Why We Read the Great Books

Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is one of the greats. We need to read Shakespeare who gave birth to character characters that were aware of themselves. How can we know where we're going if we don't know where we've come from? This is why we read history. When we read Les Misérables, know that book is not about the French Revolution. Be it royalist, bonapartist, be it revolutionary. It all matters. And Victor Hugo goes to great lengths in that wonderful epic, sprawling novel. He tells us that Paris is a microcosm of the world. France is a standing for every other country because when we read France and the history of France