Classic Literature Made Simple

Kate Taliaferro describes how Joseph Pearce's new book offers readers a thoughtful sample of great books to consider for anyone’s next literary adventure.

Classic Literature Made Simple: Fifty Great Books in a Nutshell

By Joseph Pearce
Publisher: Ignatius Press

We live in an extraordinary literary time. It’s not that authors today are producing an overwhelming amount of fabulous books, but that as readers, we have unprecedented access to books. A short drive to the library, a quick click on a tablet, and we can read nearly any book ever published. With this level of overwhelming choice, how does one choose what to read next? Professor and author Joseph Pearce's new book, Classic Literature Made Simple: Fifty Great Books in a Nutshell, can serve as both a guide and sampler for the eager but indecisive reader.  

What makes a book great?

Over the span of three years, Pearce wrote a series of articles intended to introduce readers to 50 books that, in his opinion, should be considered “great books” or as he termed them, “good-good books.” I did enjoy this distinction between different types of books. For Pearce, there are four types: good-good, good-bad, bad-good, and bad-bad. The first adjective describes the overall writing quality and elegance — how well is the book written from a strictly linguistic sense. The second adjective describes the lasting moral value of the work. So a bad-good book is poorly written but has an overall positive moral impact on the reader.

The fifty books highlighted in Pearce’s book are all good-good books. They are of a high literary quality as well as offer the reader a thoughtful, positive moral lesson, theme, or outlook to carry forward.  

Some titles selected will likely be familiar to many readers, perhaps even read already in school, such as Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, The Odyssey, Macbeth, and The Lord of the Rings. Others may be more obscure or even completely unknown. I had personally never heard of the book simply titled C, by Maurice Baring.  

What's in this book?

I very much appreciated the size of each chapter. Each is only about 1,000 words, which in the paperback version I am holding is only 3-5 pages. I found this is exceptionally manageable and not overwhelming. Pearce weaves both summary and general themes into concise and intriguing paragraphs which invite the reader to explore the work further without having anything majorly spoiled.   

Pearce argues in the opening pages of the book that “we think as well as we read.” From this perspective, the more we read the richer the vocabulary we will have available to us which means we will be more effective communicators. Often as adults we become very focused on what our children are reading and want to encourage them to read as many good-good books as possible before they leave our homes. While this is a worthy cause, there is a lot more life lived and ideally, books read, post-year 18. The need to read good books does not stop just because one graduates high school or college.   

Equipped with a book like Classic Literature Made Simple, adults and children alike can be inspired to explore new books or revisit old favorites, confident that they are filling their minds and hearts with good language and good life lessons. 

Ask for Classic Literature Made Simple at your local Catholic bookseller, or order online from Amazon.com or the publisher, Ignatius Press.

Is this a book you'd like to read? Share your thoughts with the Catholic Mom community! You'll find the comment box below the author's bio and list of recommended articles.

Copyright 2025 Kate Taliaferro
Images: Canva