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Tuesday, January 9, 2024

A Great Book

What makes a great book great? At Biola College they offer an honors program in which students read, by the time they graduate, about one hundred of the books considered to be among the very best ever written, but how do they determine which works should be included?

Fred Sanders, at The Scriptorium, lists and discusses eight characteristics or criteria of a great book. I've listed the eight, but to read his discussion of them you'll have to visit his article: He writes that a great book...
  1. speaks from an important original setting.
  2. is written in a way that is relevant for readers today.
  3. is well-crafted.
  4. is one that provokes excellent discussion.
  5. is inexhaustible, so no reading of it is the final reading, and no discussion ever runs it dry.
  6. is time-tested. People from multiple generations have had their hands on it, and have judged it to be worth passing along.
  7. is weird. It’s got angles, edges, textures, and stuff sticking out that you wouldn’t have predicted.
  8. is smarter than the best teacher, but within reach of the average student.
How many books have you read that meet the criteria of a great book?