The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had

Now, FINALLY, thanks to this book, I am learning how to read a book and analyze it using the 3 stages of the Trivium (grammar stage, logic stage, rhetoric stage) -- Classical Education. My friend and I are having a ball learing how to do this, taking notes, analyzing things logically, asking questions and discussing the finer points that the author makes.

For anyone who is homeschooling (as my friend and I are), or for anyone who feels like their understanding of fine literature is lacking, this book is wonderful!! I highly recommend it! It has an easily readable style, (not dry as wood chips like some books I have attempted), has a sprinkling of humor here and there, and best of all, it respects that fact that the majority of people who would be reading it are busy adults with PLENTY to do each day, and is therefore not demanding; it only requires 30 min. of reading a day 4 times a week, thus making an allowance for those days that "life" happens to you.

Side note: between my friend and I, the oldest homeschool child we have is approximately 7th grade. Therefore, we did not begin by reading the books that the author recommends. We chose classical literature that was closer to the level that the oldest child was reading and books that we knew we would have our children read on their own at some point. We both plan to use what we learn from this book to help show our own children how to read and evaluate good literature.


Opening up new horizons   July 9, 2004
Sandy Acheson (Allentown, PA)
46 out of 50 found this review helpful

I thought I was educated before, but this wonderful book taught me new reading skills and whetted my appetite for the classics. Though I went to a good high school and college, I spent most of my time hearing about how "great" the Great Books were, without being much encouraged to sit down and crack one open. The Well-Educated Mind has helped to change that, which is why I disagree with the negative review posted earlier on this page. Maybe we "should" have learned how, why, and what to read in our schools, but many of us were not taught, and the Well-Educated mind aims to fill that gap. For this reason, I would highly recommend it for high-school students or for those about to start college.
The opening section alone, on getting the most out of reading, should be handed out in every local library. Don't miss the chapters on drama and poetry, either: too many people ignore these genres because of their seeming inaccessibility, but here Susan Wise Bauer provides superb keys and useful skills.
Knowledgeable without being a show-off, friendly without dumbing-down, Bauer makes an excellent guide for those who want to enter the "great conversation."


Finally, makes sense of the Great Books enterprise...   January 24, 2005
CarefulReader (Philadelphia)
36 out of 39 found this review helpful

I have two graduate degrees, but despite that I've always felt undereducated. I've read quite a few "important books," but they never fit together in my mind into any sort of logical progression. This book has finally made sense of the pattern! Bauer begins with a brief examination of the reading process, and then explains, clearly and intelligently, how five different genres developed, from ancient times up until the present. She also shows how the genres relate to each other. She starts with the novel, from Don Quixote to magic realism, and follows that up with autobiography because (like novelists) autobiographists are telling a story; she then goes on to history (because historians also tell a story, but have a different relationship to the "facts") and finishes up with plays and poetry. Along the way, she defines all the important literary terms you've heard floating around, and slots them neatly into their place. One of the best guides to self education I've read, and one that finally got me back on the path to serious reading. (Incidentally, what is the reviewer talking about below, when he says "the author admits she hasn't read the books"? Totally untrue--no such statement. Ms. Bauer says that she has always had trouble getting through Moby Dick, but apart from that demonstrates a great mastery of the material, and the annotations are amazingly helpful--they highlight the themes of the books and show, briefly, how the terms and developments covered in the "history of the genre" sections play into each.)

Highly recommended for any serious reader.


Read this book in addition to Adler and Van Doren   July 6, 2004
Ray Farmer (Concord, MA USA)
28 out of 30 found this review helpful

The goal of this book is to show how the Great Books can be engaged by applying the methods of classical education to enable more effective reading, analysis, and criticism. I think Bauer did a great job in meeting this task by providing detailed guidelines for tackling five different literary genres (novels, autobiographies, history, drama, and poetry). In addition, she backs up the use of these guidelines by providing short histories that describe the development of each genre and which, as a result, show readers what they should be looking for in each type of work. Finally, reading lists for each genre are provided to enable readers to practice their new skills in grammatical, logical, and rhetorical reading.

Although this book is publicized as being for the "adult reader", I think that Bauer may have attempted to include the homeschooling crowd as well, especially considering that her previous books were aimed toward this latter audience. Consequently, an "adult reader" may find the first four chapters to be a bit patronizing as various issues are discussed, including how to make your own notebook, how to increase your vocabulary, how to set up a time for reading, etc. However, once readers progress into the heart of the book (i.e. the discussion of the five literary genres), I think that they will be willing to forget their previous misgivings and find this to be a very useful guidebook (I did at least).

I believe that the suggestions presented in this book fit very nicely within the solid framework provided by Adler and Van Doren's "How to Read a Book". Adler and Van Doren do an excellent job of explaining why and how one should go about reading the Great Books for understanding. However, their discussion primarily focused on reading nonfictional works, and I felt that the suggestions they provided for reading fiction were a bit insufficient. Consequently, I believe "The Well-Educated Mind" complements Adler and Van Doren very nicely and would heartily recommend that these two books be read in conjunction.