[proxy_user]

I would personally recommend the works of Edmund Spenser, which will not only exercise your brain but teach you how to be a brave and honorable knight. What more could you want, nowadays?

[afraidfortherepublic]

Is there a link to this article?

[KC Burke]

Edmund Burke and Adam Smith work very well.

However I do think the poetic has muscle matter exercise that is wonderful.

[TomGuy]

That is the reason those authors/materials are known as The Classics.

Those who fail to study the classics turn into low information voters.

[Daffynition]

Read him. I dare ya. Sesquipedalian and eqally pleonastic.

[Fiji Hill]

Read The Book Named the Governor by Thomas Elyot (London: Berthelet, 1531), which suggests a curriculum for developing a Renaissance man.

[SuziQ]

I can believe this. You truly have to THINK when reading Shakespeare!

[Tublecane]

Being cultured does not mean to read in order to boost your brain rocket, or however you put it. Our thirst for knowledge and preference for higher forms of entertainment is not pragmatic nor instrumental. It isn’t disinterested, either. But show me a person who goes to Shakespeare like others take gingko biloba and I will show you someone who won’t end up reading much, let alone understanding.