Dr. Jordan Peterson's Book Lists

Anyone who has been a reader of my other blog is surely aware of my fondness for book lists. Since 2011, I've been keeping record of every book I've read throughout the year, and on January 01, 2012 I began what would become an annual tradition for me - the posting of the list of books I had read the previous year.

In 2015, after having read The Hounds of the Baskervilles and discovering it had been #7 on the top ten best sellers of 1902, I found a copy of said list  of best sellers and began reading those novels.

In 2017 I read the top ten best selling novels of 1917.

In 2019, I came upon The 100 best novels written in English. I was not going to attempt to read every book on the list, but I was curious to see how many of those books I had read, how many I had heard of but not read, and how many were completely unknown to me. I was intrigued by number 25 on the list. This book, Three Men In a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) became the last novel I would read that year.

On his website, Dr. Jordan Peterson has two book lists. One is an incredibly long list consisting of 51 novels, as well as books on Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Religion and Religious History, History/Systems Analysis, and finally, The State of the World with two of his books thrown in for good measure.

The second list is considerably shorter - just 15 books. He states that this list come about by people asking him what they should read to educate themselves. He went on to say that he found the books on that list to be particularly influential in his intellectual development.

I would concern myself with the novels on the two lists and stay away from the non fiction.

I'm actually surprised by the number of books on his lists that I've already read. There are also a few that I'm surprised to find on his list.

The Maltese Falcon made, not only Dr. Peterson's list of Great Novels, but was ranked #54 on the 100 best novels written in English list. I enjoyed the novel, but frankly I can't understand how or why it made both these lists.

Another novel on Dr.Peterson's lists which I found surprising is The Master and Margarita by Russian writer, Mikhail Bulgakov. Again, I very much enjoyed that novel, enough to read twice, but I can't see it on a list for Great Novels.

Not every book on Dr. Peterson's lists are available for free download - though many are. I've collected 20 of these novels, even those I've read and will read or reread many of them this year.