The Not-So-Classic Classics

January, 1965

My work in the great books movement since the early 1920s has made me keenly aware that many persons associate the reading of the so-called "classics" with boredom and fatigue. I have suggested previously in these pages (How to Read a Book Superficially, Playboy, December 1963) how a great book may be read with enjoyment and profit, and without suffering undue fatigue or strain. I was speaking then of books that are of permanent worth and which are, on the whole, eminently readable.How...