By now, Canadians devoted to CBC Radio will know Toronto poet and academic Bruce Meyer from his regular book talks with This Morning host Michael Enright, even if they have never read any of the 15 books he authored. Meyer is the best sort of critical reader: one who loves literature and also enjoys discussing it in an enlightened and accessible manner. He sees the stories told by great literature as the “golden thread of ideas” that can be passed from generation to generation.

In this book, he brings his critical mind to bear on weighty texts that, like it or not, have been influential in shaping Western culture. Meyer starts with the Bible and Homer’s Odyssey, and brings his ruminations to a conclusion by including such “modern” texts as Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. In exploring such an orthodox canon, he is in danger of being misunderstood as an apologist for the Dead White Males school of literature. However, Meyer’s motives are restorative rather than simply conservative: he wishes to alert readers to the ideas in texts that are not cutting-edge trendy but can still provide insights into the world around us.

Who will enjoy The Golden Thread? All dedicated readers in general, particularly those who use the book as a springboard for rereading classic texts in light of modern violence and greed. Who will hate it? Those with doctrinaire minds. Are these the only texts in the world worth reading? Certainly not. As Meyer himself says: “Each of us possesses [an imagination.] And each of us … looks upon the fabric of our experiences as a narrative, a golden thread broken only by our deaths, that tells us where we have been, where we are going, and what we have to do to get there.” For Meyer, the great books are one way to unravel that thread.