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    How to Read and Why
    How to Read and Why
    How to Read and Why
    Audiobook11 hours

    How to Read and Why

    Written by Harold Bloom

    Narrated by John McDonough

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well. Beginning with a basic question, "Why read?" Bloom offers his thoughts on works that form the canon of great literature. Short stories, poems, novels, and plays are held up to the light of Bloom's considerable intellect. Here are the authors that bear reading again and again, including Turgenev and Tennyson, Cervantes and Shakespeare. Harold Bloom's many honors include a MacArthur Prize, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Academy's Gold Medal for Criticism. As he shares his passion for literature, his discussion is made even more enthralling through John McDonough's warm narration.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 13, 2008
    ISBN9781436143875
    How to Read and Why
    Author

    Harold Bloom

    Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He has written more than sixty books, including Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air, Falstaff: Give Me Life, The Western Canon, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, and How to Read and Why. He is a MacArthur Prize fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards, including the Academy’s Gold Medal for Criticism. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

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    Reviews for How to Read and Why

    3.5/5

    368 ratings18 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Well he knows his words but the title is a bit misleading. I don’t want to hear about the history of literature, some is important of course but not in that amount. Something more practical hoped for I.

      Heard for about 25 minutes and for now I’m bored to death.
      Will hear more or move a bit forward so there’s no misjudgement.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a passionate book about the joys and rewards of good reading. Bloom mines the great works for their enduring wisdom, drawing on his experience as a critic, teacher, and voracious reader. He writes to the lone reader, urging them to read in order to find and enhance their own selves. He demonstrates an unwavering belief in the reader's ability to be restored and inspired by literature. Writing with zeal for the works of authors whose work affirms life.
    • 3/5
      This book is an excellent guide to reading some classic books. But there is a complete guide, just point to some key aspects, without taking the pleasure of discovery inherent to the act of reading.
    • 5/5
      Professor Bloom is sometimes pooh-poohed for his support of the Western Canon, but for those not immersed in the humanities, the book is likely to be a signpost to a deeper understanding of literature. Bloom's explanation of Borges illuminated the latter author's fantastic twists, and I was impressed enough to decide to reach much of Bloom's other favorites, including Pynchon, McDonald, Morrison, and West.
    • 3/5
      As erudite and unapologetically snobby as I expected. I probably would have been better off reading the books Bloom discusses, but that may have been his point.
    • 2/5
      It was interesting to read about some of the authors, though I skipped the chapters about poems and plays. I think there's more interesting literature criticism and "books about books" out there. He got me interested to read some of the books but I didn't like how he compared everything to Shakespeare and he seemed a little bit stuck on the "fine arts" concept. Bloom have other titles that seems more interesting, so I'll give him another change.

      This books just gets a two star because he did manage to wake up the interest for books I've intended to read for years but never gotten around too, but just two stars because of what I've written above.
    • 2/5
      When I bought this book, How to read and why by Harold Bloom, I mistook the author for Allan Bloom, whose The closing of the American mind I had so much enjoyed reading many years ago.Discovering the confusion over authorship was not what subsequently upset me, upset being an understatement. Like many other reviewers, I am simply angry about the deceptive title. How to read and why purports to be a book which might give some guidance on HOW to approach world-class literature, and discuss WHY literacy is of value. However, these questions are barely dealt with, other than an 8.5-page section consisting of the most obvious platitudes why reading is important.Instead, the book consists of listings of all novels, story collections, poems, etc which the author deems essential reading. Some of his choices are questionable, and apparently made only upon his eminent authority as an expert.
    • 4/5
      "How to Read and Why" should be called "In Praise of Books I Love." It is not a manual for becoming a better reader, or a gloss of important works and themes, or a defense of the Western Canon. It's a loving letter to readers from a man who has spent his whole life studying, rereading, and lecturing on the world's finest literature, and is still in awe of and profoundly moved by these works. He not only convinces you that these works are worth reading (even many times), but also why you should reread them, even if you have already read them many times. I'm embarrassed to say that about half of them I've never read even once, but I'm eager to start (re)reading them all.
    • 3/5
      In een dertigtal korte essays, vooral over klassiekers uit de wereldliteratuur, probeert Harold Bloom te laten proeven van het leesplezier. Niet te veel belerend, vooral analyserend.
    • 4/5
      This book is not geared toward the academic, rather it is a popular book on reading quality literature. What this means is that Bloom does not spend time discussing the theory and techniques of literary scholarship and criticism, but instead models a very personal, pleasurable style of attentive reading. The length of the book precludes a thorough examination of any specific work. Instead it is a survey to whet the appetite, an aperitif. It is quite like an interesting few days spent with a lively and passionate professor who is able to draw out just enough of the subtleties of the works discussed to be an inspiration to the student. On this level, the book succeeds wonderfully, and will no doubt lead to more thorough works, such as Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.
    • 2/5
      This entire book was coloured for me by the fact that soon after starting to read it, its title and cover blurb felt like a swindle. It does not tell you very much about how to read, or why. When it does, it is platitudinous (read novels for aesthetic pleasure, and wisdom...) Instead of being a guide on how to extract the most benefit from literature, it turns out to be a collection of Bloom's favourite works and his autumnal musings on them. These alternate between Brodies-Notes style plodding analysis, and pretentious opacity. It is partially redeemed by the author's obvious passionate love for all these books, but only partially.
    • 5/5
      I found this book to be quite enjoyable. Bloom does an excellent job of making a list of what to read, how to read it, and why each selection is worthwhile. His selections are well thought out and backed up with a solid combination of knowledge and passion. The opinions expressed are well thought out, and encourage a critical reading so as to firmly agree or specifically disagree. Love or hate them, his selections will quickly polarize you and draw your own opinions out.For the reasons listed above, I think this book merits a read to anyone who is curious about where or why to begin reading seriously. Whether in agreement or not, his suggestions will provide a good place to get started, and help in develop a critical eye toward reading and reviewing. I enjoyed the combination of familiar and unfamiliar authors, and quickly found my to-read list growing.
    • 3/5
      Interesting criticism for those one has already read. The rest is, well, I guess what you would expect from reading the criticism first. But aside from having some insightful commentary, I don't see any more a theme from his selections than any other arbitrary list. Relative to his other works, underwhelming.
    • 3/5
      The only part that I found interesting in this book was regarding the categorization of short stories into either the vein of chekhovian-hemingway or kafkan-borgesian..
    • 5/5
      This was a fantastic book to read at this point in my reading career. He discusses authors with which I am familiar, some I've heard of but haven't read and some I've never heard of at all. he has some great insights and makes me want to keep reading voraciously.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this volume at the used book store, spontaneously. Harold Bloom writes very well, and has a very conservative approach to literature. I enjoyed his brief tour and recommendations about reading; I am intererested in acquiring some Maupassant and Turgenev short stories after this book, and I bought Flannery O'Connor, a Cormac McCarthy book, and Hemingway short stories. He also recommended Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Jane Austen's Emma, Henry James Portrait of a Lady, and a re-read of Crime and Punishment and Great Expectations. I don't know when, if ever, I will get to these, but I enjoyed the idea of a list of literary greats to aspire to.
    • 4/5
      I'm not a huge fan of Bloom, but I enjoyed this, I think because I already had familiarity with most of the books he wrote about. Bloom does a great job of connecting literature to life, and reminding us of the joy we need to take in reading.
    • 4/5
      That title is really offputting, and he is getting a bit repetitive, but his enthusiasm is still infectious. (And he still writes beautifully.)I had never read much in the way of short stories - always avoided them. After absorbing the opening section of this book, I had read collections by Turgenev, Chekhov, Hemingway and Flannery O'Connor. How can that be a bad thing?