The lifetime reading plan by Clifton Fadiman

The lifetime reading plan by Clifton Fadiman

This book is your personal invitation to years of companionship with the greatest writers and thinkers in the Western tradition. Here are keys to the works of Herodotus, Moliere, Cervantes, and Whitman, to name just a few. Yet it is not a book of plot summaries or essential facts; instead, The Lifetime Reading Plan will seduce you to pick up a classic book, read it, and enhance and deepen your life.

Now revised, enlarged, and updated, The Lifetime Reading Plan offers insights into books of all kinds and from around the world. One essay may emphasize a writer's life or personality, while another may summarize a writer's whole work or show a familiar figure in a somewhat less familiar light. All the essays illuminate the contemporary value of the classics. Additional comments prepare the way for reading and give you an idea of the difficulties or delights you can anticipate.

The Plan is not a rigid course of instruction; it is a flexible menu of knowledge for browsing and savoring. The books may be read in any order, in any combination, and at any time. The bibliography lists available editions, both paperback and hardcover, of the books discussed, as well as other works by the same writers. The suggestions for further reading include biographies of the authors and critical works about them.

The Lifetime Reading Plan is for those not fortunate enough to have made a formal study of these books and for those who successfully resisted their influence in college; it is for recent high school graduates and for those seeking intellectual fulfillment in their retirement years. These works are to be read and reread, but even a surface familiarity with them will broaden the outlook and enrich the life of anyone from eighteen to eighty.

Used over the years-these books are not meant to be read in a hurry-The Lifetime Reading Plan is a tool of self-discovery and a means of self-enhancement. It is also a call to action—an inducement to read, to change, and to grow.

(Summary taken from the front flapper) 

Details

• Hardcover
• ISBN: 9780060550660
• Condition: very good
• Publishing House: Harper & Row