Now that you have finished reading all the great books of the West, you might want to turn your attention to the rest of the world. There is an equally vast and equally great classical literature in what is known as the East. Few of these works make it onto the lists of Best Books Ever; furthermore, guides to this wing of the universal library are rare. Given our interdependence with other cultures, introductions to this literary realm are vital and urgent.

For simple reading lists (sometimes the most enjoyable way to enter) I direct you to Robert Teeter's Great Books Lists, a handy website which convenes in one spot all the published lists of oriental (and western) classics. For a more annotated guide, with proper orientation of where you might want to head, I would start with A Guide to Oriental Classics, from Columbia University Press. The third edition of this indispensable work incorporates many works only recently translated into English, as well as an expanded number of secondary readings and glosses. I can�t think of any major works in the four regions of the Islamic world, India, China, and Japan that are not covered here. With each work you get a very short description and � very handy! � annotated pointers to available translations.

For a more contextual inclusion, I find The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman to be superb. This revised and expanded fourth edition of his venerable book now covers many more eastern classics than in his previous editions. The list of eastern works is still way too short, but he offers them with two advantages. Because his plan is organized chronologically, one gets a better sense of how an eastern work relates to the West, and secondly, for each work he spends a few pages outlining to the reader its importance and a summary of its content, which A Guide to Oriental Classics does not. You�ll get a better perspective from his select list, but you�ll have more of an adventure with the Columbia University roster.

A Guide to Oriental Classics
Edited by Theodore De Bary
1989, 325 pages
$79
Columbia University Press
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The New Lifetime Reading Plan
The Classic Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major
1998, 378 pages
$11
Harper Perennial
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Robert Teeter�s Great Books Lists