Musings of a Christian Humanist

     My students regularly ask me about books and authors and also frequently ask, "what do you read when you are not reading Great Books?" It surprises them when I mention certain science-fiction and fantasy authors and I am always open for recommendations. Not long ago I was reading a blog, and novelist Andrew Klavan was mentioned. I was aware of Klavan, but had not read any of his works. Starting with some of his newer works, I must say I have been impressed. I will be finishing some of his YA fiction soon and will blog on that but wanted to start here with his most recent adult novel, A Killer in the Wind .     This novel might best fit into the genre of psycho-thriller with moments of great suspense, and some enjoyable action-adventure.  Characters Dan Champion , former military and investigator, former New York City police detective, and   Samantha,  a librarian, are both broken and yet resilient in a deeply human fashion. Both a testament of the human spirit over th

     A colleague in our Great Books program shared an article with me me over the recent Christmas break, and as I was buried in reading some of the Great Books and a few seasonal works, I was hard pressed to read this article. The article was published in First Things and entitled, Against Great Books Questioning Our Approach to the Western Canon . When I finally did get a chance to read it, I found several points of merit, a few points that I simply disagreed with and one common error with such arguments, but it is a major and recurring error when some address the Great Books.     The Great Books may be a source of their own undoing (inherent contradictions across the canon). On the first point of agreement (which is also ultimately the main problem in the argument), I do agree that when read together there becomes a babel-like clamoring calling for assent to a particular truth and sometimes simultaneously calling for a denial of another claiming to offer truth. This has led James

            As with Erasmus, I affirm that  The Imitation of Christ  by Thomas A'Kempis is the grandest of devotional reads. The devotional books that litter the bookstores, especially the local Christian bookstore are more shaped by the lowest common denominator of trivial therapeutic drivel, the "cutting edge" madness of the management class, or silly self-help books that know nothing about the complexities of the human self and never address the matter of how a self so open to self deception can really help that same self. The insipid devotional books reign supreme.       In this dismal situation there is a bright ray of devotional greatness that arrives. Actually, it is making a bit of a second coming. Originally published in 1976, Thomas Howard's Hallowed Be This House has been reprinted by Ignatius Press. My wife and I have been reading it (almost finished) and it has changed our sense of place. Thomas Howard, co-author of Christianity: The True Humanism ,

            On numerous occasions, Mortimer Adler wrote about the criteria that was used to determine which books of all the books written in the West would be placed within The Great Books of the Western World.  Contrary to confusion and many misstatements I've read over the years, Adler says it was essentially three criteria and they are as follows: 1) Contemporary significance - Even though historically valuable, these works address “issues, problems, or facets of human life that are of major concern to us today as well as at the time in which they were written.” While the work is within the genre of science fiction and fantasy, it really explores humane themes much as traditional fiction. In other words, change the setting from Mars to Montana and it still works as a literary masterpiece. 2) Rereadability - These are books “intended for the general reader that are worth reading carefully many times or studying over and over again...indefinitely rereadable for p