The Joy of Lifelong Learning

Eight to ten years ago I started listening to audio books during my morning commute. Our library has a rich selection to choose from.

At some point during that time, perhaps through a random catalog in the mail, I stumbled upon The Teaching Company. To paraphrase the company's founder... Do you ever wish that you could go back and hear some of your professor's lectures now that you have matured a little and or actually paid attention to what they were saying the first time? To go a step further, what if there was a way you could sit in on and listen to the greatest lecturers of our time as they shared their insights on the great themes of learning?

Well, that's the motivation behind this company. Whatever your pleasure, Business and Economics, Arts and Music, Literature, Philosophy, History, Social Sciences, Science or Mathematics, this company has done a bang up job of assembling some fantastic material for your personal listening pleasure and mental stimulation.

Currently I am listening to Masterpieces of Short Fiction, a series of 24 half hour lectures by Professor Michael Krasny. From Poe and Hawthorne to Updike and Carver, Krasny digs into the life and work of 24 literary masters of the short story oeuvre. Like much in literature, there is more to everything than initially meets the eye.

Rather than bore you with my own effusive praise for what this company has achieved, I will borrow a few testimonial quotes here from their website.

“When we find a master teacher… we should indeed, as the Teaching Company does, distribute the fruits of their labor widely and preserve them for posterity. This is the vision of the Teaching Company's ‘Great Courses’ series.”

—Chris Armstrong, Managing Editor
Christianity Today

"A dream come true for the lifelong learner, The Teaching Company's The Great Courses series features a semester's or more worth of lectures in hundreds of disciplines by some of the country's leading scholars."

—Video Librarian

"If you always wanted to attend Harvard, Yale or Princeton... The Teaching Company... offers Ivy League entry without the tedious application process, the astronomical fees, the undesired required courses or the pressure of final exams."

—The International Herald Tribune

"Whether they're commuting to work or hammering out miles on the treadmill, people have made these digital professors part of the fabric of their lives."

—Christian Science Monitor

We've purchased more of The Great Courses than we can probably afford, but consider each purchase an investment in our personal development. In the philosophy category I have enjoyed Will to Power: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, a series on St. Augustine's Confessions, and No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life. We are also listening to a 48 lecture overview of the great ideas of philosophy as part of a Philosophy Club we started in our home three years ago.

Be enriched.