Good Books on Reading
It's becoming habitual for me to begin a new year with a book on reading. I like reading, but sometimes I like to read about other people's love for reading. At the beginning of 2009, I entered a Barnes and Noble and started browsing the literary criticism section. I pulled out Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why ? I had always seen this book and avoided it, silently disputing the level of authority Bloom seemed to have given himself--telling people how to read, and giving them a reason for why they should read the way he was telling them to. I was judging the book by its title. But when I started browsing it, I found out that it was rich, providing a map with which to navigate the works of such writers as Chekhov, Kafka, and others. I started annotating the book, which then meant that I had to buy it. It would turn out to be one of the greatest book purchases of 2009. Bloom connects the authors, and for the short story, he groups the writers into the Chekhovian and Borgesi...