return to home  
Join   |  Gift   |  Member Login   |  Library Login
BookBrowse Mobile
Follow Us: 
   Summary and Book Reviews

Vintage Reading : From Plato to Bradbury: Summary and book reviews of Vintage Reading : From Plato to Bradbury by Robert Kanigel, plus links to an excerpt from Vintage Reading : From Plato to Bradbury and a biography of Robert Kanigel.

Vintage Reading : From Plato to Bradbury

Vintage Reading : From Plato to Bradbury
A Personal Tour of Some of the World's Best Books
by Robert Kanigel
Paperback: Mar 1998,
228 pages.

Publication information 		Author Information
Critics' Opinion:   
Readers' Rating:    Not Yet Rated
About BookBrowse Rankings
Share: 
Buy This Book

BOOK SUMMARY

In a world beset with the often mindless clutter of television, films, the internet and other distractions, many of us long to renew our acquaintance with the great literature and thought of the ages - to read a book. But what book? Robert Kanigel's Vintage Reading, with its fascinating summaries of books, great and near-great, is the perfect guidepost. Kanigel, a distinguished writer, so effectively conveys his love of great books that one can envision his creating a new generation of readers.

Media Reviews

  School Library Journal
These brief essays on Kanigel's personal choice of best books provide a unique point of view to literature students in search of an overview or comments about their favorite work. The author makes no claim to be scholarly or comprehensive, but has written briefly about enduring books and stories that appeal to his "middle-brow" tastes.

  Library Journal
Book groups looking for titles would find this a good choice as would library users who want a list to guide their reading. Recommended for public libraries.

  Booklist
A professional reviewer, Kanigel occasionally chose books to review for the Baltimore Sun that weren't new. He gathered those columns into this cozy and enlightening book. His divisions are revealing: everyone's classics; title appearing on many a list for burning; one-of-a-kinds; best-sellers; those dealing with the realm of the spirit. Because they were columns, their format and brevity sometimes are of a muchness: a boffo opening sentence and a catchy close. But Kanigel takes another look at titles as varied as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Nana; The Microbe Hunters and A Bell for Adano; and he makes us want to pick them up again and read what he read. He shares the odd little fact, like how caryatids got their name or what a sonata is. He offers a flash, now and then, of spot-on description (Malthus as "intellectual history's Gloomy Gus"). Fun to read and fine fodder for book-discussion groups.

Recent Reader Reviews

Readalikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Vintage Reading : From Plato to Bradbury, try these:

About The Author
by Alfred Glossbrenner

Offers insider information on America's favorite writers, from Margery Allingham to Evelyn Waugh, from Michael Crichton to Charles Dickens. It gives background on the lives of the writers, what they did before becoming writers, facts about their fans, quirky tidbits, and recommendations for what to read next.

Books with similar themes



Become a Member
Join Free Trial
Gift Certificate Gift Membership
Golden Boy
Editor's Choice
  •  May 25 
  •  May 23 
  •  May 21 
The Shelter Cycle
Peter Rock

The Shelter Cycle Jacket

An American original, Peter Rock brings our strangest beliefs to vivid and sympathetic life in this haunting novel inspired by true events.
And the Mountains Echoed
Khaled Hosseini

And the Mountains Echoed Jacket

Khaled Hosseini has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations
Helga's Diary
Helga Weiss

Helga's Diary Jacket

The remarkable diary of a young girl who survived the Holocaust—appearing in English for the first time.
Click Here
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Movies Based on Books: Summer 2013 (May - August)
Jewish Young Adult Books That Are Not About The Holocaust
Books to Give This Mother's Day
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
Recent Reader Reviews
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
A very large book - in number of pages and in content - and every page worth reading. Thoroughly enjoyed this one and her first book on the... read more
Two Lives by Vikram Seth
Two Lives is a memoir written by international best-selling author, Vikram Seth. In this interesting and engaging book, Seth writes about his great... read more
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Fowler
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight... read more
RSS RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
John Boyne
2. And the Mountains Echoed
Khaled Hosseini
3. Telegraph Avenue
Michael Chabon
4. The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
5. The Round House
Louise Erdrich
More...
Book Club Recommendations
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
by Jeanette Winterson
Paperback (Mar/13)
Eleanor & Park
by Rainbow Rowell
Hardback (Feb/13)
The House Girl
by Tara Conklin
Paperback (Oct/13)
The Painted Girls
by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Hardback (Jan/13)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
The Last Girl
by Jane Casey
Four Stars            (May/13)
The Caretaker
by A .X. Ahmad
Four Stars            (May/13)
The Sisterhood
by Helen Bryan
Four Stars            (Apr/13)
Golden Boy
by Abigail Tarttelin
4.5 Stars            (May/13)
More...
  Latest BookBrowse News
Judge rules unused Borders gift cards to be worthless (May 23 2013)
Borders owes nothing to holders of roughly $210.5 million of gift cards that had not been used by the time the bookstore chain shut down, a Manhattan federal... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
 
BookBrowse Poll
Q: Which of these Summer movies based on books would you like to see? (Info on each movie here)
The Great Gatsby
Epic
Man of Steel
World War Z
The Lone Ranger
The Wolverine
R.I.P.D.
Percy Jackson
Paranoia
The Mortal Instruments
Select Any That Apply
Search: Title or Author
Free Newsletters
The Light Between Oceans

Online Book Club
More about
Five Days
Join the discussion!


Win This Book!
On Sal Mal Lane

"Piercingly intelligent and shatter-your-heart profound."

Enter To Win Now!
wordplay
Solve this clue:
"I Y N P O T Solution, Y P O T P"
and be entered
to win....
frame top
New Author
Interviews
Menna van Praag
Erica Brown
Helga Weiss
Kate Morton
frame bottom
HOME Book Submissions | Advertising | Library Subscriptions | Reviewing for BookBrowse | Contact Us  
© BookBrowse LLC 1997-2013. All rights reserved. Information at BookBrowse.com is published with the permission of the copyright holder or their agent. It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder.
privacy statement  |  terms of service  |  contact us