These are anxious times; times that make it seem the Four Horsemen may be galloping ever closer on the not-so-distant horizon. Sally Allen, literary guru and author of Unlocking Worlds: A Reading Companion for Book Lovers, offers a list of 10 classics to read when the weight of the world and a bleak news cycle get you down.
The Iliad by Homer (maybe). Set in the 10th year of the Trojan War, this poem has survived thousands of years providing hope in itself.
Antigone by Sophocles. Conflicting duties between Antigone and Creon lead to tragedy.
Plutarch’s Lives by Plurtarch. Readers can dip into Plutarch’s collection of biographies of famed Greeks and Romans which have survived millennia of turbulence.
Beowulf by Unknown. The poem begins with a young Beowulf who fights the beast and wins, but his labors are far from over. The next beast forever lies in wait.
The Decameron by Boccaccio. This 14th century collection of tales is recounted by a group of men and women in Florence fleeing the Black Death.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales are by pilgrims en route to Canterbury and Thomas Beckett’s shrine.
Macbeth by William Shakespeare. The prediction that Macbeth will become King of Scotland leads to murder and a downward spiral of paranoia and violence until Macbeth meets the same end.
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Budding scientist Victor Frankenstein becomes obsessed with solving the riddle of human existence.
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. Young Penelope travels from the 1930s back to the late 16th century, where she becomes embroiled in a plot to save Mary, Queen of Scots.
Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. Frost’s gentle poem captures a simple but painful truth culled from his observations of the physical world: Nature is cyclical.