop on!
1. Must-have.
Marcus Tullius Cicero once said:
"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
So true.
As we hinted at the end of our introduction, if we want our library to have a profound meaning and take our home one step further, we must ensure that it contains a particular type of reading material which, on the one hand, will give your home the cultural and quality upgrade required. On the other hand, it will enrich your literary and social knowledge on a practical level. Moreover, we will divide these reading materials into sub-categories to make your reading flow easier (Mainly because it's more fun that way).
The classics.
The 'classics' are the ones that every culture seeker, who takes their cultural development seriously, must be familiar with. Therefore these classics should be found in any self-respecting library. By the way, We hope Mark Twain's amusing saying-"′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read" - does not characterize you.
Here is a partial list of the good ones:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.
The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
Persuasion by Jane Austen.
Ulysses by James Joyce.
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith.
Another Country by James Baldwin.
Old but gold!
If you intend to create a quality library that culture lovers will appreciate, you must get your hands on the classics. There is no doubt about it.
Here you can further enrich your knowledge of the matter.
Biographies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
"There are no true stories in the world except biographies."
The cultural importance of biographies cannot be overstated. It is about documenting history from a personal human prism.
Therefore, the very presence of quality books from this category is essential for turning your library into a cultural temple.
Here is a partial list of the good ones:
Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert.
E = mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis.
"The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X" by Les Payne and Tamara Payne.
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert A. Caro.
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston.
Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts.
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang.
Steve Jobs: by Walter Isaacson.
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt.
"A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb" by Paul Glynn.
"Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik.
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff.
Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera.
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.
Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi.
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston.
Norman Mailer: A Double Life by J. Michael Lennon.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham.
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser.
Biography = History from a human point of view
History tends to be deceptive, and everyone has their point of view about it. Despite their pride in severe and uncompromising integrity, academic historians tend to bring their personal point of view and establish it as indisputable historical truth. A biography, however, is characterized by putting things openly on the table and telling his reader Right from the start that it is HIS subjective truth even though this is not all of the historical facts, and that in itself is an honorable thing to do, hence its uniqueness. And as mentioned above, there will not be a quality library that lacks good biographies.
Philosophy.
Clearly, you knew we would reach her too - to the eternal guardian of the gates of knowledge and wisdom — Philosophy.
Plato used to say that philosophy is the highest magic. Indeed, there is no fundamental understanding of any knowledge without it. It is the gatekeeper of all human consciousness, wherever it is. Without it, we would not be able to know what makes sense and what does not (logic theory) and what can be said and what cannot (Philosophy of language).
Therefore, the very presence of excellent and in-depth philosophy books is essential for the quality of any home library.
Since this genre has been around since the dawn of history (in one form or another), the amount of relevant books is enormous.
Nevertheless, we will make every effort to present you with a list of some of the most important ones.
As is well known, this field has dozens of categories and subcategories. Our list will present its recommendations in no chronological or niche order, And there is a refreshing mix of old and new philosophies here.
Here is a partial list of the good ones:
A History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell.
Plato, the Dialogues (Gorgias, Meno, Theatetus, Sophist, Symposium, Phaedrus, Timaeus, The Republic).
Critique of Pure Reason - Emmanuel Kant.
Physics, Ethics, Poetics, Metaphysics, Categories, On Logic, On the Soul - Aristotle.
Beyond Good And Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche.
On the Genealogy of Morality - Friedrich Nietzsche.
Jacques Derrida, Spurs.
Essays - Montaigne.
Bertrand Russell, Logic and Knowledge.
A Treatise of Human Nature - David Hume.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder.
Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex.
Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic.
Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.
The Essential Epicurus - Epicurus.
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Phenomenology of the Spirit.
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu.
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws.
The Myth Of Sisyphus and Other Essays - Albert Camus.
Meditations on First Philosophy - René Descartes.
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius.
Analects - Confucius.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari.
The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig.
Man’s Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl.
Being and Nothingness - Jean-Paul Sartre.
The gatekeeper to the realm of knowledge - philosophy!
Novels.
The genre we were supposed to start with first for intuitive reasons is the best known - novels.
And yet, we did not do it because we prefer not to be predictable, so you are reading about it only now.
Ursula Le Guin once said:
"The novelist says in words what can not be said in words."
This quote is so profound that each person has their own interpretation of it. Let it sink.
And as we did in the other genres above, we will now present a list of novels that are important for you to know and critical in your efforts to make your home library particularly good.
Here is a partial list of the good ones:
Anna Karenina. Lev Tolstoy.
Pilgrim's Progress. John Bunyan.
Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison.
Clarissa. Samuel Richardson.
The Executioner's Song. Norman Mailer.
War and Peace. Lev Tolstoy.
Robinson Crusoe. Daniel Defoe.
Waiting for the Barbarians. JM Coetzee.
Madame Bovary. Gustave Flaubert.
Housekeeping. Marilynne Robinson.
Emma, by Jane Austen.
Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift.
David Copperfield. Charles Dickens.
Dream of the Red Chamber. Cao Xueqin.
Notes from Underground. Dostoevsky.
Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov.
Lanark. Alasdair Gray.
Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote.
Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe.
The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal.
Sybil. Benjamin Disraeli
Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë.
Tom Jones. Henry Fielding.
To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee.
Tristram Shandy. Laurence Sterne.
Beloved. Tony Morrison.
Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë.
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. Elizabeth Taylor.
The Black Sheep. Honoré De Balzac.
Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf.
The Tin Drum. Günter Grass.
A Passage to India. E.M Forster.
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde.
In Search of Lost Time. Marcel Proust.
Frankenstein. Mary Shelley
Dangerous Liaisons. Pierre Choderlos De Laclos.
beautiful and fun to read novels
2. An important (but not mandatory) addition.
As mentioned, the four categories presented above (classics, biographies, philosophy, and novels) must be found in your library in order for her to be of high quality. But beyond that, there are other components, which, while not at the same level of importance as them, still, their presence will contribute a lot to your library.
Comics.
Although this is a massive field with countless materials, we will do our best to present you with a partial list of some of their best.
Mister Miracle.
Mind MGMT.
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History / Here My Troubles Began.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.
Flash Comics.
Castle Waiting.
The Plastic Man Archives.
Hulk.
Jonathan Hickman's Marvel Verse, 2008 to 2016.
Watchmen.
Sin City.
Bone.
Captain America.
From Hell.
Thor.
The Sandman.
Doctor Strange.
Iron Man.
Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison & Richard Case.
Spiderman.
Batman: The Killing Joke.
Batman: Year One.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
Batman: The Long Halloween.
Kingdom Come.
Wolverine.
Deadpool.
Black Panther.
Scarlet Witch.
V For Vendetta.
Preacher
.
Comics tend to be fun
Children's Literature.
Here, too, children's literature is an addition, which on the one hand, is not as necessary as the first four, but on the other hand, has the power to grant a little magic to your overall reading experience.
If you have children, no better gift for them will enrich their knowledge and ignite their imagination.
Here is a partial list of the good ones:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. Dr. Seuss
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
The Great Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
Mrs Pepperpot Stories by Alf Proysen
The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), Antoine de Saint
Harry Potter book series. J. K Rolling.
Stig of the Dump by Clive King
Elmer by David McKee
The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
A Traveler in Time by Alison Uttley
Heidi, Johanna Spyri
Winnie-The-Pooh by A. A. Milne
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
The Adventures of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Grimms' Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm
Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
A tradition of knowledge and excitement
And now, having gone over the books that are supposed to be in your awesome library, As promised at the beginning of the article, it is time to briefly introduce a few design elements of different types of libraries.
The best articles on the subject can be found here, here, and here. Do yourselves a favor and deepen in them.
And, of course, we must also include the best source of inspiration - Pinterest. (and also hop on to our stunning page).
You will find there the most up-to-date information on the subject.
But it's important to remember that even after looking intensely at those design sources of inspiration, still, you must be authentic and put your input into your home library. After all - she's in your house.
We hope this article - 'The ideal home library -' has helped you establish the perfect home library to some extent.
And if you've come this far, please remember to drop by our collections page.
What are you waiting for?