In 1991, at the age of forty-eight, writer and film critic David Denby re-enrolled in two core courses in western civilisation at Columbia University, New York. This is his glorious celebration of writers and philosophers whose works-the 'great books' remain touchstones for both society and the individual.
Denby revisits the writings of Aristotle, Dante, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Austen and others with compassion and rigour, and he dramatises the struggles of bewildered fellow students as they become alive to these great works.