Vintage Reading: From Plato to Bradbury: A Personal Tour of Some of the World's Best Books

by Robert Kanigel

Book Overview

Story Easton knows the first line of every book, but never the last.She never cries, but she fakes it beautifully.And at night, she escapes from the failure of her own life by breaking into the homes of others, and feeling, for a short while, like a different, better person.But one night, as an uninvited guest in someone's empty room, she discovers a story sadder than her own: a boy named Cooper Payne, whose dream of visiting the Amazon rainforest...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0963124676
• ISBN13: 9780963124678
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Bancroft Press
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An Enticing Read

Vintage Reading: From Plato to Bradbury, A Personal Tour of Some of the World's Best Books is an anthology of 80 book reviews that the author wrote over a seven-year period for three separate newspapers. Most are around 750 words. The reviews are well written and engrossing. The book is broken into nine sections: "On Everyone's List of Literary Classics" in which 12 books are reviewed. Two examples: Kim by Rudyard Kipling and My Antonia by Willa Cather. "On Many a List for Burning: Heretics, Subversives, Demagogues" in which 7 books are reviewed. Two examples: Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler and Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed. "Books That Shaped the Western World" in which 11 books are reviewed. Two examples: Essays by Montaigne and Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville; "Making Hard Work Easy: The Great Popularizers" in which 10 books are reviewed. Two examples: Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead and The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton. "Not Robinson Crusoe, Not Brave New World: Lesser Known Classics" in which 7 books are reviewed. Two examples: A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe and Roughing It by Mark Twain. "Lighter Fare: Good Reads, Best Sellers" in which 8 books are reviewed. Two examples: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. "But I Know What I Like: On Aesthetics and Style" in which 5 books are reviewed. Two examples: The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin and The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form by Kenneth Clark. "One-of-a-Kinds" in which 9 books are reviewed. Two examples: A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn "The Realm of the Spirit: Holy and Human" in which 11 books are reviewed. Two examples: The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton and Night by Elie Wiesel. Each of the 80 reviews is like a tasty appetizer that entices you to read (or re-read) an outstanding book.

Great Fun! Breezy, Entertaining, and Informative.

This volume is a collection of book reviews originally written for a newspaper -- except that instead of reviewing current books, the author has reviewed books dating from ancient Babylonia (the Epic of Gilgamesh) to the very recent past. These essays are truly enjoyable introductions to the books that everyone is supposed to have read but hasn't. They may sate your appetite or, instead, spur you to check out the originals. (They inspired me to tackle Gibbon's Decline and Fall.) At least you will know why these works are considered classics, even if you decide to pass.The author is knowledgeable, but also concise and breezy, and has a light, humorous touch. If you are a graduate student in Comparative Literature working on a dissertation on deconstructionism, this book may not do anything for you. For this reasonably well-educated general reader, though, it was a pleasure.

Some special praise

A novel concept - that you can be your own judge of good reading -- and an honest, charming, profound, fair, and fascinating book... If you're already a reader, consider Vintage Reading a validation. If you haven't yet discovered the joys of discovering new worlds in print, get ready... All of Vintage Reading is an incitement to action - to read these books. I do hope there's a sequel. -- George Liston Seay, host of "Dialogue," a weekly interview broadcast by Public Radio International (PRI)