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93 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential Book, October 18, 2005
This review is from: The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded (Paperback)
This book is essential. It is opinionated and selective. It promises nothing but the considered opinion of two people that have been significantly involved with reading and thinking about literature throughout much of their lives.
Many of the comments made by different reviewers at this site are addressed in the book itself. It explains why the Bible is not included. It explains why significant scientific works are excluded. Even within the strict realm of literature, they also explain that people might argue with their choices.
In fact, this is part of the point. This is not the last word on literature. It is a starting place that provides a number of excellent points of departure. It invites you to look at and think about the authors, the books it recommends and ask some basic questions: Is the author described interesting enough to read? If so, which book? Once finished with a book, do I agree with the comments made? Why or why not?
The authors provide a good summary - some have honestly brought tears to my eyes I thought they were that good - and some pointers for background information, literary criticism, anthologies, suggested translations and other information.
You may find that Thucydides is "charmless" as Clifton claims. I didn't. You may find that Finnegan's Wake is worth your time. Clifton recommends avoiding it - which I find I agree after several attempts to read it.
Most importantly to me, it is with the suggestions of this book that I was able to tackle works like Joyce's Ulysess and Mann's Magic Mountain that would have been impossible to do without the very helpful suggestions it contains.
This book should be owned by anyone with even a passing interest in literature. It needs to be approached as you would a respected friend with a different outlook on life. Take the suggestions you find useful and explore what you like. It is a guide, and used appropriately, it will help you make good choices in deciding what to read (what, which translation) and help you get the tools you may want to understand it better (historical context, explanations). Buy it, and read it!
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35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must for the serious reader, November 8, 1999
This review is from: The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded (Paperback)
This book serves not only as a list of the editors' recommendations for books the serious reader will want to have read by the end of one's life, but as an informal guide to the works themselves. They offer analysis of the works' historical origins and value, as well as things to keep in mind while reading them (their suggestions on reading Shakespeare and James Joyce are splendid!) What's more, they encourage the reader to add upon the suggestions made here; the emphasis above all is placed on the love of reading and the discovery of great literature.
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46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
read the preface for goodness sake, March 26, 2008
This review is from: The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded (Paperback)
I haven't reviewed a book in a long time because customer reviews so often annoy me. Now I'm writing this one because another one has.
Another reveiwer here criticizes The New Lifetime Reading Plan and its predecessors for not including the Bible. That would be a good criticism indeed if not for this sentence from the preface to the book, " We assume that nearly every reader of this book will own a Bible and be at least somewhat accustomed to reading it; and there is nothing we might try to say about it that would not seem presumptuous."
And for those who find the listing and others like it 'dogmatic', it is a list of the books that people who have read widely and deeply over many years have found lasting value in. The earlier works in the list were an influence on the later works. The later works have been appreciated by the contemporary authors influenced by the earlier ones. The list is a suggestion. These are the books I and people like me have enjoyed. Try them if they sound interesting to you. If they don't, then read something else. If you want to write a book suggesting your own favorites, knock yourself out.
And as for political correctness, while that is indeed a problem in modern scholarship, it is not a problem in this book. Hippies may very well have played at Buddhism, but it is a religion older than Christianity that is still practiced by many sincere followers in Eastern countries. Hinduism is also older than Christianity and still practiced by many people. The works of those religions and cultures have not had much influence on the literature of the West because they were not well known until relatively recently. The later Eastern novels included in The New Lifetime Reading Plan show the influence both of the great Western works and of those such as The Ramayana, The Bhagavad Gita, and The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.
I have several books of this type, but this is the one I like best. The two to four page introductions to authors and their major works are interesting and informative. I used the book in particular to get more familiar with classical Greek drama and Asian literature. I have very much enjoyed several of the books I learned of through it.
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