Reading the Right Books

Book excerpt: The things I want to know are in books, Abraham Lincoln wrote, and so he read. Good books are rightly addictive, enticing the dedicated reader to open more books, and gain more knowledge, and come closer to wisdom. The more one reads, John Adams observed, the more one sees we have to read.Books contain the ideas, make the arguments, and preserve the history necessary for the maintenance and perpetuation of liberty.Reading the Right Books is a practical list of thoughtful and accessible books-not the classics but solidly good books-recommended to provide a general framework around which the reader can build a firmer structure of political knowledge.Edited and annotated by Lee Edwards, the Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at The Heritage Foundation, Reading the Right Books is a guide for intelligent, conservative-minded readers who want to prepare themselves for a public life of thought and action, and to seek to know more about politics, public policy and modern conservative thought, as well as literature, economics, religion, history, and statesmanship.