The Book That Changed My Life

Some time ago I received a phone call from the librarian at my local public library. She called to tell me that she had been looking over records and found that since the card catalog had been computerized about twenty years ago, I had checked out more books than any other person in my county. 

I was surprised by this news and also perplexed. All these years I have been seeking for something, but what? And why, after pouring through many stacks of lofty titles, did I still feel ignorant? 

I realized that it was time to submit myself to a list of recommended reading.

Lately, I have noticed a lot of literary bloggers referring to the moment when they "turned to the classics." It sounds like such a life changing, momentous event. And it is.

What I'll be reading for the next several months.

                                                                

Classics are books which, the more we think we know them by hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them. -- Italo Calvino

How has The Well-Educated Mind changed me?

The first time I read The Well-Educated Mind, I was living in a basement apartment with my husband and two small children. I had dropped out of college to get married and I was starting to feel intellectual withdrawal. In her book, I discovered Susan Wise Bauer's advice for reading through five different types of literature: fiction, autobiography, history and politics, drama, and poetry. She explains how to read each type by following the tried and true method of the classical trivium. She quotes Sir Francis Bacon: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." --

[Bacon] was suggesting that not every book is worthy of serious attention. But the three levels of understanding he describes -- tasting, swallowing, and digesting -- reflect his familiarity with classical education. In the classical school, learning is a three-part process. First, taste: Gain basic knowledge of your subject. Second, swallow: Take the knowledge into your own understanding by evaluating it. Is it valid? Is it true? Why? Third, digest: Fold the subject into your own understanding. Let it change the way you think-- or reject is as unworthy.

Reading Susan Wise Bauer's words, I felt as though an older, wiser friend had come along beside me, offering to be my guidance counselor. I began to shape a plan for a dream that could be accomplished over my lifetime. 

Now that I have five children, allotting time for my classical education often feels daunting -- some days I don't get to it at all -- but I'm inching forward and the reward is always worth the effort.

I started out alone on my quest. I had never heard of a "blog" and I knew no one personally who was interested in working through the lists with me. A big part of the process in a classical education is conversing with a rhetoric partner, but I didn't find mine until recently. After I started Classical Quest, I did a Google search and discovered a A Classic Case of Madness, a blog authored by three mothers who are also working their way through the WEM lists. I had started with the autobiography list; they were going through the novel list. Switching lists midstream was not a decision I made lightly (the lists are arranged chronologically). But now that I've worked through two novels alongside them, I realize that I made the right choice. They put up new posts from our reading nearly every day and some mornings I start my day laughing myself to tears over what they have written.


The Great Books have been likened to "intellectual NordicTrack machines", helpful for preventing atrophy of the mind. This is a good analogy, but my favorite imagery is food --

I have noticed that readers of the classics always seem to have in common a love for sumptuous food. Perhaps science will one day prove that a refined palette and a love for classic literature are genetically intertwined; regardless, the analogy of food is a good way to describe what reading a classic work does for me -- It feeds me. Entering into "The Great Conversation", I have found I'm not eating alone. I am joining into a shared experience with countless others through the ages.

Some of what I have experienced:
Augustine’s Confessions, which contains some of my all-time favorite quotes, provided a buffet for my soul during a trying time. I have laughed out loud to the tongue-in-cheek humor in Moby-Dick which others have laughed at for 150 years.  I have developed a love/hate relationship with Michel de Montaigne after reading his Essays a few months ago -- yet, more and more, I find myself referring back to his tips for living a good life. I have silently wept over Uncle Tom's Cabin and thought: This is why this book started a war. And now I know by experiencing these books for myself, not just by being told about them second hand.

Books I've read since I started working through the WEM lists.

If you are interested in reading through the Great Books on the WEM lists, I would love to hear from you! I am in the process of compiling a "Well-Educated Mind Blog Directory", which I know will be a means of support and encouragement for those on this quest. 


You are also welcome to join me in reading any particular book on the list.  Please leave a comment to let me know!

To view the complete WEM list go HERE.