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Loading... The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and…by Christopher Beha
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Interesting, quick read. Skims the basics of much of the contents of the series. The author never understands why John Woolman's _Journal_ or Penn's _Fruits of Solitude_ were included. Perhaps one day he will read American history and understand how much Quaker thought has influenced American society. For reader's of this review, I would offer that Woolman presents integrity in a way that few can ever achieve. Without Woolman and his ilk, I wonder if we would have been rid of slavery as soon as we did. He certainly would not approve of the way we have implemented civil rights.  kaulsu | Oct 25, 2009 |  Chris Beha sets himself the task of reading straight through the 50 plus volume set of the Harvard Classics, compiled and originally published in 1909 by Charles Eliot, a long serving president of Harvard College. Beha first became acquainted with the set, referred to as the Five-Foot Shelf or the Shelf, as a child when he saw it on his grandmother's shelf. He gives the reader a chapter each month, discussing his reading, his feelings about what he's reading, what's going on with him and with his family at his parent's home in Manhattan and elsewhere. The book is well written, thoughtful and thought-provoking, the work of an obvious booklover. mkellylibrarian | May 26, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0802118844, Hardcover)In The Whole Five Feet, Christopher Beha turns to the great books for answers after undergoing a series of personal and family crises and learning that his grandmother had used the Harvard Classics to educate herself during the Great Depression. Inspired by her example, Beha vows to read the entire Five-Foot Shelf, one volume a week, over the course of the next year. As he passes from St. Augustine’s Confessions to Don Quixote, from Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast to essays by Cicero, Emerson, and Thoreau, he takes solace in the realization that many of the authors are grappling with the same questions he faces: What is the purpose of life? How do we live a good life? What can the wisdom of the past teach us about our own challenges? Beha’s chronicle is a smart, big-hearted, and inspirational mix of memoir and intellectual excursion—and a powerful testament to what great books can teach us about how to live our own lives. (retrieved from Amazon Sat, 20 Jun 2009 22:07:55 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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