New York Times – 100 notable books of 2008
Written on November 29, 2008
The New York Times Notable Books of 2008 list is out. Here are the more “mind-related” highlights from the nonfiction list (with links to Amazon and to the New York Times review): 
Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason by Russell Shorto (NYT review)
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow (NYT review)
A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam (NYT review)
How Fiction Works by James Wood (NYT review)
Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists by Susan Neiman (NYT review)
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely (NYT review)
A Secular Age by Charles Taylor (NYT review)
The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson (NYT review)
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hadju (NYT review)
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt (NYT review)
Filed in: Uncategorized.
We have recently made an exciting discovery–three years after writing the wonderfully expanded third edition of How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren made a series of thirteen 14-minute videos on the art of reading. The videos were produced by Encyclopaedia Britannica. For reasons unknown, sometime after their original publication, these videos were lost.
When we discovered them and how intrinsically edifying they are, we negotiated an agreement with Encyclopaedia Britannica to be the exclusive worldwide agent to make them available.
For those of you who teach, this is great for the classroom.
I cannot over exaggerate how instructive these programs are–we are so sure that you will agree, if you are not completely satisfied, we will refund your donation.
Please go here to see a clip and learn more:
http://www.thegreatideas.org/HowToReadABook.htm
RE: A Great Idea At The Time: The Rise, Fall, And Curious Afterlife of The Great Books
by Alex Beam
Argumentum ad Hominem
The subtitle should have read, Every Negative Fact and Innuendo I Could Dredge Up
Although he was not particularly unkind to me in the book, I found virtually every page to be a smart-alecky and snide diatribe of the worst order against the Great Books, Adler, Hutchins, et al. Plus the book is replete with errors of commission and omission.
As an effective antidote, I prescribe Robert Hutchins’ pithy essay, The Great Conversation.
If the Great Books crusade is as bleak as Beam purports, then happily, not many will read his invective book.
Max Weismann,
President and co-founder with Mortimer Adler, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
Chairman, The Great Books Academy
Thank you for the great web site – a true resource, and one many people clearly enjoy thanks for sharing the info, keep up the good work going….
Thank you for the great web site – a true resource, and one many people clearly enjoy thanks for sharing the info, keep up the good work going….