In my prior work, the focus on Mortimer J. Adler and his community of discourse often elbowed out thoughts on how the great books idea “worked” in readers. The former group of intellectuals wrote so many books and articles, and their paper collections were so large, that I rarely had the time for ‘outside’ explorations. I never felt confident leaving them behind to explore the varieties of great books readers. I knew that a thorough discussion of those readers would require more time and evidence, as well as better theoretical tools, than I possessed. So I let them lie. Read more