Whatever else can be said about the Penguin list it certainly does not relish the unpredictable. It is parochial and philistine. We have two ancients, neither of whose works had much impact then or later and one of which (Marcus Aurelius) is pure hocus-pocus. Nine writers out of the 20 are English ... And why no Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, Pushkin or Brecht?
Tariq Ali

I think it's true that they shaped civilisation but you have to ask what civilisation. It's a very western orientated civilisation. For example, you could include lesser-known works by people such as Frederick Douglass, a slave who became a US ambassador in the 19th century. There are no Chinese or Asian contributions or Arab or Muslim for that matter. Within the parameters of our four walls that is predominantly if not exclusively western Europe, a list like that by its nature is very limited.
Oona King, MP

Of the 20 titles, philosophy dominates (with, roughly, seven). An interesting confirmation of the Today programme's survey, which discovered that philosophy was seen by many as the major deficit in the current school syllabus. If this project serves to get philosophy into the classroom, good luck to it ...

A more courageously demanding selection ... might include Plato's The Republic, Hobbes's Leviathan ... Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Mill's Political Economy, Freud's On Dreams and Dreaming, Macaulay's History of England, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Berlin's Four Essays On Liberty, Marx's Capital ... What such works ... have in common is that they are long, incredibly difficult and technical in places, and demand work, rather than reading.

If stimulus is desired I would add to the list such works as Hitler's Mein Kampf, Mao's Little Red Book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - odious as they are, [it is] these books which, it seems to me, liberal intellectuals must combat.
John Sutherland