Sometimes in reading a book you’re looking for lessons. Sometimes you’re looking for escape.
But according to Karen Swallow Prior, “Great books offer perspective.” The best literature, she says, “replicates the world of the concrete, where the experiential learning necessary for virtue occurs.” In her new book, On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos), Prior asks us to read books that make demands of us. And she shows us in 12 chapters how books such as The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Pilgrim’s Progress move us toward temperance, courage, and diligence.
Prior is professor of English at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and she’ll be speaking on this subject of “reading well” for a workshop at The Gospel Coalition’s 2019 National Conference, April 1 to 3 in Indianapolis. She joined me on The Gospel Coalition Podcast to discuss mortality and morality, on reading well and reading poorly.
Related:
- Jane Eyre and Our Age of Authenticity (Karen Swallow Prior)
- How Great Books Teach Us to Love (Collin Hansen and Gary Saul Morson)
- Summer Reading: A Grade-by-Grade Recommended Reading List for Kids
Free eBook by Tim Keller: ‘The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness’
Imagine a life where you don’t feel inadequate, easily offended, desperate to prove yourself, or endlessly preoccupied with how you look to others. Imagine relishing, not resenting, the success of others. Living this way isn’t far-fetched. It’s actually guaranteed to believers, as they learn to receive God’s approval, rather than striving to earn it.
In Tim Keller’s short ebook, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path To True Christian Joy, he explains how to overcome the toxic tendencies of our age一not by diluting biblical truth or denying our differences一but by rooting our identity in Christ.
TGC is offering this Keller resource for free, so you can discover the “blessed rest” that only self-forgetfulness brings.
