How to Read and Why

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Harold Bloom, 42 Books

Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom begins this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threatens to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom. - Amazon

This list was originally published in 2000 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
6939 A Reckless Character and Other Stories Ivan Turgenev 1883 Russian Russian
128 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
591 Stories of Guy de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant 1880 French French
655 Stories of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 1987 American English
350 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
10733 The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov 1995 Russian English
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
4452 Gogol's Wife Tommaso Landolfi 1953 Italian Italian
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
1112 The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake William Blake 1827 British English
1815 The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman A. E. Housman 1939 British English
707 Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson 1830 British English
13360 The Works of Walter Savage Landor Walter Savage Landor 1846 British English
1273 Robert Browning's Poetry Robert Browning 1833 British English
2924 The Poems of Walt Whitman Walt Whitman 1855 American English
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
5392 The Poems of Emily Bronte Emily Brontë 1846 British English
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
127 Paradise Lost John Milton 1667 British English
2415 Lyrical Ballads William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798 British English
1611 The Prelude William Wordsworth 1850 British English
1652 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798 British English
2016 The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley 1810 British English
974 The Poems of John Keats John Keats 1817 British English
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
2274 Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
1382 The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde 1895 Irish English
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
441 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon 1966 American English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English