My favorite book series is not a typical series. I was going to write how my favorite series is "Lord Of The Rings" and about all things "Tolkien"--but those books stand out as overly popular.
Next, I was going to describe how much I enjoyed Piers Anthony's "Apprentice Adept" series and imaginative blending of two worlds existing in the same place but in different dimensions--a truly fantastic series.
Instead I would like the highlight as my favorite series of books, "The Great Works of the Western World." Everything is here: religion, politics, poetry, science, ethics, philosophy, economics, mathematics, history, drama and more. A bible, if you will--books of books. In the Great Works one will experience a wide range of writings, from the Bible to Shakespeare, from Greeks to Germans, from tyrants to democrats, from the faithful to skeptics.
“This is more than a set of books, and more than a liberal education. Great Books of the Western World is an act of piety. Here are the sources of our being. Here is our heritage. This is the West. This is its meaning for mankind.” -Robert Hutchins
"In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you." - Mortimer Adler
There is some debate as to which books should be included in the canon of Great Works, but one list of available free e-books
can be found here.
If I had it to do all over again, I would attend
St. John's College or
Gutenberg College where the Great Books are the curriculum for life-long learners who seek to make a significant contribution to their world.
