Book Board Chat

Patsy, Your question is an interesting one. Mortimer J. Adler (Great Books of the Western World) addressed it maybe 11 yrs. ago. He said: "The difference between great and good books is one of kind, not of degree. Good books are not "almost great" or "less than great" books. Great books are relevant to human problems in every century, not just germane to current twentieth-century problems. A great book requires to be read over and over, and has many meanings; a good book needs to have no more than one meaning, and it need be read no more than once."

Selecting books to include in his GBWW, he used a committee to decide. The books covered art, literature, philosophy, mathematics, etc. - the stuff the U. of C. folk thought all people, not just college students, should have read or should read to become "well-rounded." Criticism has been that this list is elitist (!?). It's really a different philosophy than one espoused by, say, John Dewey, who felt students should pursue their own interests in areas that also included readings.