A History of Philosophy | The Literary Bunny

This is a difficult list to make. I sort of have two lists in my head. One with the books I really want to read – and the other with books I ought to read because they are part of my goal for the year. Even though there’s not much left of 2013, I’m not willing yet to give up completing my goal so I’ve chosen to write the second list (with bits from the first list thrown in!).
As always, the Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

John Irving: Widow for One Year. Each year I set a goal of reading a book by each of my favorite authors. I only need to finish this one to have completed this goal and I’ve already read about a third of it and so far I love it.
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. I have been postponing this for years. I’m not sure why I keep on procrastinating on this one but I think I have to read it this year or I never will. And it’s one of those books that you really ought to read and I think I will appreciate it so there’s really no reason to not just get on with it.
Doctor Who and Philosophy. I try to read some non-fiction every year and I haven’t been doing very good this year. So I’m currently working my way through this one. It seems fitting since it’s the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Year to be reading this book.
VC Andrews: Flowers in the Attic. So when I saw that my book twin Heather had joined the Insatiable Book Sluts blog and was hosting a readalong, I was immediately interested. Of course. So I plan on reading this book even though I’ve never heard of it before. It sounds like a great read and something that will give me a breather before I tackle some more of the leftovers from my list of reading goals.
Thomas Ligotti: Teatro Grotesco. Every year my boyfriend, my best friend and me challenge each other and decides a book for each of the others. I have already read the one my boyfriend chose for me (Martin Amis: Lionel Asbo) but I need to read this one as well. And I have to admit – I have zero interest in it. It’s short stories, it’s horror. Sighs.
Don DeLillo: Underworld. And if that one wasn’t bad enough, there’s this huge novel by Don DeLillo. I have a hard time with DeLillo. I really don’t get him. I sense there’s something – but I can’t quite understand what he’s bring to do with his novels. And this one I’ve already tried to read but failed. And I never fail at finishing books. So I dread this one. A lot!
Frederick Copleston: A History of Philosophy. And there’s this one … I was intimidating to begin it and I’m still intimidated by it … I’m really not sure if I will get through this one this year!
Margaret Atwood. I have on my list that I have to read something from Margaret Atwood this year and I really want to! I just don’t own anything by her so I’m hoping to receive some of her books for Christmas.
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes. So I have read – and enjoyed – about 30% of this one. But – I still have to read 70% more. And it’s been a long while since I read it so I am actually planning to start at the beginning… I’m starting to feel like I have been a bit too optimistic about what I was able to read this year!
Some sort of non-fiction. At this point I’m not sure what this last book will be about – or whether I will even make it this far…

So that’s it for me. If I’ll make it through these books this year, I will be thrilled and absolutely ecstatic. Unfortunately, the chances of that happening are really very low indeed. But I’ll try! Luckily there’s not that many work days left this year and I have a rather long Christmas holiday so if I just prioritize reading every day for the rest of the year, maybe I have a small chance… Well, not really, but it’s fun to try!

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So recently I read and reviewed A.J. Jacobs’ book The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World and I kind of mentioned that I would like to do something similar sometime – and then I promptly forgot about it.
But then Rick from Another Book Blog wrote and said, among other things, that he wanted to steal my idea to read all of Fredrick Coppleston’s History of Philosophy for 2014 and after a couple of comments back and forth as well as several twitter messages, somehow we agreed to start reading all of Coppleston. I’m really not sure quite how I got myself into this and how it’s going to play out but here we are. On October 1st, we begin. Slowly working our way through the entire history of philosophy. Or most of it, at least.
Frederick Charles Copleston begins his history of philosophy with the Pre-Socratics and ends with Existentialism. 11 volumes of philosophy, covering most of Western philosophy. Even though Copleston is a Roman Catholic and never hides this, this is supposed to be a very good history of philosophy which treats every theory fairly and shows how every theory and philosopher connect with what came before and after.
And yeah, I know the title of this post was a bit of a lie but it has a certain ring to it, hasn’t it. And then we don’t care that we’re not starting with Aristotle – or that this is not just an autumn thing. And maybe it will turn out to be anything but a celebration. Really, nothing in the title fits but well, that’s how it goes sometimes. Titles can be misleading…
Anyways, if you want to join us, that will be totally cool. We’re going to attempt to read a volume every other month – but how that goes and how often I’m going to write about this (insane) project, I have no idea. Rick and I agreed that this is a project that demands a lot of support – so if you want to read along, that’s great and if you want to just watch us struggle and snicker a bit, that’s totally cool too. I’m not going to put a Mr Linky here because this really isn’t a read along that many people are foolish enough to attempt to so just holler if you want to play with us!
(Oh, this post may sound like I really don’t want to do this and that’s only partly true. You see, ever since I started to study philosophy in 1996, Coppleston has been kind of a holy grail and I just find it so so intimidating! But I’m slowly getting ready to do this – and looking forward to get the party started! Or the slow descent into philosophical madness … or solipsism, whichever comes first.)
And if you want to read what Rick thinks of it all, you can find his post here. Be warned though, his post contains dragon-humping. Oh and he thinks it’s only 9 volumes – imagine how disappointed he will be when he reach the end of volume 9 and realizes that he’s still missing an entire book about Russian Philosophy and one about Logical Positivism and Existentialism!! (Sorry, Rick!)
Oh, and I just had to share this quote from Rick’s post because it’s wonderful and funny and for the first time ever, I am now pondering whether I’m Frodo or Sam…: ‘Christina and I hope to tackle one of Copleston’s volumes every two months, starting in October. If all goes as planned, we will be finishing this little quest in March of 2015 (which sounds insane, now that I write it). It’ll take a whole lot of guts and even more luck, but I’m optimistic. We’ll be the philosophic descendants of Frodo and Sam. Or it’ll crash and burn rather quickly and Sauron will take over the Earth. Those are the stakes.’