I'm reading "A Thomas Jefferson Education" by Oliver Van DeMille these days. I like it a lot - many thought-provoking ideas.
Chapter 5 begins with questions, and I don't know my own answers, so I'd like to throw them out to you!
1. What books are your companions through life?
2. If you were evacuated to another planet and could take only one book, upon which to base the whole teaching of your family and establishing right and wrong for your community, what would it be?
Basically, the author says that America used to have the Bible and the Declaration of Independence as national books, but we have lost this shared literacy, and it is leading to a decline in our culture. He doesn't say we need to bring back THOSE books, but that we do need something, and we should begin by developing a personal canon, that we then share with our families and friends.
A personal canon... where to begin?
5 comments:
I would love to hear more about what you thought of this book and its method of education.
America? Benjamin Frankin and Ralph Waldo Emerson both come to mind. Emerson is in my top five favorite authors of all time.
Patience, I will blog about the book soon - I liked a lot of it, but some I thought was hogwash :-)
Cher Mere - Emerson and Franklin are good candidates. I also thought about F. Scott Fitzgerald- The Great Gatsby? Or Steinbeck- East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath? I loved all of these books, but which one is really a "companion" book? I don't know.
Wow, I don't know if I could answer those questions. I am such a scavenger -- gobbling up books and taking what I want and discarding the rest and forgetting it.
They are great questions for starting conversations though!
That is thought provoking question.
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