Our Enchiridion – The Handbook series is built around the words of authors and thinkers who helped shape Western culture. Thus we decided to list all thirty sources from Vol. 1 according to their average ratings on Goodreads in order to find out which work is the best among the best!
One of the most acute commentaries on Savonarola is made by none other than G. K. Chesterton in his book, Twelve Types. Here the English author distinguishes the historical Savonarola from the moral Savonarola, ignoring the former and focusing almost exclusively on the latter.
Few works testify the essence and the creative ability of their author as well as The Screwtape Letters, perhaps the most ingenious and underestimated of C. S. Lewis’ fiction books. With razor-sharp wit and clever satire, Lewis uses the imaginary correspondence between two demons to point out both virtues and flaws in the Christian faith, as well as to expound on theological questions from the Adversary’s point of view.
Few novels have chapters so rich and impacting they can stand apart from the rest of the book, yet this is precisely what has happened with the story of “The Grand Inquisitor,” from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final novel, The Brothers Karamazov.
The epic retelling of the Arthurian legend in the form of Le Morte d’Arthur has immortalized not only its author, but the very legend of Arthur and his valiant Knights of the Round Table as well. It contains everything a great fiction book ought to have – adventure, love, chivalry, danger, betrayal and a sprinkle of magic.
As Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter Zamaswazi asks himself, “how could he survive twenty-seven years in prison?” Through the reading of
this compilation of Mandela’s letters, written during his time in prison, we can better understand what helped him carry on.
Twenty-five years after addressing to the subject for the first time, Joni Eareckson Tada returns to euthanasia as the main focus of this updated edition of When Is It Right to Die?. She felt the need to come back after learning of the tragic case of Nancy Fitzmaurice, a young 12-year old girl from England who, by the court’s order, had her tube feeding taken away. She died fourteen days later… of starvation.
The life of Martin Luther King, Jr. blends seamlessly with the fight against racial discrimination, which he experienced from a very early age. Although his parents had taught him the notable values of civility and dignity, the reigning system in the south of the United States, where he lived, repressed the African-American population at all costs, and he soon rebelled against it.
Heavily based on Plato’s Republic and the emergent humanist ideals of More’s time, Utopia depicts an idyllic nation and society which all other nations and societies should aspire to imitate, and its content remains the subject of much discussion more than five-hundred years after its publication.
Biblion reviews History Channel’s book on the Knights Templar, a mysterious order that grew to be one of the greatest powers of the Middle Ages, only to be extinguished in a matter of years.