There is no end to the making of books. Nor does there seem to be any end to the making
of lists of 'great books'. There have always been more books than anyone could read.
And as they have multiplied through the centuries, more and more blue-ribbon list had to be made.
No matter how long your life, you will, at best, be able to read only a few books of all that
have been written, and the few you do read should include the best. You can rejoice in the fact
that the number of such is relatively small. The listing of the best books is as old as reading
and writing. The teachers and librarians of ancient Alexandria did it. It is to be expected that
the selections will change will the times. Yet there is a surprising uniformity in the lists which
represent the best choices of any period. In every age, the list makers include both ancient
and modern books in their selections, and they always wonder whether the moderns are up to
the great books of the past.
What are the signs by which we may recognize a great book?
The six I will mention may not be all there are, but they are the ones
I've found most useful in explaining my choices over the years.
Great books are probably the most widely read. They are not best sellers for a year or two.
They are enduring best sellers. GONE WITH THE WIND has had relatively few readers
compared to the plays of Shakespeare or DON QUIXOTE. It would be reasonable to estimate
that Homer's book has been read by at least 25,000,000 people in the last 3000 years.
A great book need not even be a best seller in its own day. It may take time for it to accumulate
its ultimate audience. The astronomer Kepler, whose work on the planetary motions is now a classic,
is reported to have said of his book that 'it may wait a century for a reader, as God has waited
6000 years for an observer'. Great books are popular, not pedantic.
They are not written by specialists about specialties for specialists.
Whether they be philosophy or science, or history or poetry, they treat of human,
not academic problems. They are written for men, not professors. To read a textbook
for advanced students, you have to read an elementary textbook first. But the great books
can be considered elementary in the sense that they treat the elements of any subject matter.
They are not related to one another as a series of textbooks, graded in difficulty
or in the technicality of the problems with which they deal. There is one kind of prior reading,
however, which does help you to read a great book, and that is the other great books
the author himself read.Great books are always contemporary. In contrast,
the books we call 'contemporary', because they are currently popular,
last only for a year or two, or ten at the most. You probably cannot recall the names of
many earlier best sellers, and you probably would not be interested in reading them.
But the great books are never outmoded by the movement of thought or the shifting winds
of doctrine and opinion.