Britannica Great Books #41, Gibbon II (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol II)

My in-laws bought this set for the family, but they never really got past Plato. The books sat on the shelf holding up an ideal. Recently, my mother-in-law decided to pass them on to us. I've begun studying them, and I found the set accessible and intriguing. The first book, The Great Conversation, encourages the late bloomer. I am determined that my children will make good use of grandma and grandpa's old books, sometimes good ideas just need time and good faith.

I used this set of books to cure myself of various dimensions of my own illiteracy. Suffering from a lack, perhaps, of desirable introductions featured in other editions of the same works, the consistency of printed style makes it slightly more accessible for a serious reader. The overall aesthetics of the set may add to speed and comprehension. Some of this set will seem, for many, a review of good high school studies. I would not necessarily read every word : page thru, and see what catches your eye ... then go back and study more thoroughly what needs to be. Yet there are others I would have included, though Adler had his reasons. There's Robert Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' Vico's 'New Science,' Kant's *complete* ' Critique of Pure Reason' and 'Prolegomena,' Spengler's 'Decline of the West(start with the abridged,)' and read different sections of Lyell's Geologies online every so often, to get a backround for your Darwin reading. And why not Arthur Conan Doyle, complete ? Werner Jaeger's 'Padeia' (3 vol)may be expensive, even in paperback, yet it's a great addition and keepsake/reference on the classical world. These additions will enrich your shelf for you, I trust. They broaden the view, flesh out the understanding, enhance and enrich the overall perspective from every angle. The grey type on so many pages turns into a huge historical/philosophical/literary map with these additions. With the GBWesternWorld, these additions help form a great broad overview to gently range the mind over, til 'this matter of culture' begins to fall into place. yet dont try to read everything all at once, in a great and rapid hurry. Reading shld be more of a ballet than a racing competition, than it so often is. Organize yourself with grace, wisdom, strength. Lane has a great music history book, a thousand pp., from the 1940s thats a great addition to anyone's personal library. Grove has a highly recommended opera volume, (tho I do not yet personally own it.) Siegfried Kracauer's 'Theory of Film' may be hard to get into right away, yet is such a staple in my library, I have yet to find a substitute for it, large or small: let it be the axle whereby you come to know the 'art form of the twentieth century,' through other film books, older or newer, greater or lesser in size or seeming usefulness. ... and start to familiarize yourself with such readings as Joyce's ULYSSES, FINNEGAN'S WAKE, Prousts' REMEMBRANCE, and Musil's MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, Mann's MAGIC MOUNTAIN, and the works of Hermann Brock. Great Books lists abound. . . ...of course, one ought not to stop there . . . supplement your "great books" with the "missing features" included in Dr.Eliots' earlier five foot shelf of Harvard Classics. Eliot includes more eastern writings than Adler finally did. Also, do not neglect Eliot's later addition to his five foot shelf, the Shelf of fiction in twenty volumes. It is essential. I have derived much of value from goiong thro