The Essential Value of a Classic Education - Jeffrey Brenzel

Jeffrey Brenzel's excellent selection criteria on picking a classic out of thousands of unread books:

1. The work addresses permanent, universal concerns about the human conditions.
2. The work has been a game changer.
3. The work has stimulated or informed or influenced many other important works, whether directly or indirectly.
4. Best readers and the most expert critics have rated the work highly as one of the best and most important of its kind, even if those experts and readers shared no other views than that and even if they voilently disagreed with the work.
5. The work usually requires a strenuous effort to engage and understand, but it also rewards the hard work strongly and in multiple fashions.