New York magazine Film Critic DAVID DENBY is interviewed by Fresh Air's Book Critic MAUREEN CORRIGAN about his new book "Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World." It is published by Simon and Schuster. The book comes from Denby's recent return to Columbia University to take two western civilization classes. He did this to explore the current debate in literature of whether these classic books should be required reading in today's multi-cultural society.. i.e. whether african, asian or hispanic students should be compelled to read books by dead white european males. He says they should be, but he believes his book is a liberal defense of the Western tradition. In addition to being a film critic, Denby is a contributing editor for The New Yorker magazine. Denby lives in Manhattan.
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