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Utne Reader, The Loose Canon: 150 Great Works to Set Your Imagination on Fire [1998]

110 entries: 96 monographical, 14 otherwise

Unranked—arranged topically

Jay Walljasper and Jon Spayde, if not others, at the Utne Reader magazine devised The Loose Canon: 150 Great Works to Set Your Imagination on Fire [1998]. The current version available at the magazine's site is truncated; a link to an Internet Archive version is provided instead. Like Kanigel's Vintage Reading or Dirda's Classics for Pleasure, the project seems driven by a goal of offering an addendum to "great books" lists and other canons. Each two works in the list form a pair whose linkage is often, but not always, obvious.

This list is one of only two documented at Greater Books to include music, film, and opera/ musical theatre works. These items are included but not numbered; nor are they included in the master list. The other is Jane Mallison's ("Smart").

    --
  1. Zohar

  2. ca. Second-Thirteenth centuries—Aramaic

  3. Lǎozǐ (Lao-tzu) (Laocius)

  4. Dàodéjǐng
    Tao te Ching
    ca. Sixth Century B C—Chinese


  5. Zhuāngzī (Zhuāng Zhōu) (Chuang-tzu)

  6. Zhuāngzī
    Nánhuá Zhēnjīng
    ca. Third Century B C—Chinese


  7. Thucydides

  8. History of the Peloponnesian War
    early Fifth Century B C—Greek

  9. Hesiod

  10. Erga kai Hēmerai
    Works and Days
    ca. Eighth-Seventh centuries B C—Greek


  11. Vyasa

  12. Mahabharata
    includes Bhagavad Gita; ca. Ninth Century B C-Fourth Century—Sanskrit

  13. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

  14. I Am That
    1973; revised 1981—Marathi

  15. Marcus Aurelius

  16. Ta Eis Heauton
    Meditations
    written 161-80—Greek


  17. Apuleius

  18. Metamorphoseon
    Asinus Aureus; The Golden Ass
    Second Century—Latin


  19. Hildegarde of Bingen

  20. Scivias
    ca. 1151-52—Latin

  21. Elaine Pagels

  22. The Gnostic Gospels
    1979—English

  23. Rumi

  24. Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi
    written ca. 1250—Persian

  25. Margaret Smith

  26. Rabi'a the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islam. Being the Life and Teachings of Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya of Basra, Sufi Saint, ca. A H 99-185, A D 717-801
    1928—English

  27. François Rabelais

  28. La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel
    originally published in five volumes: Les Horribles et Épouvantables Faits et Prouesses du Très Renommé Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes, Fils du Grand Géant Gargantua, 1532; La Vie Très Horrifique du Grand Gargantua, Père de Pantagruel, 1534; Le Tiers Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1546; Le Quart Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1552; Le Cinquiesme et Dernier Livre des Faicts et Dicts Héroïques du Bon Pantagruel, 1564—French

  29. Wú Chéng-ēn (Ruzhong)

  30. Xi Yóu Jì
    Journey to the West; Monkey
    late Sixteenth Century—Chinese


  31. William Shakespeare
    Coriolanus
    written ca. 1605-08—English

    Kurosawa Akira
    The Seven Samurai
    film; 1954—Japanese

    Johann Sebastian Bach
    Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello
    composed ca. 1717-23

    Arvo Pärt
    Te Deum
    1985

    • Samuel Johnson

    Essays from the Rambler and the Idler
    unspecified essays originally published in the Rambler, 1750-2; the Idler, 1758-60; the Utne Reader also specifies essays from the Adventurer, 1753-4—English

    • Freya Stark

  32. Journey's Echo: Selected From Freya Stark
    1963

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    Don Giovanni
    libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte; originaly performed 1787

    Alban Berg
    Wozzeck
    based in part on Georg Büchner's play, Woyzeck; libretto by Berg; composed 1914-1922; originally performed 1925

  33. William Blake
    The Book of Urizen
    originally entitled The First Book of Urizen, published 1794—English

    • Allen Ginsberg

  34. Illuminated Poems
    1996; poems previously published plus two new poems; illustrations by Eric Drooker—English

  35. Jane Austen

  36. Persuasion
    originally anonymously published 1817—English

  37. Murasaki Shikibu

  38. Genji Monogatari
    The Tale of Genji
    ca. early Eleventh Century—Japanese


    Ludwig Van Beethoven
    Symphony No. 9 in D Minor
    composed 1822-4

    Gustav Mahler
    Symphony No. 4
    composed 1899-1900

  39. Henry David Thoreau

  40. Walden; or, Life in the Woods
    1854—English

  41. Mary Oliver
    New and Selected Poems
    1992; selections from No Voyage, and Other Poems, 1963, expanded 1965; The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems, 1972; The Night Traveler, 1978; Twelve Moons, 1979; American Primitive, 1983; Dream Work, 1986; House of Light, 1990; plus a section entitled New Poems (1991-1992)—English

    • Walt Whitman

    'Song of Myself'
    part of Leaves of Grass; complete work originally published 1855; expanded and revised through ninth edition, 1892—English

    • Muriel Rukeyser

  42. A Muriel Rukeyser Reader
    1994; edited by Jan Heller Levi—English

  43. Leo Tolstoy

  44. Anna Karenina
    published in part serially 1873-7 in Rússkij Véstnik; in its entirety, 1877—Russian

  45. Alexander Herzen
    Byloe i Dumy
    My Past and Thoughts
    published in part serially 1855-9, 1861-2, and 1869 in Poliarnaia Zvezda (Pole Star); and 1857-67 in Kolokol—Russian


    • Mohandas Gandhi

  46. The Gandhi Reader: A Source Book of His Life and Writings
    1956; edited by Homer A Jack

  47. Paulo Freire and Myles Horton
    We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change
    1990—English

    --
    • The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information

  48. eleventh edition; published in 29 volumes, 1910-1—English

  49. Bill Bryson

  50. Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States
    1994—English

  51. Marcel Proust

  52. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
    In Search of Lost Time; In Remembrance of Things Past
    originally published in seven volumes, two of which originally published as two books each, 1913-27—French


  53. E M Forster

  54. Howards End
    1910—English

  55. Rainer Maria Rilke
    Duineser Elegien
    The Duino Elegies
    1923—German


    • Dù Fǔ (Tu Fu)

  56. Poems
    Eighth Century—Chinese

  57. Antonio Gramsci
    Quaderni del Carcere
    Prison Notebooks
    written 1929-35—Italian


    • Subcomandante Marcos

  58. Shadows of Tender Fury: The Letters and Communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
    1995—Spanish

    Leo McCarey
    Duck Soup
    starring Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo Marx; film; 1933

    Stanley Kubrick
    Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
    film; 1964

    Robert Johnson
    The Complete Recordings
    music album; 1990; recorded 1936-7

    Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
    'The Message'
    music composition; 1982

  59. Pablo Neruda

  60. Canto General
    1950; English translation of 'Alturas de Machu Picchu', the second canto, published 1948 in the Tiger's Eye and 1950 in Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems—Spanish

  61. Clarice Lispector

  62. A Hora da Estrela
    1977—Portuguese

    Duke Ellington
    'In a Mellotone'
    'In a Mellow Tone'
    music composition; lyric by Milt Gabler; based in part on 'Rose Room' by Art Hickman; 1939


    John Coltrane
    A Love Supreme
    music album; 1965

    Billie Holiday
    Lady in Autumn: The Best of the Verve Years
    music album; 1991

    Amalia Rodrigues
    Monitor Presents Portugal's Great Amalia Rodrigues
    music album; recorded 1956

    Hank Williams
    40 Greatest Hits
    music album; 1978

    Johnny Cash
    The Sun Years
    music album; 1990

  63. James Agee

  64. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
    1941; photography by Walker Evans—English

  65. John Berger
    Pig Earth
    1979—English

    Orson Welles
    Citizen Kane
    film; 1941

    Robert Altman
    Nashville
    film; 1975

    • Gore Vidal

  66. United States: Essays 1952-1992
    essays previously published—English

  67. Howard Zinn

  68. A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present
    1980; expanded and revised through fifth edition, 2005—English

    Howlin' Wolf
    His Best
    music album; 1997

    Los Lobos
    Just Another Band From East L A
    music album; 1993

  69. Simone Beauvoir

  70. Le Deuxième Sexe
    The Second Sex
    published in part serially in Les Temps Modernes; in its entirety in two volumes, 1949—French


  71. Mary Daly

  72. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism
    1978—English

  73. Ralph Ellison

  74. Invisible Man
    1952—English

    Nathaniel Mackey
  75. Bedouin Hornbook

  76. 1986—English

  77. Djbot Baghostus's Run
    1993—English

    • James Baldwin

  78. Collected Essays
    1998; includes Notes of a Native Son, 1955 [originally published 1949-53 in varied periodicals: Zero, Partisan Review, Commentary, the New Leader, Harper's, and the Reporter]; Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son, 1961 [originally published 1956-61 in varied periodicals: the New York Times, Encounter, Esquire, Harper's, Partisan Review, and the New Leader; plus two edited 1960 lectures; and part of an essay previously unpublished]; The Fire Next Time [1963]; No Name in the Street [1972]; The Devil Finds Work [1976]; plus a section entitled Other Essays: 36 essays previously published, 11 of which previously uncollected in book form (and including Baldwin's portion of the collaborative book with photographer Richard Avedon, entitled Nothing Personal, 1974)—English

  79. The Fire Next Time

  80. originally published Dec. 1962 as 'Letter From a Region in My Mind', in the Progressive; and Nov. 1963 as 'Down at the Cross', in the New Yorker—English

  81. No Name in the Street

  82. 1972—English

  83. The Devil Finds Work

  84. 1976—English

  85. Cornel West

  86. Race Matters
    1994—English

    Satyajit Ray
    The Apu Trilogy
    three films: Pather Panchali, 1955; Aparajito, 1956; Apur Sansar, 1959

    Abbas Kiarostami
    Where Is My Friend's Home?
    film; 1995

    Naguib Mahfouz
  87. Bein el-Qasrein

  88. Palace Walk
    1956—Arabic


  89. Qasr el-Shoaq

  90. Palace of Desire
    1957—Arabic


  91. El-Sukkareyya

  92. Sugar Street
    1957—Arabic


    Pramoedya Ananta Toer
  93. Bumi Manusia

  94. This Earth of Mankind
    1980—Malay


  95. Anak Semua Bangsa

  96. Child of All Nations
    1980—Malay


  97. Jejak Langkah

  98. Footsteps
    1985—Malay


  99. Rumah Kaca

  100. House of Glass
    1988—Malay


    Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald
    The Complete Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on Verve
    music album; 1997

    Louis Armstrong
    Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1923-1934
    music album; 1994

  101. Chinua Achebe

  102. Things Fall Apart
    1958—English

  103. Edward Said

  104. Culture and Imperialism
    1993—English

  105. Jane Jacobs

  106. The Death and Life of Great American Cities
    1961—English

  107. Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikama, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, and Shlomo Angel

  108. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
    1977—English

    Francois Truffaut
    Jules et Jim
    film; 1961

    Jean-Luc Godard
    2 ou 3 Choses que Je Sais d'Elle (Two or Three Things I Know About Her)
    film; 1967

  109. Rachel Carson

  110. Silent Spring
    originally published Jun. 1962 in the New Yorker—English

  111. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan

  112. What Is Life?
    1995—English

    Thelonious Monk
    Monk's Dream
    music album; 1962

    Miles Davis
    Kind of Blue
    music album; 1959

  113. Thomas S Kuhn

  114. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    1962; expanded 1970—English

  115. James Gleick

  116. Chaos: Making a New Science
    1987—English

  117. Kenneth Rexroth
    An Autobiographical Novel
    1965—English

    • Harvey Pekar

  118. New American Splendor Anthology
    1991—English

    Bob Dylan
    Highway 61 Revisited
    music album; 1965

    Iris Dement
    The Way I Should
    music album; 1996

  119. Gabriel García Márquez

  120. Cien Anõs de Soledad
    One Hundred Years of Solitude
    1967—Spanish


  121. Tony Kushner

  122. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
    originally presented in two parts: Millennium Approaches, 1990; and Perestroika, 1992—English

    Aretha Franklin
    Queen of Soul: The Very Best of Aretha Franklin
    music album; 1994

    Marion Williams
    Surely God Is Able
    music album; 1989

  123. Michael Murphy

  124. Golf in the Kingdom
    1972—English

    Steve James, Fred Marx, and Peter Gilbert
    Hoop Dreams
    film; 1994

  125. E F Schumacher

  126. Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered
    1973—English

  127. Ivan Illich

  128. Tools for Conviviality
    1973—English

  129. Ursula K Le Guin

  130. The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
    1974—English

  131. Starhawk

  132. The Fifth Sacred Thing
    1993—English

    Federico Fellini
    Amarcord
    film; 1974

    Edgar Reitz
    Heimatz
    film series; 1984

    Bob Marley
    Songs of Freedom
    music album; 1992

    I K Dairo and His Bluespots
    Juju Master
    1990; recorded 1960's; music album

  133. Leslie Marmon Silko

  134. Ceremony
    1977—English

  135. John G Neihardt

  136. Black Elk Speaks
    1932—English

  137. Anaïs Nin

  138. Delta of Venus
    1977—English

  139. Margot Anand

  140. The Art of Sexual Ecstasy
    1989—English

    The Clash
    London Calling
    music album; 1979

    The Pogues
    If I Should Fall From Grace With God
    music album; 1988

  141. Dario Fo

  142. Morte Accidentale di un Anarchico
    1970—Italian

  143. Caryl Churchill
    Cloud Nine
    1979—English

    • Pier Paolo Pasolini

  144. Poems
    1982—Italian

  145. Miyazawa Kenji

  146. Haru to Shura
    Spring and Asura
    1924—Japanese


  147. Riane Eisler

  148. The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
    1987—English

  149. Susan Griffin

  150. Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her
    1978—English

  151. Toni Morrison

  152. Beloved
    1987—English

  153. Zora Neale Hurston

  154. Dust Tracks on a Road
    1942—English

  155. August Wilson

  156. Joe Turner's Come and Gone
    1984—English

  157. Anna Deavere Smith

  158. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
    1994—English

  159. Jamaica Kincaid

  160. A Small Place
    1988—English

  161. Gloria Anzaldua

  162. Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza
    1987—English; Spanish

  163. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman

  164. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
    1988—English

    Rick Goldsmith
    Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press
    film; 1996

  165. Charlotte Joko Beck

  166. Everyday Zen: Love and Work
    1989—English

  167. Sogyal Rinpoche

  168. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
    1992—English

    Matt Groening et al.
    The Simpsons
    Television program; 1989-present

    Ernie Kovacs
    Unspecified selections of several television programs
    1951-1962

  169. Viana La Place

  170. Verdura: Vegetables Italian Style
    1991—English

  171. Erich Schiffmann

  172. Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness
    1996—English

  173. Julia Cameron

  174. The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
    1992—English

  175. Brenda Ueland

  176. If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit
    1938—English

  177. Dorothy Allison

  178. Bastard Out of Carolina
    1992—English

  179. Sharon Olds

  180. The Dead and the Living
    1983—English

  181. James Hillman and Michael Ventura

  182. We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy - And the World's Getting Worse
    1992—English

  183. Alice Miller

  184. Das Drama des Begabten Kindes
    The Drama of the Gifted Child
    1979—German


  185. Rupert Sheldrake

  186. Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science
    1995—English

    Wim Wenders
    Der Himmel Über Berlin
    Wings of Desire
    film; 1987


    Cesária Évora
    Cesária
    music album; 1995

    Umm Kulthum
    'Al-Atlal'
    song; 1966

  187. David Abram

  188. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
    1996—English

  189. Fritjof Capra

  190. The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
    1996—English

  191. Paul Hawken

  192. The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability
    1993—English