O MNIBUS READING LIST
2012-2013
In Latin, Omnibus means “all” or “everything.” Omnibus is the name that we have given to the study of history, theology and
literature. In the Omnibus course, students do not have separate history, theology and literature classes. Instead, they read
through two reading lists each year which introduce them to the great works of history, theology and literature. As in the
grammar school, students work through history chronologically. The Primary Reading list consists of more challenging,
primary source materials that usually were created in the period that the students are studying. The Secondary Reading List
consists of easier books which allow us to balance out the amount of history, theology and literature studied.
History Transition
First Semester
Second Semester
Adam and His Kin
God King
The Children’s Homer
Boy’s and Gir’s Herodotus
Sotry of the Last Days of Jerusalem
Augustine: The Farmer’s Boy of Tgaste
Beowulf
King Arthur
First Voyage to America
Alone Yet Not Alone
Of Plymouth Plantation, selections
Johnny Tremain
Children of the Covered Wagon
With Lee in Virginia
The Hiding Place
Sergeant York and the Great War
Literature Transition
First Semester
Second Semester
Born Again
Through Gates of Splendor
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cat
Jane Eyre
The Tempest
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Light in the Forest
Scarlet Pimpernel
Watership Down
Oliver Twist
Murder on the Orient Express
Omnibus I – Ancient
Primary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
Bible: Genesis
Bible: Exodus
Epic of Gilgamesh
Code of Hammurabi
Bible: First and Second Samuel
Bible: First and Second Kings
Odyssey
Histories
Oresteia – Aschylus I
Plutarch’s Lives
Theban Trilogy - Sophocles I
The Last Days of Socrates
The Early History of Rome
Bible: Luke and Acts
Aeneid
The Twelve Caesars
Julius Caesar
Bible: Revelation
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Secondary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
Chosen by God
Till We Have Faces
The Magician’s Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse & His Boy
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Bible: Isaiah
Bible: Jeremiah
Bible: Minor Prophets
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle
The Best Things in Life
The Unaborted Socrates
Bible: Galatians
Bible: Romans
Bible: James
The Eagle of the Ninth
The Screwtape Letters
The Holiness of God
Omnibus II – Medieval
Primary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
The Church History
Confessions
On the Incarnation
The Creeds
The Ecclesiastical History
Beowulf
The Song of Roland
The History of the Kings of Britain
Macbeth
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Divine Comedy: Inferno
The Canterbury Tale
The Bondage of the Will
Secondary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
The Hobbit
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Nine Tailors
The Dragon and the Raven
Bible: The Gospel of John
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Winning His Spurs
The Two Towers
Henry V
Richard III
Bible: Ephesians
The Return of the King
Omnibus III – Modern
Primary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
The Westminster Confession of Faith
The Pilgrim’s Progress
Of Plymouth Plantation
The Social Contract
The Federalist & Anti-Federalist Papers
A Tale of Two Cities
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Lincoln’s Speeches
Slave Narratives
The Communist Manifesto
The Treaty of Versailles
The Great Gatsby
Mein Kampf
Bible: Philemon, John, I and II Peter, Jude
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Bible; Daniel
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Secondary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
Frankenstein
Pride and Prejudice
Gulliver’s Travels
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography of Charles G. Finney
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
Little Women
The Killer Angels
Christianity and Liberalism
The Old Man and the Sea
Animal Farm
Death of a Salesman
Postmodern Times
How Should We Then Live?
Omnibus IV – Ancient
Primary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
Essay: Philosophy
Bible: Proverbs, Job
Essay: Poetry
The Iliad
Bible: Psalms
The Peloponnesian War
The Bacchae
The Clouds
The Hippocratic Oath
Essay: Politics
The Republic
Nicomachean Ethics
Poetics
Essay: Aesthetics
Apocrypha
Euclid’s Elements
The War with Hannibal
On the Nature of Things
Ciecero
Essay: Anthropology
Annals of Imperial Rome
Eclogues and Georgics
Metamorphoses
Bible: Gospel of Mark
Bible: Philippians and Colossians
Essay: Law
The Jewish War
Meditations
The Apostolic Fathers
Secondary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
Aesop Fables
Death on the Nile
Bible: Joshua, Judges, Ruth
Troilus and Cressida
Bible: I & II Chronicles
Bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther
Augustus Caesar’s World
Art and the Bible
The Lost World
Knowing God
Anthony & Cleopatra
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Phantastes
Mythology
Plutarch’s Lives, Volume 2
Desiring God
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Omnibus IV – Medieval
Primary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
City of God
The Consolation of Philosophy
Malmesbury’s Chronicle
Two Lives of Charlemagne
Summa Theologica
Inferno
Purgatory
Paradise
Bible: I & II Corinthians
The Life of Thomas Beckett
Canterbury Tales
The Prince
The Praise of Folly
Luther: On Vocation
Calvin’s Institutes
St. Matthew’s Passion
The Fairie Queen
Romeo & Juliet
Omnibus IV – Medieval
Secondary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
The Saga of Volksungs
The Koran
Le Morte D’Arthur
Idylls of the King
A Connecticut Yankee
Leviticus
St. Thomas and St. Francis
Bible: Numbers
The Great Divorce
Bible: I & II Thessalonians
The Name of the Rose
The Decameron
A Distant Mirror
Bible: Hebrew
Travels of Marco Polo
Othello
Here I Stand
Heidelberg Catechism
George Herbert’s Poems
Don Quixote
Tartuffe
Omnibus VI – Modern
Primary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
Paradise Lost
Robinson Crusoe
Leviathan (selections)
Pensees
Emma
Enlightenment Thinkers (selections)
U.S. Founding Documents
The Wealth of Nations (selections)
Origins & Principles of the American Revolution
Bible: Deuteronomy
Moby Dick
Democracy in America (selections)
Huckleberry Finn
Notes from the Underground
Battle Cry of Freedom
Beyond Good and Evil
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Sun Also Rises
Citizen Soldiers
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Bible: Ecclesiastes
The Stranger
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Bible: I & II Timothy & Titus
Brave New World
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Secondary Books
First Semester
Second Semester
On Christian Doctrine
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
Hamlet
Common Sense (Selections)
Legend of Sleepy Hollow
John Adams
Red Badge of Courage
Emerson: Self Reliance
Thoreau: On Civil Disobedience
Poems of Walt Whitman
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Interpretation of Dreams
Bible: Ezekiel and Lamentations
Guns of August
That Hideous Strength
Heart of Darkness
Songs of Songs
The Jungle
Modern Short Stories
Poems of T.S. Eliot
Bible: Matthew