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Emily Dickinson JoyofReading_fullcover2:Layout 1 2/22/08 4:13 PM Page 1 Literature/Critisism $24.95 U.S. $29.95 CAN/£12.99 UK THE / his book is the fruit of a lifelong T love affair. Reading, I believe, is “ “This book is as contagious as it CHARLES VAN DOREN is THE my favorite thing to do; books was intended to be.” the coauthor of the classic How to Read a Book and I have been inseparable almost as long as I can —Mortimer J. Adler with philosopher Mortimer J. Adler; the remember … To this day, I become distressed if I am author of A History of Knowledge (which sold anywhere without a book, a magazine, a newspaper, ike a professor whose enthusiasm 30,000 copies in hardcover and 150,000 in any scrap of paper to read …. I like the smell of books, inspires his students, Charles Van Doren paperback); and the author or editor of The certainly the feel of them. Life without books L explains what’s wonderful in the classic and Idea of Progress, Great Treasury of Western Thought, would be, for me, a vacant horror.” contemporary books you’ve missed, and The Annals of America, Second Chance: An American OF —Charles Van Doren awakens your desire to reopen the works Story, as well as several novels for young you’ve loved. This engaging love letter to people and Webster’s American biographies. OF READING READING reading explores the work of the authors who He is an adjunct professor at the University “Nothing recommends the joy of reading better than the transformed the world: from Aristotle and of Connecticut, Torrington Campus. His communication of it by a person who has spent a lifetime A Passionate Guide to 189 Herodotus in ancient Greece to Salinger and father was Mark Van Doren, a Pulitzer Prize- enriched by the delights of reading. Charles Van Doren is that kind of reader. He has laid a feast before us that is irresistible.” Vonnegut in 20th century America. winning poet and professor at Columbia. —Mortimer J. Adler, author of How to Read a Book of the World’s Best Divided chronologically by the eras in Authors and Their Works which these books were written, each work is “Mr. Van Doren is that rarity, a truly well read man who reads put in historical context and brought to life not for professional purposes but for pleasure. by Van Doren’s sometimes surpising and His book spurs us on to explore more deeply and joyfully the always insightful comments. The Joy of infinitely varied terrain of good books.” Reading delves into a wide range of genres — —Clifton Fadiman, author of The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature fiction, poetry, drama, children’s books, philosophy, history, and science. Also offered CHARLES CHARLES VAN DOREN Author of A History of Knowledge and Co-Author with is a unique ten-year reading plan, made up of ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-1160-7 VAN DOREN Mortimer Adler of How to Read a Book ISBN-10: 1-4022-1160-0 a grand variety of the world’s greatest books. UPC www.sourcebooks.com EAN https://ieli.ir JoyOfReading_FM_version3.qxp 2/18/08 5:05 PM Page i THE OF READING A Passionate Guide to189 of the World’s Best Authors and Their Works CHARLES VAN DOREN https://ieli.ir JoyOfReading_FM_version3.qxp 2/18/08 5:05 PM Page ii Copyright © 2008 by Charles Van Doren Cover and internal design © 2008 by Sourcebooks, Inc. Cover photo © Getty Images Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc. All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book. Published by Sourcebooks, Inc. P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410 (630) 961-3900 Fax: (630) 961-2168 www.sourcebooks.com First published in the United States of America by Crown Publishing, Inc., 1985 Van Doren, Charles Lincoln. The joy of reading : a passionate guide to 189 of the world's best authors and their works / Charles Van Doren. p. cm. 1. Best books. 2. Books and reading. I. Title. Z1035.V26 2008 011'.73—dc22 2007043270 Printed and bound in the United States of America. BG 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 https://ieli.ir JoyOfReading_FM_version3.qxp 2/18/08 5:05 PM Page iii For my colleagues, friends, and students at the University of Connecticut and For Gerry https://ieli.ir JoyOfReading_FM_version3.qxp 2/18/08 5:05 PM Page iv https://ieli.ir JoyOfReading_FM_version3.qxp 2/18/08 5:05 PM Page v AuthorO to Reader eading is my favorite thing to do. When I was ten and supposed to go to sleep at a certain time, I read under the Rcovers with a flashlight until my father told me I would ruin my eyes. I didn’t stop; I was willing to risk my sight to enjoy the pleas- ures of reading. In fact he was wrong; after seventy years I can still read, even without glasses if there’s enough light. I have had many teachers. I’ve learned something important from each of them. This book is partly my attempt to repay them. My mother first taught me to read, I remember very well. I was not in school; we were living in the country, and she and I had lessons every morning. My first book was The Little Fir Tree. It was about a little forest tree that was glad it was cut down for Christmas and taken to the home of a nice boy and girl. I would not let any child read that book now. Once the door was open, I pushed through eagerly. By the time I entered high school I had read a good deal; more, probably, than most kids my age. My father had fostered my reading (when he wasn’t prohibiting it, thinking I should go outdoors and get some fresh air) by suggesting a wide variety of titles and giving me all kinds of books as Christmas and birthday presents. He didn’t care if I read them all; he just wanted me to be acquainted with different kinds of books and not to be afraid to read any particular kind. He kept giving me books as long as he lived. I still have many of them, especially those he sent me when I was serving in the Air Force in https://ieli.ir JoyOfReading_FM_version3.qxp 2/18/08 5:05 PM Page vi vi Author to Reader World War II. I carried for months in the breast pocket of my fatigues a hard-bound copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. A tough little book with hard covers, it was a kind of talisman that I thought would stop a bullet and save my life. Maybe it did; at least, no one ever shot at me. During my senior year in high school I began trying to read some of the classical authors my father said I would have to read in college: Plato, Homer, Sophocles. A friend already in college to whom I revealed that I had read the Apology belittled my achievement, saying it was “easy.” I’ve never forgotten my chagrin, but to this day I believe he was wrong. Plato’s Apology isn’t easy, though it’s more interesting than many of his other dialogues. Scholars struggle to understand the meaning of the more difficult, later dialogues, but in the long run they are less crucial for the way we live our lives than the humanity of Plato’s account of the trial and death of Socrates. In 1946, I returned to college from the war to find myself in a class conducted by Richard Schofield, who taught me to appreciate Baudelaire and William Blake, among others. I could read French but I was as yet unable to forget it was a foreign language. I learned that language is both a means of and an obstacle to communication— foreign languages, obviously, but one’s own language if one’s not careful. Blake’s utter simplicity can be misleading, hiding depths of profundity that most poets never sound. I learned other lessons at my college, St. John’s in Annapolis. The most important was that I was free to read any kind of book; my father’s mentoring many years before was now validated. I gained the confidence to attempt almost any book, in almost any Western language, employing almost any set of symbols. (Of course, I often failed!) For years I thought everyone shared this confidence, but now I know that not too many possess it. One of my main goals in writing this book is to try to instill that confidence in other readers. I was for a time a professor at Columbia University, where among other subjects I taught the famous “Humanities” course that was then required for all freshmen. That was a whole new lesson in reading, but I didn’t stay at Columbia for long. I soon found myself headed for Chicago and Encyclopaedia Britannica, where for twenty-five years I studied under and worked with one of the great teachers of reading, https://ieli.ir JoyOfReading_FM_version3.qxp 2/18/08 5:05 PM Page vii Author to Reader vii Mortimer J.
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