January 7: If He Yawned, She Lost Her Head! (Vol. 16, pp. 5-13)

This is our first introduction to Scheherazade, the master storyteller who saved her skin by amusing the sultan, King Shahriyar, with her tales. It seems the sultan has a bad habit of beheading his bride from the night before. By keeping King Shahriyar's interest with her stories as to induce him to defer putting her to death, Scheherazade managed to escape the axe for a thousand and one mornings.

"Stories from the Thousand and One Nights," the translation of 42 pieces in this series from a much larger collection, contains such tales as "Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp," "The Voyages of Sinbad," and "Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves." These are familar to most people, but in their original form, they are tough reading.

January 6: Warned by Hector's Ghost (Vol. 13, pp. 109-127)

In the dead of night, the ghost of Hector warns Aeneas that Troy is about to be attacked. Our hero gathers up his family and flees. That's the condensed version of this selection from Virgil's "Aeneid," and you would probably wouldn't have figured this out without the synopsis from the guide. This is some of the most impenetrable, unreadable stuff in the series.

January 5: The Soaring Eagle and Contented Stork (Vol. 32, pp. 377-396)

I had never heard of Giuseppe Mazzini, a 19th century Italian writer whose main cause was the establishment of a free and united Italian Republic. He repeatedly put his life on the line for democracy, and despite arrest, exile and death threats, kept up the fight until the end of his days.

This gives today's selection, Mazzini's passionate appraisal of George Gordon Noel Byron and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a little more weight. Like Mazzini, both men were freedom fighters. On this day in 1824, Lord Byron arrived in Greece to join its fight for independence. While not as flamboyant as Byron, Goethe fought for the emancipation of the mind.

Mazzini compared Byron to a soaring eagle — an apt comparison when one considers his romanticism — while likening Goethe to a contented stork. Stork is not as apt an analogy for Goethe, a man whose political and scientific endeavors have since been overshadowed by his wide-ranging artistic genius.

Two very different writers, but Mazzini links them together as brothers in the fight for liberty.

January 4: A Flounder Fish Story (Vol. 17, pp. 83-90)

Jacob Grimm, the older of the famous Grimm brothers, was born on this date in 1785. We tend to forget how rich and perceptive their stories were. Today's selection, "The Fisherman and His Wife," is a wonderful tale of what happens when greed runs amok.

One day, a fisherman catches a talking flounder. The fish successfully pleads for its release and the fisherman goes back and tells his wife about what happened. She recognizes an opportunity to rise above the impoverished life they lead, and tells her husband to go back and find the flounder and ask him for a new cottage.

The fish returns, and grants the wish. But the wife isn't satisfied. She now wants a great stone castle. Again, the fisherman passes on the request to the flounder, and the wish is granted. But once again, the wife wants more. She wants to be king. That wish is granted. Still not enough. She wants to be an emperor, and then a Pope and then God. Even the fisherman is starting to think his beloved is asking for a bit too much, but he again goes back to seek the magical flounder.

When the fisherman tells the flounder, "She wants to be like unto God," the flounder replies, "Go to her, and you will find her back again in the dirty hovel." Alas, the Grimms don't tell us the wife's reaction to this development. Then again, they don't really need to. They more than get their point across about greed in this story.

January 3: Cicero on Friendship (Vol. 9, pp. 16-26)

On this day in 106 B.C., Cicero was born, and in this selection, the most famous orator of Rome offers a definition of friendship.

To Cicero, friendship is "a complete accord on all subjects human and divine, joined with mutual goodwill and affection." He observed that "in the face of a true friend, a man sees as if it were a second self."

Of course, maintaining a friendship is much more difficult than outlining its qualities. Sometimes, it involves speaking hard truths. Cicero is wise enough to believe that friendship should not get in the way of honesty and that friendship should not be used to cover up acts of evil.

January 2: School Day Poems of John Milton (Vol. 4, pp. 7-18)

On this day in 1645, the first edition of Milton's collected poems was published. These verses were written when he was still in his teens. Milton is an acquired taste, and like many readers, I never acquired it.

Today's selections, "On The Morning of Christ's Nativity," written in 1629, and "A Paraphrase of Psalm CXIV," written in 1624, are filled with the overwrought piety that Milton is known for.

Fortunately, not all of Milton's writing is like this.

January 1: Franklin's Advice for the New Year (Vol. 1, pp. 79-85)

This selection, from "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," is a fitting piece for the start of a year.

He sets down a code of moral virtues one should follow. Temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility are the virtues he believes are paramount -- so much so that he made a schedule to track whether he followed them all.

"Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve," wrote Franklin. It's hard to argue with his value system, although it does seem extreme to keep a log book as he did. I suppose it explains why Franklin lived such a long, vigorous and productive life.