Year three of Books of All Time takes us from c. 250 BCE to about 20 BCE. We won’t lie: this will be a VERY Roman year, with detours to Persia and China.
As usual, dating may not be perfect: sometimes we go from scholars’ best guesses about when a work was composed, sometimes from the earliest-known written manuscripts. Other times on vibes.
We aim to put out shows twice a month. Unless noted, each work gets two episodes: a summary of the main plot or ideas, and then a meta episode that looks at the backstory of the work, an aspect of its origin culture, or its legacy.
Want to see last year’s list? Click here.
- September 2026: The Avesta (Persian, composed c. 1500 – 300 BCE)
- October 2026: Apollonius of Rhodes, The Argonautica (Ptolemaic Greece, c. 238 BCE)
- November 2026: Plautus, The Brothers Menaechmus and The Pot of Gold (Rome, c. 205 BCE)
- December 2026: Zhuang Zhou, The Zhuangzi (China, c. 200 BCE)
- January 2027: Terence, The Girl from Andros and The Brothers (Rome, c. 150 BCE)
- February 2027: Polybius, The Histories (Greece/Rome, c. 120 BCE)
- March 2027: Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian (China, c. 110 BCE)
- April 2027: Cicero, On Duties and On Old Age (Rome, c. 70 BCE)
- May 2027: Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars (Rome, 58 BCE)
- June 2027: Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (Rome, c. 50 BCE)
- July 2027: The Dhammapada, from the Pali Canon (India/Sri Lanka, c. 30 BCE)
- August 2027: Virgil, The Aeneid (Rome, c. 20 BCE)
Scripts/transcripts for each show will be published the day they air. Once each show airs, we’ll link the title of each work to its related tag so you can read all the posts about it.
If you love one of the works on the list and know a fun fact about the history of it, an interesting adaptation you’d like to share, or know a historical figure who was weirdly obsessed with it, etc., please comment below. We’d love to give you credit in an upcoming show!
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Books Of All Time 