[johniegrad]

The Summa of St Thomas Aquinas.

Good Lord, don't try to read that like a novel. It's good for reference material and there are online collections with search engines. I recently purchased the entire Aquinas collection that has been translated into English on CD which also includes a search engine and other bells and whistles. Also, I think it would be difficult to understand the Summa Theologica (I'm assuming you are not referring to Summa Contra Gentiles) without a firm grounding in Aristotle.

[Verloona Ti]

I've read Farrell's The Summa Simplified, and I found it fascinating-it inspired me with a desire to try again on the "real thing",an English edition of the Summa (Great Books of the Western World version)...As for Aristotle , I've read (English translations of...)his major works several times over the last few decades. It is slow going-no more than a few "questions" at a time, which is probably the only way, really, to get through the book at all.