Books that made history

Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life is an awful attempt at indoctrination. He uses the literary selections to try to push his ideology.

I've listened to many Teaching Company courses, and this is easily one of the worst. A red flag should quickly go up when Nazis are mentioned after many literary works discussed.

I felt like the lecturer was talking down to the audience. He would summarize a work, and then describe why it should be important. The books discuss "profound" themes, and thus they should be considered great. He gives us the "appropriate" interpretation of the works, and why they should be important for us. Usually this importance has something to do with World War II.

Since he spends so much time summarizing, there is little direct incentive to actually read the works discussed. (After all, he gives the summary and the "meaning" we are supposed to get out of it.) However, in books that I have read recently, I have had interpretations vastly different than his. Perhaps the incentive is there to just figure out how he managed to mess up the interpretation of other works.

There are plenty of other "great books" audio courses out there that are much better. I would reccomend A Way With Words, Part II: Approaches to Literature It lacks the forced interpretation and does a better job of inspiring an interest in literature.