It was C.S.Lewis, I think, who coined the phrase 'chronological snobbery': 'new equals better, the old is passe'. Best-selling books in our pragmatic age tell us 'How to do it'. The classics rather ask 'Why?' or 'What?' Ruskin talked about 'books of the hour, and books of the ages'. Carl van Doren put it well: 'A classic is a book that doesn't have to be rewritten.' Or, C.S.Lewis again, in reading great literature I connect with 1000 people yet remain myself. 'I don't have time to read,' is nonsense. You do have time to do what is important to you. Reading great literature ought to be important. Readers are leaders (and vice versa). Reading makes a complete person.

My top 18 classics? Psalm 27, Isaiah 40, The Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, The First Letter of Peter, The Book of Revelation, Augustine's Confessions, The Little Flowers of St. Francis, The Cloud of Unknowing, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot, CS Lewis' Mere Christianity, Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, W.E.Sangster's The Pure in Heart, Dom Helder Camara's A Thousand Reasons for Living.

Thank you, Creator God, that you give the gift of teachers to us, and to some of these you endow with the ability (and the time and inclination) to write down your truth for us. May I mine this vast and rich treasure, and so grow wiser. For your glory. Amen.