The Lifetime Reading Plan

by Clifton Fadiman

Now in print for the first time in almost 40 years, The New Lifetime Reading Plan provides readers with brief, informative and entertaining introductions to more than 130 classics of world literature. From Homer to Hawthorne, Plato to Pascal, and Shakespeare to Solzhenitsyn, the great writers of Western civilization can be found in its pages. In addition, this new edition offers a much broader representation of women authors, such as Charlotte Bront%, Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton, as well as non-Western writers such as Confucius, Sun-Tzu, Chinua Achebe, Mishima Yukio and many others. This fourth edition also features a simpler format that arranges the works chronologically in five sections (The Ancient World; 300-1600; 1600-1800; and The 20th Century), making them easier to look up than ever before. It deserves a place in the libraries of all lovers of literature.

Genres: Books About Books, Nonfiction, Reference, Literature, Classics, Education, Literary Criticism

291 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality.

Reviews

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s something extremely comforting about a list of ‘great’ books. The world of books, after all, often seems like a vast, imposing, and orderless wasteland. There is simply no way to read even a large fraction of the total books in print. Furthermore, there are books written on every topic imaginable; if I wanted to, I could lose myself for years in the literature of East African choir music, of Medieval French history, of Parisian graffiti, of the metabolism of Asian flying beetles, of chain-growth polymerization, of golf, football, gardening, or even in the oeuvre of a single writer, their diaries and letters and marginal notes. Lists like Fadiman’s offer an escape from this suffocating chaos; here is gathered (or so they say) the best of the best, the highest and most enduring works of human genius; and you can check them off as if you’re at the supermarket, buying groceries.

In the age of the internet, it’s hard to justify buying a book like this. After all, you can easily look up any number of book lists; and if you’d like to know more about a book, you can always just search online. So why bother with this book? Well, for one, it’s a quick and painless read, so why not? Second, reading through Fadiman’s and Major’s essays is like spending quality time on Goodreads; you get to see what two astute fellow readers thought about these classics, and how the classics relate to one another. What’s more, both Fadiman and Major are fine writers (though I consistently preferred Fadiman’s essays, as Major included too much summary), who clearly loved these books; and it’s always fun to hear articulate people talk about their hobbies and obsessions. And finally, the list itself, in my experience, is quite good. It's true that Fadiman and Major concentrate on more accessible classics, and so omit major authors like Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and so on; but the point of this book is to provide advice, not to scholars and autodidacts, but to casual readers; so the omissions were, I think, justified.

The biggest practical benefit for me, however, were the recommendations of particular editions and translations, particularly of the books by Asian authors. Also helpful were Major’s recommendations of classics from China, India, and Japan; and although a tad dry, Major's essays did effectively contextualize these books for an ignorant American reader like myself. Plus, it was generally refreshing to find these unfamiliar authors nestled within the standard Western classics.

Perhaps the wisest thing that both authors do (for the most part, at least) is avoid commenting on the purpose and pleasures of reading ‘great books’. This isn’t a self-help book, nor a path to wisdom; it isn’t even guaranteed fun. Neither author is dogmatic, and the list is not presumed to be either authoritative or exhaustive. It is, rather, friendly advice from two lifelong readers, on which books they found the most rewarding. And I, for one, appreciate the advice.

[Marcus]

Amazon should ship this book free to new customers because it's practically impossible to read without buying some of the books Fadiman and Major recommend.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite what I was expecting but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Think of all those terrible 101 books you have to read in your life that you've seen. The boring mundane lists of classics no one wants to read or have heard you should read but don't want to tackle. But now take it to the next level with two intellectuals whose writing is just plain captivating to give not only a synopsis of specific author's literature but recommendations of how to read them, think about them, ingest them, or even view them. Each of the authors writes not purely academically but light heartedly with a sense of bookish humor that will have you mesmerized. Each little section talks about an authors life, a little about the era and about which books not to read or are must reads. It starts off chronologically with the story of Gilgamesh and Enkdu all the way to modern literature. I found in greatly enjoyable and informative and have made it a permanent addition to my collection. I got a kick out of learning more about authors I'd already known I'd loved and fell in love with a few more I thought I knew but had all wrong. I love both Clifton Fadiman's writings as well as his daughters Anne Fadiman and would recommend any of their books too - book on book enthusiasts or just plain book enthusiasts.

[Nelson Zagalo]

A lista em si é excelente, como livro, é muito pouco interessante já que estamos a falar de 250 livros em pouco mais de 300 páginas, ou seja, a maior parte dos livros é resenhado em menos de meia-página.

Gosto do facto de Fadiman fazer a lista baseada nos criadores, ou seja, elege os criadores e depois para cada um deles apresenta uma ou mais obras relevantes. Contudo, existe muito pouco espaço para dar conta de tantas obras, mesmo focando-se nos autores, são 133. Não existem formas perfeitas de fazer um livro de listas, e apesar da escolha pelos autores ser interessante, seguir meramente a cronologia destes limita muito todo o enquadramento. A criação de um conjunto de categorias que agrupasse os livros ou autores, que lhes desse um sentido próprio mas simultaneamente de pertença, permitiria ao leitor compreender a relevância dos mesmos enquadrados numa ideia maior da importância literária das obras.

Assim, com o livro nas mãos, dei por mim a pensar que se ganha pouco mais do que aceder à lista online, que pode ser vista no The Greatest Books ou no List Challenges

[Graeme Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tsundoku is a Japanese word for buying books you don't read. I have had The Lifetime Reading Plan for 32 years without reading it, which now means that I must read many books in a much shorter lifetime. I regret it. I thought the book was probably full of dry and painful classics like the great books curriculum at St. John's College. Far from it! The books are great, but only a few are by Greek philosophers.

Clifton Fadiman was astonishingly learned, yet warm, honest, and funny. The book is above all a masterpiece of criticism, as each work is described with deep insight, elegance, and concision. How refreshing it is to be warned of Don Quixote:

Whenever (or almost whenever) you come to a goatherd or a shepherdess, some drivel lies ahead. Skip all the interpolated pastoral yarns that pleased Cervantes's audience but bore us stiff. Skip every bit of verse you meet: Cervantes is one of the world's worst poets.

Of course, he lists several good reasons to read the book nonetheless.

[Michael Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of those guidebooks to the literature “canon”. Quite comprehensive. This “new” edition includes a fair amount of selections from outside the west, from Valmiki “The Ramayana” to Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”. Non-English works are often provided with a suggested translation.

There are also some surprisingly candid comments that I appreciated. For example, Don Quixote is one of the few books an abridged version is better (I can totally see that); to many (author admits to belonging to this group) Faulkner is only intermittently readable, they would benefit from Malcolm Cowley’s introduction to Portable Faulkner; and Henry Adams was ”snobbish, intellectually cocky, vulgarly racist, and his self-depreciation is often spurious”.

[ade_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought, many of us are at a loss for reading because we don't know what to read. Oftentimes we mistaken this with the dislike for reading. But if only we knew what to read, we would run out of time to read it all.

This book solves a great deal of that problem. It gives tens of summaries and reviews of books, commenting on what to skip, what to focus on, and what books are essential in your lifetime reading plan. Also, the variety of selections is excellent: everything from literature to history, politics to poetry, and all subjects in between.

This book was an invaluable guide for me and I absolutely recommend it.

[Cleo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book contains chronological summaries of the classic writers from Homer to Chinua Achebe, touching on their lives and some of their works. I bought this book hoping that would act as a guide on my journey reading the classics. What a mistake!

The authors' flip style, their liberal use of ad hominem and their complete lack of effort to understand the works they were reviewing in their context, left me frustrated and angry. Their judgemental assessment of the author's life and works reveal minds cemented in their own century and a lack of understanding of any other time in history.

What a complete waste of money.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains decent essays about the basic works of the canon, along with capsule essays on many more. Old-fashioned and Bloomian, though: "Though Proust loved women as well as men," says Fadiman, "there is little doubt that his later homosexuality was caused partly by his relationship to his mother."

[Marian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admito que lo que leí a los saltos, más que nada para saber qué tipo de material de lectura incluía. Lo interesante es que tiene una larga lista de autores (en orden cronológico) con sus obras más relevantes y una pequeña biografía; así mismo la lista incluye temáticas desde literatura teatro, ensayo, poesía, política, entre otros.
Es útil para todo aquel que quiera acercarse a obras de renombre y explorar un poco su contenido. Al abarcar tantas tipos de escritos, no se limita sólo a la literatura (que por cierto, es poca, o equivale al 50% de la obra).
Lo que destaco como negativo es que no incluye a autores latinoamericanos (sólo a Borges, Sábato y a García Márquez). Creo que podría enriquecerse con el material de Cortázar, Varga Llosa, Arlt y porqué no, con la literatura de no ficción de Walsh.
¿Lo leyeron? ¿Qué opinan?

[Len Feder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago I read the 3rd edition of this book. This website didn't list that edition. This is the 4th edition, and I recently bought it. But I'm not ready to review it. I want to review the one I'm familiar with.

Clifton Fadiman is Mr. Book of the Month Club and Mr. Encyclopedia Brittanica. I think he has a good pedigree for writing a book like this, a lifetime reading plan.

I read every single novel mentioned in his third edition and I liked most of them. The only novels I remember not enjoying are some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories and the ever popular Mark Twain. I realize I'm in a minority of one as far as Twain is concerned. I just don't like his writing though I think the world of him. As for Hawthorne, I consider him a hack writer who doesn't belong in a library or bookstore because his stuff is stupid, particularly the short stories.

As for authors that I enjoy very much, pretty much everyone else in the book. It took me 8 months to finish In Search Of Lost Time, or Remembrance Of Things Past, by Marcel Proust, but even though there were incredibly long and boring parts of it, I list it as one of my favorite stories of all time. I also enjoyed Ulysses by James Joyce, though I read the Cliff Notes along with it. I adore its final chapter, which was actually written in comprehensible English believe it or not, the chapter done by Mollie Bloom. I love that chapter.

I love the long story of Don Quixote. It's not really about windmills. The section on Don Quixote tilting at windmills takes up only one or two pages in the entire book. The entire story is heartwarming and very special, and sometimes hilarious, like when our heroic knight tries to put Sancho Panza over his knee in order to speed up the don's meeting with his beloved Dulcinea. I actually died laughing, and I'm now reincarnated as myself.

The 3rd edition also lists a lot of philosophy and poetry books. Ugh. I hate philosophy and poetry. Yes, I hate poetry. Hate it. Hate it hate it hate it. If you have something to say, say it clearly and don't play games with me. I think the major poets listed in the book should be punished for putting us through the agony of trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about. I think they should be forced to watch Barney on tv. As for the great philosophers of all time, I think they are a pile of nothing. Plato is somewhat worth reading, but I can't say the same for Aristotle, Nietsche and the rest of that hot air crowd. I'd rather read Ray Nitschke, linebacker for the Green Bay Packers.

[Jeff Koloze · Rating 5 out of 5]

While contemporary rap or trap music may be all right for people who want to waste time (the rest of us know both categories as “crap”, which just happens to be a neat rhyme), those of us who are serious about being intellectually happy will delight in the quality reading suggested in this volume.

Even better, this compendium of favored classics takes only two days to read (accounting for significant highlighting and annotating). While obtaining copies of some works could take weeks, I anticipate that the effort will be well worth it.

Best of all, reading the summaries of the works identified by the editors as major items in the Western canon will help today’s young people to navigate a world hostile to their right to live. Billions of other humans lived on the planet before them, and many have expressed their anxieties, doubts, and frustrations in masterly fictional work. Today’s youth don’t have to be alone in their search for God, for the meaning of human life, and for something which lasts longer than the latest vulgar rap, trap, or crap lyric.

Middle-aged persons will find the volume useful, if only to guide them into reading quality literature which contributes to the joy of being a human being. Older individuals, also, will find the volume useful as a guide for their blessed retirement years.

A side benefit for us middle-aged or older folk is that, since we will have read many of the items listed, it’s good to know just how smart we are. Reading the summaries is like meeting old friends again.

Many thanks to Ohio taxpayers for helping me obtain early retirement four years ago. I can now spend the next fifty years, delighting in major works in the Western (and increasingly international) canon.

With Homer, Dante, Swift, Austen, Hawthorne, Wharton, Narayan, Bellow, Achebe, etc., who needs any vulgarity from the has-been Eminem or whoever wants to claim credit for today’s even more vulgar song “Fefe”?

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my goodread friends Michael turned me on to this book about 5 years ago and it is excellent. For a bibliophile it will have you licking your lips because many of these books are at the library or free on line so for little monetary outlay you can read for a lifetime. It is laid out from the birth date of the authors from Homer to Marquez choosing the authors best works (Fadimans opinion)and commenting on them in a few paragraphs. It would take a lifetime to finish all the works listed but you'd have an astounding grasp of literature upon finishing. Worst case you don't read the books but can answer some questions in trivial pursuit.

[Alcornell · Rating 4 out of 5]

companionable, sometimes quirky reading, and much more interesting than you'd think.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my absolute favorite books...A reading list for life.

[Ricardo Vladimiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sinto-me mal por dar este livro como lido, até porque este livro não se lê, consulta-se. Ou melhor, pode-se ler mas será o equivalente a ler uma enciclopédia, não pelo tamanho mas pelo formato. O livro encontra-se divido em cinco partes, fundamentalmente históricas no que toca à ficção e à filosofia. Em cada uma das partes encontramos secções, cada uma dedicada a um autor. Cada autor é numerado o que facilita imenso a consulta porque sempre que outro autor é referido é acompanhado do seu número tornando a navegação muito simples. Cada um dos autores inclui a lista das obras que o levaram à inclusão no plano e alguns parágrafos sobre autor e obra. Estes parágrafos são relativamente inconsistentes no conteúdo.

Existe uma secção extra com autores dos século XX apresentados em formato reduzido, uma espécie de selecção de esperanças da literatura internacional que ainda não estão, na opinião dos autores, ao nível da selecção A da literatura mundial.

Enquanto livro de referência cumpre o seu propósito e deixei dúzias de marcadores nas duas horas que passei a desfolhá-lo para conhecer o conteúdo. Para minha surpresa e alegria, encontrei imensos autores que nunca tinha ouvido falar! O meu grande problema com esta obra, já revista algumas vezes é a inconsistência das escolhas. Compreendo que é o trabalho de duas pessoas, logo a subjectividade das escolhas terá pouco escrutínio e dificilmente tornará a lista mais uniforme, mas é difícil de entender, por exemplo, porque está incluído Thomas Khun e não Karl Popper, porque está incluído Marx e não Adam Smith, como é que não há referência a José Saramago e Salman Rushdie, ou como é que Steinbeck está na selecção de esperanças.

É um bom livro para leitores e uma boa referência, mas é, no mínimo, uma referência incompleta.

[Dan Charnas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clifton Fadiman and J.S. Major review an incredible number of great writings from B.C. to the present. Their reviews are very insightful yet easily-grasped, and in a page or two, one can acquire enough information to make a decision about "must-reads".
The problem for me was that there were so many reviews, especially Fadiman's reviews, that were cautionary for one reason or another to the degree that my resultant list of must-reads from "The Plan" is comprised of just a very select few.
"The Plan" was a very interesting and worthwhile read for me. Importantly, I learned a great deal about the books and the authors. I also realized that it would take me years and years and years to tackle all of the works that were reviewed. At the "tender" age of 71, I think that narrowing down my bucket list of great books to read probably is a good idea!

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I did enjoy this book- there were some things that I was more than a little confused about the author's decision to omit.
Let's start with what I enjoyed.
The tone of the author was a conversational tone, it was never a pedantic or condescending tone, which is hard to come by when you have an author talking about great books that people should read. The author also did separate the authors in an almost chronological order, along with mentioning several different titles by that author that they felt were worth it. And (which is always a big thing) they didn't spoil the books at all.

Now for what I didn't like:
In the prologue, the author mentions why the Bible is not mentioned in this book, saying that it would be presumptuous of him to mention it, which I give him props for. If you don't believe in the Bible and honestly say "We can't say anything about this" I respect that. However, they then included the koran and the sutra scriptures- which should also be presumptuous since both of the authors have made it clear that they are atheists. So if they don't include the Scriptures of one religion, they shouldn't include the scriptures of the other- basically either they should have included the Bible or not included the koran.

Next, there were a notable lack of authors that should have been included. Part of the prologue states that they are trying to mention authors that have impacted literature as a whole and that everyone should read at least once. But yet, they decided to completely omit Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, GK Chesterton, and even Agatha Christie. Now you might be thinking that they didn't have space, but yet they had a 100 page bibliography in the back of the book talking about some of these authors- in which case they could have easily fit them in and made the book a bit longer. And I know that not all authors are for all people, however when you are talking about authors who have changed the Literature world, and you don't include people such as CS Lewis or JRR Tolkien, and especially don't include Alexander Dumas or Victor Hugo, I personally think something is sus.

The other thing was that the author decided that he wanted to include several (8 or so) 'authors' who either had only written one thing or were so obscure that he had to spend several pages telling us who they were. So it's not like he didn't know how to talk to who people were, he just deliberately chose not to.

On the whole this was relatively good, but it could have been better had those small items been addressed.

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK book overall. the author talks about his favorite 100 books. starts off with the greeks, then middle ages then into the Pascals, Nietzsches, Humes, James', of the 17-19th centuries then the last few are contemporary ones on various subjects. its a small book and the descriptions he gives of each book are short and easy to read. clifton speaks his mind in all cases and comes across brutally honest. he gives his take on what the book was about and why you should read it. id read about 25 of them on there and had heard of most of the books he mentions if not all. worth a quick read and interesting to read someone else's take on a book you may have read yourself and claim to know well yourself.

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book about books. 100 recommendations of books written before 1959 that one should read in their lifetime. The list would be very different if this book was written today, of course, but the list is made of the old Greek classics on up. to different subjects: poetry, philosophy, novels, bio and history.

[Maria Salmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Left me wanting more. To be re-read during each one’s lifetime, hopefully one long enough to mark one’s new wishlist/ Me quedé com ganas de que continuara... un libro para ser leído varias veces a lo largo de los años, deseando que sean muchos para poder leer, la mayoría de los libros seleccionados.

[Basilius · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Socrates called himself a midwife of ideas. A great book is often such a midwife, delivering to full existence what has been coiled like an embryo in the dark, silent depths of the brain.”

I cannot overstate the effect this book has had on my life. I’ve read and reread it so many times and yet it never ceases to move me. Move me in heart—it fuels my passion for literature; move me in mind—it greases my mental cogs; and move me in body—it gets me to pick up a book and actually read.

I spent some times in my latter teens researching “Great Book” lists. I wanted to become a serious reader and hoped to find a compilation of books most worth my time. It’s funny; there are innumerable lists like that out there. I read every one I could find and yet none sat well with me. They all seemed incomplete. Sure they included great masterpieces, and sure I hadn’t read a single book on any list. And yet I still felt they were subpar; call it gut instinct. When I first came upon Clifton’s list, and then his book, it was like a lightning strike. I instantly felt the tremor and tingle of a man who knew what a good book was. It’s difficult to explain—he does a much better job than I could—but to him reading was more than simple entertainment or education. It’s a lifelong experience that takes work to cultivate, providing a wellspring of fulfillment that can never be extinguished.

Clifton Fadiman was a radio personality and chief editor for Britannica for a number of years. This book is his introduction to some of the greatest stories and ideas of mankind. He is opinionated, erudite, and warm-hearted. He pumped out a few editions, with my review being of the 4th. This latest edition, The New Lifetime Reading Plan, now includes eastern as well as western classics. Here Fadiman is accompanied by John S. Mayor, who’s also a great critic. The two round out the selection, giving a survey of what I feel are the greatest works of literature the human race has to offer. I also recommend picking up the 3rd edition for this superior introduction and appendix.

Structured chronologically, Fadiman and Mayer tour through history and present their suggestions for which books to read. Each book is accompanied by a short introduction (about 800 words) giving their rationale. Not only are their choices excellent, but so are the introductions, which are so tempting to read of their own accord that the authors advise caution. Their book is meant to get you reading, not to adopt their snappy summarizations. (These men would have hated Sparknotes.) The appendix has a bibliography, suggestions for further reading, and list of 100 twentieth century authors also worth your time.

I do not want to regurgitate Fadiman’s introduction where he makes his case for reading. Of all the lectures I’ve seen on the topic, it’s still my favorite. I will say that for those of you who are genuinely interested in reading good books this is your first and last stop. To stick to recent best-sellers and trendy novels is a supreme waste; the past five-thousand years offers us a treasure trove of wonder. Let this book be your guide. But you may ask: why this guide over others? Why are their choices superior? Does it simply coincide with your opinions?

My sense of a good book is one that accomplished a few things. If you can trap yourself with it in a quiet room, with adequate light and temperature, it will do things to you. Its pages will come alive and move you through time and space. You will not be simply a passive observer watching images on a screen, hearing sounds made by others. You will make your own sounds. You will smell and hear and see each chapter, each scene, each page. Your mind will bend. Your character will be tested. In short, it will have all the benefits of life itself; less acute but unbound by reality.

A good book is an experience that warps who you are forever. That definition ignores genre, writing style, age, and reputation. What Fadiman and Mayor have attempted to do is point out the books throughout history most likely to have that effect, along with suggestions for approach. Having gone through many of their selections myself, I agree with them whole heartedly and recommend this plan for others. As the title suggestions, it is a lifetime plan. It is designed to be a steady and significant part of your existence. If you have the curiosity, and courage, you will find yourself much better off for having made the journey.

[Julio On Hiatus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Habent fata sua libelli! (Books have their own fate!). And so do books about books. I love Clifton Fadiman, and like many bookworms was introduced to his LIFETIME READING PLAN back in the 1970s. Let me say off the bat that a "lifetime reading plan" makes as much sense as a Soviet Five Year Plan for the economy. I don't even know what I will be reading tomorrow, and that is half the fun of reading. Planned reading is akin to Sartre's pedant in NAUSEA, who thinks he can grasp all of the world's knowledge by reading every volume of the encyclopedia at his local library. Like Dorothy Parker's "Common Reader" I prefer to jump from ship to ship wherever my life voyage takes me. Still, pro bono publico, I write this review for those of you who set course in bibliophilia. Back in the 1970s Clift had a much more concise and enclosed view of what constituted great reading, one which he shared in a modest manner with the readers of the first edition: "I am sure beneath the literature of the Chinese, Africans and Arabs, among others, there lies great truth and beauty but I must say that as a Westerner I am not moved by it nor do I fully grasp the meaning of these texts". A great chap. The first edition has a one page summary of all of Western literature's greatest hits, featuring the usual suspects, WAR AND PEACE, KING JAMES BIBLE, ULYSSES, MOBY DICK. No crime, no faults, no errors. (Fadiman had very little use for non-fiction, probably agreeing with Joseph Heller that "reading non-fiction is like reading the newspaper. Trivial".) But, books, the times, politics and mores all have their own fate. The revised edition takes into account "the global village we all inhabit, and Fadiman has found exciting discoveries in what he formerly dismissed as perplexing. THE QURAN is here, "the spiritual guide to over a billion people", along with THE TAO TE CHING and in fiction THE TALE OF GENJI. One African author makes the grade, Achebe and THINGS FALL APART. Clift has made concessions to the better half as well, moving beyond Jane Austen to the Bronte Sisters and George Eliot, along with the aforementioned TALE OF GENJI. Non-fiction finally rears its head with Newton's PRINCIPIA MATEMATICA, DAS KAPITAL and THE ORIGINS OF SPECIES. (Darwin was a great writer and thinker, while Newton and Marx, at least the Marx of KAPITAL, were just great tinkers. Fadiman's criteria for greatness has been transformed also. A literary work may be judged by its religious or political impact, not necessarily that it makes for great reading. I doubt Clift has any sympathy for either Islam or Marxism. This is the multicultural Fadiman, and if pigging out on the world's great books while staying on his carefully constructed reading highway until death I highly recommend this book and at least drop my cap at his program.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the easiest book to read because it is all essays about writers and their works. Reading essays is something we all have done in college but I am years out of practice from then. In the Preface, he says he hopes to inspire you to go and find some of these authors and, what he considers, their best works. He certainly does that. Some I have read and he gave me a new viewpoint on them. Others I look forward to reading but there are some that he saved me a lot of reading time from. This is well worth finding and reading yourself. He covers fiction, history, poetry, etc.

I am one of those who have so many books and, at 52, so little time to get them all read. Boxes of unread books still packed away and overflowing shelves. After reading his essay on a few books I am thankful that he saved me the time. I know they are not my thing without me having to have tried to slog through them. Because of how my school education bounced around through public and then conservative christian to public schools, I had little literature education. Nor any readings of books in general as the ACE program gave you only little snippets to learn on any given subject. Mind you, you did learn it well and each subject pretty thoroughly but rare was the case of other reading. I could not read Shakespeare but my brother could read Mein Kompf for history! I have another book on college reading lists and I have been working my way through it for some time now. With this book helping me as a guide I can clear a few off knowing I would never make it through them for lack of interest. Several others I am looking forward to reading.

[Maria Azpiroz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como decía Borges, lo único que se advierte de las listas son las omisiones. Es verdad que este libro no escapa totalmente a esta observación; para mí falta Dumas, Victor Hugo, Stevenson, quizás Lessing, pero en términos generales es una excelente selección de clásicos de diferentes estilos y de diferentes países. Este libro se editó por primera vez en 1960 y tuvo varias ediciones. En esta cuarta edición, Fadiman incluye un coautor que se ocupa de la literatura más exótica desde un punto de vista estadounidense; china, India, Nigeria, también América latina con Borges y García Márquez. Otra novedad es que se incluyen textos científicos (Galileo, kuhn, Darwin). Es curioso que en esta edición algunos autores de las anteriores fueron suprimidos (caso de Malraux o Dewey) porque no han resistido el paso del tiempo.
Un acierto es el orden del material. Cronológico. Simple pero genial y mucho mejor que los enrevesados ordenamientos por tema. Tiene una sección final de lecturas recomendadas en las que se reseñan muy brevemente otras obras escogidas. Son obras que o bien no cuentan con un reconocimiento generalizado aún o son lo que denominan "clásicos provisionales" que solamente el tiempo dirá si se transforman realmente en clásicos o perecen. En su conjunto, un gran libro para los amantes de la lectura, ya sea para ordenar mejor lo que ya hemos leído, recordarlo, o anotarnos varios títulos para nuestra corta vida.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fadiman's book came to me as a recommended list from Washington Univ. during a summer writing seminar. I did not read every single page of the book. I did read most of most of the entries. The 1999 edition, titled the New Lifetime Reading Plan, expands the original 100 titles listed to 133. Fadiman died in 1999, but I am led to believe he had some input into the new list. I've tried to continue reading books listed by Fadiman and have come to realize I read only the books I think I will enjoy. Probably because I have a graduate degree in Literature and undergraduate in Humanities, I had a head start on the list before the book came into my hands. Still, I have not read nearly enough to say my lifetime reading plan has been successful, and I've read enough of the books on the list that they number too many to count. My lifetime grows shorter more quickly than I shorten the number of titles I have read.

[Jonathan Jerden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too much fun. The author has 109 books in his Great Books list and I've read 53 of them. The page or two summary for each book is a hoot as he, at times, confirms what I think I read, while mostly talks about other books I've read as if I was on Mars: he likes some books that I found pedestrian, while panning (although still recommending) others that I loved. As an example: neither of the books of Poe and Dickens I liked did he recommend, while the reads he did recommend of these two I found boring. Such is life.

The takeaway . . . everybody comes away from just about every book of substance with a different impression, a different meaning, and a different adjustment to their lives.

I like the author because he doesn't take himself and the book too seriously; at about 75 when he last edited the book he's old enough to have read some of these books many times over; and he is a disciple of Mortimer Adler . . . my king of great book thinkers.

[Lee Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a great overview of the classic books in our history. Importantly, the books are listed chronologically, and cross-reference each-other, so it provides sort of a history of the great books of civilization (of course, I am not an expert enough to quibble with the choices).

When reading, I certainly marked down books I want to buy, and it also validated some of the books I have bought previously and not read. Works that give a broad overview of certain given field are very valuable for the average person. After reading, I feel like I understand more the story of the greatest works of literature ever written.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book of this kind that I know of. Am using it to guide my own reading. They have the problem that the American state papers- the Articles of Confederacy, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution aren't books and don't make up a book. The Structure of Scientific Revolution is an odd choice, too. Nobody could make a list like this perfect, and it would be unreasonable to expect that.

Have read over and through it many, many times. Can often help with choosing an edition.