[Your king] shall… read! Deuteronomy 17:18-19.

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 toyou. 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.

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