My old grad school Prof, Fr. Schall, informed me (as he does of all his books) that his latest work is "must-read," so I dutifully purchased it, and it is thoroughly enjoyable. But then, anything that opens with a quotation from Phyllis McGinley is liable to sit well with me:
For if I grew up no better instructed about the world of books than was Columbus about global geography, I had in store for me, as he did, the splendors of discovery. ("The Consolations of Illiteracy")Love the subtitle: On The Joys & Travails Of Thinking. It's no ponderous tome, either. He writes in the intro:
This is not an "academic" book, though, hopefully, it is an intelligent one. If there is a certain lightsomeness in these considerations, it is because there is a certain lightsomeness in existence itself, something we miss at our peril. Things do "depend" on a philosophy that know of what is, that it is.I note that at the end he has appendices including "20 Books That Awaken The Mind." I'd be ashamed to tell you how few of 'em I've read. Although in my defense I s'pose Fr. would say you only need to read a couple --and then you're off on your own journey.
