The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
In print for almost 40 years,The Lifetime Reading Planhas long been a worthy addition to any serious reader's bookshelf, providing entertaining and informative introductions to the great  works of Western civilization. Now, this "classic about classics" has been updated to reflect  more diverse traditions.The New Lifetime Reading Planrecommends great literature from around  the globe, including writers and works from Confucius to Chinua Achebe, Gabriel García Márquez to the Koran. Also new is an appendix profiling  books by 100 important 20th-century authors--or "temporary classics," as coauthor John S.  Major calls them.Readers may argue with some of the selections (or, more likely, the omissions). Others may quarrel with the editors' opinions; they routinely analyze artists' "characters,"with  occasionally prissy or patronizing results. (Of Walt Whitman, for instance, coauthor Clifton Fadiman declares that "He had an original temperament, a certain peasant shrewdness, but only a moderate amount of brains.") But no one can argue with the book's mission: promoting the classics as "life companions." "Once part of you, they work in and on and with you  until you die," Fadiman writes in the introduction. Anyone seeking a guide to the vast riches of world literature need look no further than theThe New Lifetime Reading Plan; it provides a gateway to the greatest achievements of the human mind.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.