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What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else
by Christopher Beha
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.
"The broader conclusions Beha...reaches about cultural values and the meaning of life are disappointingly pat; even the young memoirist concedes, 'I haven't written the book I set out to write.'" - Publishers Weekly
"Near the end, he questions if a slower and more meditative focus may have been a better strategy. He is probably right, but such an approach would not have produced this charming odyssey." - Library Journal
"The personal and family stories are almost always gripping; the comments about great books, less so." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about The Whole Five Feet was first featured
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