No matter how long your life, you will, at best, be able to read only a few books of all that have been written, and the few you do read should include the best. You can rejoice in the fact that the number of such is relatively small.
________________ Yet there is a surprising uniformity in the lists which represent the best choices of any period. In every age, the list makers include both ancient and modern books in their selections, and they always wonder whether the moderns are up to the great books of the past.
What are the signs by which we may recognize a great book? The four I will mention may not be all they are, but they are the ones I’ve found most useful in explaining my choices over the years.
Great books are probably the most widely read. They are not best sellers for a year or two. They are enduring best sellers. GONE WITH THE WIND has had relatively few readers compared to the plays of Shakespeare or DON QUIXOTE. It would be reasonable to estimate that Homer’s Iliad（伊丽亚特）has been read by at least 25,000,000 people in the last 3000 years.
Great books are popular, not pedantic. They are not written by specialists about specialties for specialists. Whether they are philosophy or science, or history or poetry, they treat of human, not academic problems. They are written for men, not professors. To read a textbook for advanced students, you have to read an elementary textbook first. But the great books can be considered elementary in the sense that they treat the elements of any subject matter. They are not related to one another as a series of textbooks, graded in difficulty or in the technicality of the problems with which they deal.
Great books are always contemporary, the most readable and instructive.
Great books deal with the persistently unsolved problems of human life. There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Inquiry not only begins with wonder, but usually ends with it also. Great minds acknowledge mysteries honestly. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations.
64．Which of the following can be put in the blank in the second paragraph?
A．Great books deal with the persistently unsolved problems of human life.
B．It is to be expected that the selections will change with the times
C．The listing of the best books is as old as reading and writing.
D．The fundamental human problems remain the same in all ages.
65．According to the author, Gone With The Wind is ________.
A．a best seller
B．disgusted by readers who like Shakespeare
C．read more often than Don Quixote
D．a great book
66．In the passage “pedantic” means ________.
A．showing the feelings, esp, those of kindness, which people are supposed to have
B．serving as practical examples
C．being elementary
D．paying too much attention to details in books
67．The best title for this passage is ________.
A．Great Books in Your Life B．Great Books in Your Speciality
C．How to Find a Great Book? D．What Is a Great Book?
