Spice Up Your Daily Commute

The average daily commute is 24 minutes. How long is yours? Would you like to do something constructive during those otherwise wasted minutes? How about taking a college course without spending mucho bucks?

Check out the Teaching Company’s Great Courses series at the Lane Memorial Library. The Teaching Company brings engaging professors into your home or car through courses on DVDs and audio CDs. Great teachers from Brown, Stanford, Georgetown, and other leading colleges and universities have crafted courses for lifelong learners like you. Experience the adventure of learning without the homework or exams. You don’t have to be a genius to enjoy these courses, and they’re not the dry put-me-to-sleep classes you remember from your college days. Best of all you can listen while you drive.

One of the courses we have is The Human Body: How We Fail, How We Heal. In this video course, Dr. Anthony Goodman presents a systematic survey of what can go wrong in the human body, why it goes wrong and how the body itself responds, as well as what doctors can do to intervene. It covers such topics as inflammation, the immune response, bacteria and viruses, and cancer.

If physiology isn’t your thing, what about The Historical Jesus? Taught by Professor Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this audio CD course covers the gospels of the bible as well as the Coptic gospel of Thomas, Jesus and Roman rule, and the apocalyptic teachings and deeds of Jesus in historical context. What better way to endure your daily commute than to learn something amazing like this?

The seven-part series on The Classics of American Literature might spark your interest to read some of those classics you never got around to in high school. Taught by Professor Arnold Weinstein of Brown University, this audio CD course covers a wide range of American authors. You’ll learn about Thoreau as both stylist and humorist (who knew?), the Great Gatsby as the story of lost illusions, and Absalom, Absalom! as both Civil War epic and as language of love.

Come on in to the Lane Memorial Library and see what other courses we have to offer. And kiss that boring morning commute goodbye.