num_pages: 496
description: In Great Books, Denby lives the common adult fantasy of returning to school with some worldly knowledge and experience of life. A gifted story-teller, he leads us on a glorious tour - by turns eloquent, witty, and moving - through the works themselves and through his experiences as a middle-aged man among freshmen. He recounts his failures and triumphs as a reader and student (taking an exam led to a hilarious near-breakdown). He celebrates his rediscovery or new appreciation of such authors as Homer, Plato, the biblical writers, Augustine, Boccaccio, Hegel, Austen, Marx, Nietzsche, and Virginia Woolf. He re-creates the atmosphere of the classroom - the strategies used by a remarkable group of teachers and the strengths and weaknesses of media-age students as they grapple with these difficult, sometimes frightening works. And all year long he watches the students grow and his own life and memories break out of hiding.
language: English
title: Great Books
titlecomplete: Great Books
genres: Literature, Books About Books, Classics, Biography, Memoir, Reference, Education, Philosophy, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 1034
awards: awardedAt: 820483200000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: General Nonfiction
publisher: Simon & Schuster