I found this book recently at the Book Thing. It's a candidate for my Bookish Books bookbox, but first I think I need to read this one.

From the cover -
At the age of forty-eight, film critic David Denby, dissatisfied with his life within the media bubble, went back to Columbia University and took again the two famous courses in Western classics (Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization) required of all students - courses he first took in 1961. In recent years, collections of literary and philosophicl masterpieces such as those taught in these courses have been reviled by the left as oppressive and exclusionary and adored by the right as bulwarks of patriotism. Denby, the film critic for New York magazine, waned to dispel these cliches and to confront the books in their naked power; he wanted to find the self he had lost in a daze of media images.
In Great Books, Denby lives the common adult fantasy of returning to school with some worldly knowledge and experience of life. A gifted storyteller, he leads us on a glorious tour--by turns eloquent, witty, and moving--through the works themselves and through his experiences as a middle-aged man among freshmen. He recounts his failures and triumphs as a reader and student (taking an exam led to a hilarious near-breakdown). He celebrates his rediscovery or new appreciation of such authors as Homer, Plato, the biblical writers, Augustine, Boccaccio, Hegel, Austen, Marx, Nietzsche, and Virginia Woolf. He re-creates the atmosphere of the classroom--the strategies used by a remarkable group of teachers and the strengths and weaknesses of media-age students as they grapple with these difficult, sometimes frightening works. And all year long he watches the students grow and his own life and memories break out of hiding.
The result is an extraordinarily engaging blend of criticism, reporting, autobiography, and cultural commentary, a book about self-discovery. Denby offers a nonprofessor's look at life on campus; he addresses the vexing questions of political correctness and relativism, and he suggests that a larger crisis surrounds the teaching of the humanities. A liberal defending "the canon," Denby places literature in its revolutionary role as the source of powerful stories--the most powerful stories that we tell about ourselves. For the reader who once read these works, the book is a brilliant reprise; for the reader unfamiliar with them, Great Books offers an irresistible introduction. By the end, the great works are revealed again in their power to disturb and give pleasure.

Sadly, MaryZee passed suddenly in September 2012. MaryZee's daughter is now ready to rehome her mom's books and I was willing to collect and redistribute them to keep her literary legacy alive.

MaryZee had a lot of books on her BC shelves when she passed. I am planning on sharing most of them with other locals. But I am hanging on to a few that might be more appropriate for other distribution methods. From the looks of it, this might be a good fit if I revive the Bookish Book Box.

This book is part of the Bookish Book Box being circulated in memory of MaryZee, who was a passionate Bookcrosser and sadly died in September 2012. Hopefully it will cross the path of someone who will enjoy it.

Any future reader or recipient of this book is encouraged to leave a journal entry here on the BookCrossing site to let prior readers know the fate of the book. You can make an anonymous entry without joining the BookCrossing movement, but if you are interested in joining, it is a free and spam-free community where your contact information is not shared with others. Best of all, members receive private messages via e-mail from books like this one when those books are journaled, allowing for long-term relationships between books and readers.