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Professor John Mullen and Christopher Beha discuss whether the Five Foot Shelf is still relevant, on the BBC. << Listen here.>>

“ ‘In much wisdom is much grief,’ counsels the book of Ecclesiastes, and in Christopher R. Beha’s tender intellectual memoir, we find plenty of both. . . . Life intruded rudely on Beha’s sabbatical, and he rose to the occasion by writing an unexpected narrative that deftly reconciles lofty thoughts and earthy pain. In doing so, he makes an elegant case for literature as an everyday companion no less valuable than the iPod.” - NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Winning . . . Intensely felt . . . Beha is shtick-free and serious of mind . . . Without making grandiose claims, this book serves as a guide to today’s perplexed, reflexively ironic reader, an inducement to think seriously without apologizing and feel deeply without hedging. . . . It demonstrates how and why to read seriously.” - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Disarming . . . Beha’s utter humility and unpretentious tone while
describing an inherently academic and potentially irrelevant goal—to read a jumble of old-timey books and essays—puts the reader immediately at ease. Beha has a nice, unaffected way of including his internal monologues and the lessons he learns over the course of the year, as he struggles with his need to connect with the past and get perspective on his life. . . . What starts out as a mission to keep from being lost, adrift and alone in his sickness, ends with Beha finding solace. The Whole Five Feet reads like a charming college syllabus, written by a warm-hearted professor, who through a mutual love of books has inexplicably become one of your closest friends and confidants.” - THE PORTLAND MERCURY

“[In the Harvard Classics, Beha] finds comfort in the fact that these
writers faced the same dilemmas, pains and sources of hope he finds
today. The result is a thought-provoking, tender, compelling read that
is part memoir, part ode to the power of great books.” - THE OREGONIAN

"An elegant and honest memoir... a charming addition to the literature
of books about books. Beha is a clear-sighted writer, who has
accomplished exactly what Eliot would have wanted: He found repose and
strength of mind in those who express things more elegantly than we,
in our Twittering, blog-filled age, ever can." -BOOKFORUM

--------------P R A I S E

“Christopher Beha has written a unique memoir: intimate, confiding, deeply moving, and yet wonderfully informative and ‘intellectual’ in the very best sense of the word. Undertaking to read ‘The Whole Five Feet’ of classics of western civilization at a time of crisis in his personal life is an illuminating experience both for Mr. Beha and for the reader.” -JOYCE CAROL OATES

“An original and highly addictive cocktail of bookshelf genres—family memoir meets extreme armchair adventure meets cultural criticism meets history of American education. To say this is an important book (and it is) is possibly to undersell its overriding virtue—that it is a sheer blast to read.” -HEIDI JULAVITS

“In The Whole Five Feet, Christopher Beha reads the classics of our inherited culture through the lens of his own life and reconsiders the canon—everything from Homer to Thoreau, Cicero to Cervantes—by groping for the humanity he has in common with these masters of the past. This book is exhilarating in its tenderness, its disabused calm, its acceptance of big tragedies and little comedies. I was profoundly moved by Beha’s unexpected intertwining of erudition and lived life and grateful to spend several exalting evenings in his company.”
-EDMUND WHITE

“The Whole Five Feet is as eloquent as it is unpretentious. Beha is a singularly gifted reader, and he deftly illustrates how books can save one’s life.” -HELEN SCHULMAN

"The Whole Five Feet is no book report; Beha’s reflections are far the
richer because he delicately wheels and dives among both the great
writers’ ideas and his own life experiences — proving, if we needed
proof, of the greatness and centrality of reading. About John Stuart
Mill, Beha reflects on the nature of pleasure and happiness, observing
through the prism of his own illnesses, “Your comfort, especially your
physical comfort, isn’t under your control, so you’d better find
something else to work at.” The idea here is mature far beyond his
years, and yet the style is all salt spray and blue sky." -FREE RANGE LIBRARIAN