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Title details for The Whole Five Feet by Christopher R. Beha - Available

The Whole Five Feet

by Christopher R. Beha
ebook
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This unique memoir of reading the classics to find strength and wisdom “makes an elegant case for literature as an everyday companion” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
While undergoing a series of personal and family crises, Christopher R. Beha discovered that his grandmother had used the Harvard Classics—the renowned “five foot shelf” of great world literature compiled in the early twentieth century by Charles William Eliot—to educate herself during the Great Depression. He decided to follow her example and turn to this series of great books for answers—and recounts the experience here in a smart, big-hearted, and inspirational mix of memoir and intellectual excursion that “deftly illustrates how books can save one’s life” (Helen Schulman).
 
“As he grapples with the death of his beloved grandmother, a debilitating bout with Lyme disease and other major and minor calamities, Beha finds that writers as diverse as Wordsworth, Pascal, Kant and Mill had been there before, and that the results of their struggles to find meaning in life could inform his own.” —The Seattle Times
 
“An important book [and] a sheer blast to read.” —Heidi Julavits
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Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Kindle Book

  • Release date: May 11, 2010

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780802199904
  • Release date: May 11, 2010

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780802199904
  • File size: 3741 KB
  • Release date: May 11, 2010
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Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography Literary Criticism Nonfiction

Languages

English

This unique memoir of reading the classics to find strength and wisdom “makes an elegant case for literature as an everyday companion” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
While undergoing a series of personal and family crises, Christopher R. Beha discovered that his grandmother had used the Harvard Classics—the renowned “five foot shelf” of great world literature compiled in the early twentieth century by Charles William Eliot—to educate herself during the Great Depression. He decided to follow her example and turn to this series of great books for answers—and recounts the experience here in a smart, big-hearted, and inspirational mix of memoir and intellectual excursion that “deftly illustrates how books can save one’s life” (Helen Schulman).
 
“As he grapples with the death of his beloved grandmother, a debilitating bout with Lyme disease and other major and minor calamities, Beha finds that writers as diverse as Wordsworth, Pascal, Kant and Mill had been there before, and that the results of their struggles to find meaning in life could inform his own.” —The Seattle Times
 
“An important book [and] a sheer blast to read.” —Heidi Julavits
Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography Literary Criticism Nonfiction
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