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Things You Can't Finish (52 Weeks of Books Challenge Week Eleven)


As with other things this week, I am running a little bit behind. That seems to be the nature of my week. My sincerest apologies.

50 Great Essays
Houston Peterson (editor), 1953, Cardinal Edition

Summary:
50 Great Essays is a collection of essays compiled from centuries past to present (well, present to the 20th century). Thomas Bacon, John Locke, Michel de Montaigne, and GK Chesterton are just a few of the authors whose essays were selected.

Why I Read It:
I was looking for a collection of essays while I was out thrift store shopping with my mom one day. This one, in particular, I thought would be awesome because of the collection's age, and all the authors from yesteryear that were included in the collection.

My Opinion:
I really don't have much to say, because this is the first one I have marked as complete and set aside because I just could not get through it. That is no fault of the authors themselves, because their writing was superb. It was more about the content of the pieces the editor chose to include. I find myself saying pieces because one of the pieces I got through in the collection was an incredibly long obituary.

Yeah.

In the preface, the editor goes on at length about he chose essays that explored the human condition. Maybe my 20th/21st century brain just is not wired to comprehend what some of the authors were saying about it, but I was not connecting any dots. For me, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for why each was chosen, and I just could not continue reading when the selection made no sense to me.

Conclusion:
Be very careful about the books you pick up at a thrift store, people. Very careful.

52 Weeks of Books Challenge? What is that? What book is Cat reviewing next week?

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