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Presents a collection of essays unlike any other stuffy attempt at introducing the modern reader to the Great Books.
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.
Table of Contents
Introduction
ONE : On Everyone's List of Literary Classics
Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe
The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Kim Rudyard Kipling
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
Justine
Lawrence Durrell
Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
A Passage to India E.M. Forster
My Antonia
Willa Cather
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
TWO : On Many a List for Burning Heretics,
Subversives, Demagogues,
Stories
Dorothy Parker
The Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli
The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce
Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler
Nana Emile Zola
Ten Days That Shook the World John Reed
Native Son Richard Wright
THREE : Books That Shaped the Western World
Essays
Montaigne
Dialogues Plato
The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith
An Essay on the Principle of Population
Thomas Malthus
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon
...
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