Personally, I thought the tagline of this book was interesting. I know that Plato is a philosopher, but Winnie the Pooh? (it was about the Tao of Pooh)

I figured that it couldn’t hurt to learn more about philosophy, so I took the plunge and book this book. To put the cart before the horse, I ended up having a lot of fun reading this and came away with books that I want to read!

A Brief Guide to Philosophical Classics is a fun guide through Western philosophy. The book is broken into six main sections: Traditional Philosophy, Outsiders and Gatecrashers, Philosophically interesting books that are not traditional philosophy books, Understanding our lives and the lives of others, Twentieth Century Issues, a Sampler of Modern Philosophy, and The Continental Tradition.

The book is upfront about the fact that it focuses on Western Philosophical tradition and that the books picked can be subjective, and I appreciated the honesty. Philosophy is a huge discipline and it’s going to be impossible to condense it all into one small book (let alone define what is a “classic”) so I was inclined to trust A Brief Guide to Philosophical Classics as soon as they admitted that it wasn’t going to be a definitive guide. As much as I would have liked to read about Eastern Philosophy as well, I understand that it’s a huge topic worthy of a book by itself (come to think of it, has anyone written a similar book for Eastern philosophers?) and to cram it into this book would not do it justice.

The tone of this book is conversational, making it easy to read and to grasp the ideas mentioned. I can’t say that I understand everything one hundred percent, but I understood a lot more about the discipline of philosophy after reading this than before.

If you’re interested in Western philosophy and its ideas, I think this is a good introductory book. I found myself interested in reading a few of these books in its entirety, and I can see myself returning to this book now and then to get a refresher.