The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had

Don’t let the spine fool you—Susan Wise Bauer has mastered the art of optical illusions. The Well-Educated Mind is jam-packed with information. Clear reading lists and down-to-earth guidance turn centuries of great books into an accessible roadmap for any self-taught reader.

Ms. Bauer certainly knows the material and she has designed a very thorough and intensive study program for those that want to obtain a classical education without spending the money and time to obtain one through a traditional brick-and-mortar graduate program. To be successful in the program that she lays out you must have a reading partner who is willing to do all the reading, journal his or her reactions, answer all the questions for each book, and meet with you to discuss. It's a commitment for you and your study buddy, but one that is well worth it. My only complaint is that Ms. Bauer details the study plan in several places throughout the introductory chapters and each time there are either new elements or some that seem to conflict with what she stated previously. I found it helpful to type up a document that combined and resolved some of the aforementioned issues and that listed the steps in an easy to follow format. That being said, I would still recommend this book to anyone that is serious about obtaining a classical education.

The Well-Educated Mind does a wonderful job of explaining how to go about reading with a purpose in an approachable and non-pretentious way. And by books, I mean not just any books, but some of The Great Books (key impressive music); which to some like myself, may be slightly intimidating if you are a decade (or two) out of university. (And never got around to reading any of these books while in said university). The author's approach is very straight forward, but her writing is anything but dry. She gives practical ways to break the books (which are addressed by genre in different chapters) into digestible chunks which make tackling these works perhaps more approachable than they are without a class syllabus, facilitator, or general plan. I am happy to have found this book and would definitely recommend for anyone looking to expand their horizons and library with some of the "greats". It's never too late to read!

Overall I think the book is well written, with a very systematic approach to reading and absorbing the Great Books. Some reviewers have said the approach takes the fun out of reading, but I think if you're going to put in the time and effort to read these works you might as well get maximum reward for it. They're not meant to be breezy reads, they're meant to be enriching and rewarding, and I think the author's approach helps in that regard. The one decision she made that I find baffling is to compile a list that includes many of the usual categories, but omits perhaps the most important, philosophy/political theory/theology. Instead she includes autobiography, which almost nobody else does. And she uses her history category and this odd autobiography category to pretty much include names that she knows need to be on any list but really don't belong where she put them. So Plato and Aristotle, the foundational philosophers, are hidden in History and, really bizarrely, Literature. And most of the great philosophers are just ignored, like Aquinas, Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, or relegated to weird sections, like Descartes or Marx. In their place because she has to fill out the autobiography section with pretty random names like Margery Kempe, Charles Colson and Richard Rodriguez (and many more). The Bible and Koran are also not included, which are pretty foundational to Western civilization. I know great books list debates often revolve around which novels to include or exclude, but with many thousands of important works of fiction to choose from, these sorts of disagreements are bound to arise. I'm trying to point out something bigger. By excluding most of the great thinkers of the West, I think she's rendered the reading suggestions unworkable. I'd still buy the book for the methodology, but use a Great Books list from Bloom, Adler or the St. John's College reading list instead.

just like new, will be referring to the info a lot, thank you,

I dropped out of high school at age 16. I got my GED when I was 43. I am now 76. This was perfectly titled and written for me. I retired from technology where reading was necessary just to function. Now I can invest that time reading all the classics I missed. I also have the author's book, The Well Educated Mind. The book that is being reviewed has been my guide for setting priorities on my reading. The mental stimulation is excellent for someone my age. I expect it will continue its usefulness for as many years as I have ahead.

Susan Wise Baur is a great author and historian and I'm glad I can add this book to my library. I already have her other books on ancient history so this was great addition to my collection. She writes well and is easy to understand. She does a good job explaining how you can develope a love of reading and improving your reading skills.

I always had this nagging sense of the inadequacy of my traditional classroom education with it's one size fits all sensibilities and robotically-opague agendas. After discovering The Well-Educated Mind, I feel as if I'm starting over in many ways, sort of like being left in a corner of a library to figure it all out on my own. I could not be happier.

Great book. A little overpriced, though.

There’s simply no better place to start ones journey if your goal is to truly enter the ‘great conversation’. This is not only a guide on how to read and critique books - but a comprehensive history on the foundations of Western Civilisation and I was blown away by the vastness of information across the fields of Science, History, Fiction etc. 10/10 would recommend!

Great Book

I am kicking myself for not having read Susan Wise Bauer earlier. This single book would have given me a map to navigate the world of the Classics much more fruitfully. While Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book is an academic and dry exercise - Bauer's is a delight to read. Great style of writing. She makes us fly gently over the literary landscape swooping down each territory for a cool, refreshing dip or one can say a delightful mouthful before setting off for other lands. If not humanity, I owe her a debt. Thanks to Bauer for making this such a rewarding book. Part 1 starts with getting one's tools ready for the journey into the Classics with oractical tips on journaling. Part 2 gets us involved with the Great Conversation itself - categorising them into six types of literature : as the Novel, the Autobiography, History, Drama, Poetry, Science. The three levels of reading/learning, the 'trivium' (taste, swallow, digest) are described in detail to work them out in each genre - the grammar stage (finding the facts), logic stage (analayze and evaluate), rhetoric stage (making your own judgment, drawing conclusions). At the end of each chapter is an annotated list having a brief outline of the book, with advice on the best print edition and translation (and audio, when suitable) available. The recommended list itself is a good guide on what to choose on one's journey and she does not claim that it is either exhaustive or the best. I am eagerly looking forward to reading her chronological series on History of the World which she humbly does not recommend in her list :-) Happy reading Folks ! This book would be one treasure in your book collection - to be used well - tasted, swallowed and digested. A strong recommendation for families passing on the reading habit to the next generation.

I’ve orded it a few weeks ago and started to read it tonight. I like the book. It‘s very inspiring.