The well-educated mind: a guide to the classical education you never had, hardcover/susan wise bauer

Have you lost the art of reading for pleasure? Are there books you know you should read but havent because they seem too daunting? In The Well-Educated Mind , Susan Wise Bauer provides a welcome and encouraging antidote to the distractions of our age, electronic and otherwise.

Newly expanded and updated to include standout works from the twenty-first century as well as essential readings in science (from the earliest works of Hippocrates to the discovery of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs), The Well-Educated Mind offers brief, entertaining histories of six literary genres--fiction, autobiography, history, drama, poetry, and science--accompanied by detailed instructions on how to read each type.

The annotated lists at the end of each chapter--ranging from Cervantes to Cormac McCarthy, Herodotus to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Aristotle to Stephen Hawking--preview recommended reading and encourage readers to make vital connections between ancient traditions and contemporary writing.

The Well-Educated Mind reassures those readers who worry that they read too slowly or with below-average comprehension.

If you can understand a daily newspaper, theres no reason you cant read and enjoy Shakespeares sonnets or Jane Eyre.

But no one should attempt to read the Great Books without a guide and a plan.

Bauer will show you how to allocate time to reading on a regular basis; how to master difficult arguments; how to make personal and literary judgments about what you read; how to appreciate the resonant links among texts within a genre--what does Anna Karenina owe to Madame Bovary ?--and also between genres.

In her best-selling work on home education, The Well-Trained Mind , the author provided a road map of classical education for parents wishing to home-school their children; that book is now the premier resource for home-schoolers.

In The Well-Educated Mind , Bauer takes the same elements and techniques and adapts them to the use of adult readers who want both enjoyment and self-improvement from the time they spend reading.

Followed carefully, her advice will restore and expand the pleasure of the written word.