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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me about Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everthing Else

The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me about Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everthing Else

Paperback

Literary Criticism

Publisher Price: $17.00

ISBN10: 0802144853
ISBN13: 9780802144850
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: May 11 2010
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.50
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.20
Language: English

In The Whole Five Feet, Christopher Beha turns to the great books for answers after undergoing a series of personal and family crises and learning that his grandmother had used the Harvard Classics to educate herself during the Great Depression. Inspired by her example, Beha vows to read the entire Five-Foot Shelf, one volume a week, over the course of the next year. As he passes from St. Augustine's Confessions to Don Quixote, from Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast to essays by Cicero, Emerson, and Thoreau, he takes solace in the realization that many of the authors are grappling with the same questions he faces: What is the purpose of life? How do we live a good life? What can the wisdom of the past teach us about our own challenges? Beha's chronicle is a smart, big-hearted, and inspirational mix of memoir and intellectual excursion--and a powerful testament to what great books can teach us about how to live our own lives.

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