John Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of the Torrey Honors Institute, a great books program at Biola. And he’s now edited The Great Books Reader, designed to introduces readers to the most influential books of the Western canon.
Here is the publisher’s description:
The Breadth of a Great Books Program—All in One Volume
To be a well-read Christian, it’s important to know the writings that have had the greatest influence on our civilization. Although many of us are familiar with names like Plato, Dante, Descartes, etc., few today have read their works. A growing number of Great Books programs in colleges and private schools are filling this void, but now you too can interact with the classics for a fraction of the time and expense.
In this volume you will be guided by esteemed professors and writers who have selected excerpts from the most important books in Western Civilization. A brief essay illuminates each excerpt and puts the work in context. Take your education to the next level by letting some of the best thinkers of today walk you through the most influential books in history.
In The Great Books Reader you’ll find excerpts from such writers as: Aquinas, Aristotle, Augustine, Calvin, Chaucer, Chesterton, Dante, Descartes, Dostoevsky, Locke, Marx, Milton, Nietzsche, Plato, and Shakespeare.
The distinguished faculty includes: William Dembski, Hugh Hewitt, Anthony Esolen, Philip Johnson, Peter Kreeft, Frederica Matthewes-Green, Russell Moore, Fred Sanders . . . and many more!
You can read below the table of contents, the introduction—including Reynolds’s “defense of a (nearly) indefensible project”!—and the first chapter (on Homer and The Odyssey):
