How to Read and Why
 

How to Read and Why

by Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom's urgency in How to Read and Why may have much to do with his age. He brackets his combative, inspiring manual with the news that he is nearing 70 and hasn't time for the mediocre. (One doubts that he ever did.) Nor will he countenance such fashionable notions as the death of the author or abide "the vagaries of our current counter-Puritanism" let alone "ideological... (read more)

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Liked It

Tinky
  • Rated 5 stars

A love letter to the Common Reader from Prof. Bloom, whose love for his subject matter can inspire raptures in the reader not common in the least. It’s much briefer than the magisterial The Western Canon, yet just as moving and inspiring. In How to Read and Why, Bloom lovingly explores a selection of classic short stories, poetry, novels and plays to illustrate the uses and pleasures of reading in an age where the act of deep reading has been put on the endangered species...

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Didn’t Like It

Charles  B
  • Rated 2 stars

At his best Bloom is a wonderful "explainer" of the western lit. canon. At his worst he is a egotistical, bigoted OLD FART....

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Community:
  • Rated 3.285714 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4 stars
 

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