About this item
The enduring and engaging guide to educating yourself in the classical tradition.Have you lost the art of reading for pleasure? Are there books you know you should read but haven't because they seem too daunting? In The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer provides a welcome and encouraging antidote to the distractions of our age, electronic and otherwise.Newly expanded and updated to include standout works from the twenty-first century as well as essential readings in science (from the earliest works of Hippocrates to the discovery of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs) , The Well-Educated Mind offers brief, entertaining histories of six literary genres -- fiction, autobiography, history, drama, poetry, and science -- accompanied by detailed instructions on how to read each type.
About the Author
Susan was born in 1968, grew up in Virginia, and was educated at home by pioneering parents, back when home education was still unheard of. She worked as a professional musician, wore a costume at Colonial Williamsburg, toured with a travelling drama group, galloped racehorses at a Virginia racetrack, taught horseback riding, worked in radio and newspaper ad sales, learned enough Korean to teach a Korean four-year-old Sunday school, and served as librarian and reading tutor for the Rita Welsh Adult Literacy Center in Williamsburg, Virginia. In her less haphazard adult life, she earned an M.A., M.Div., and Ph.D. She has taught at the College of William & Mary in Virginia for the last sixteen years. Susan is married and the mother of four.Susan's most recent book for Norton, The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory (2015) , guides us back to the original texts that have changed the way we think about our world, our cosmos, and ourselves.!Her previous book, The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had (2003) , is a guide to reading the classic works of fiction, poetry, history, autobiography, and drama. Norton also published The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (with co-author Jessie Wise) ; originally published in 1999, this bestselling guide to education in the classical tradition was revised and updated in 2004 and again in 2009. For Peace Hill Press, Susan has written a four-volume world history series for children, The Story of the World, for Peace Hill Press. Volume 1, Ancient Times, was published in 2002 (revised edition 2006) ; Volume 2, The Middle Ages, in 2003 (revised edition 2007) ; and Volume 3, Early Modern Times, in 2004. The final volume, The Modern Age, was published in 2006. She has also written a best-selling elementary writing program, Writing With Ease.Susan is also the author of The Art of the Public Grovel (Princeton University Press) and many articles and reviews. Visit her blog at http://www.susanwisebauer.com/blog.
