Best General Books & Reading
Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Dr. Mortimer J. Adler was Chairman of the Board of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, Honorary Trustee of the Aspen Institute, and authored more than fifty books.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The second reading involves digging in, an attempt to understand and analyze the author's central argument or thesis, and the third reading is for the purpose of argument, i.e., of reflecting on where we agree with the book and where we disagree, and why... 50 years after that first reading, i still try to follow the advice (above), and find it as helpful and true today as it was back then."
"This level means “skimming systematically” to grasp as much as you can from a book in a limited time-frame (possibly just a few minutes). If “Customer’s Review” sections existed during their time, I am sure they would also have devoted a portion of Chapter 4 to provide insights on how to better profit from them. These note-taking techniques are indispensable to read well and the reader is advised to experiment with them and adapt them to his own style of understanding and to the new types of media now available. The authors present these questions in sequence, but they are quick to explain that in practice (and with experience) we should try to answer them mostly simultaneously. You should then proceed to outline its main parts, each of which should be treated as a subordinate whole and have its unity also expressed. This process could continue ad aeternum, but “the degree of approximation varies with the character of the book and your purpose in reading it”. This means first reconciling the grammatical and the logical aspects of what he writes by matching his chosen words with the terms they express. Part 3 is useful in that it provides some interesting aspects of specific types of reading material, namely practical books, history (including biographies and current events), imaginative literature (including plays and poems), science and mathematics, philosophy and the social sciences. There is, however, a lot of value in this part of the book, specially in the later chapters, and the reader is strongly advised to read it. One thing I should say is that, while they detail interesting aspects of reading imaginative literature, their techniques mostly apply to expository works. You are simply trying to understand the controversy itself, to establish the many voices you hear in a pure exercise of dialectical objectivity. This is a fantastic topic, which the authors have materialised in their greatest contribution to mankind, in my opinion — the Syntopicon, volumes II and III of the Great Books of the Western World. ), but the authors are prompt to address the reader and explain that the list does not have any time frame attached to it. For a much more restrictive (but also magnificent) reading list, the reader is referred to the 10-year-reading plan provided in Adler’s Great Books. Like they state at the beginning of the appendix, the selected texts are "themselves worth reading", so you can’t lose much by doing so. It is a delightful taste of what awaits you in your future exploits of the Great Books — if you do well and accept the challenge, of course. I’ll be forever in debt with two of the greatest absent teachers I’ve had, Dr. Mortimer J. Adler and Dr. Charles Van Doren."
"The regular human will more than likely need to use the methods in the book to read the book..."
"This is an excellent book for any one who loves reading or wants to better understand any written material."
"definitely a must read if you're having issues comprehending books."
"We will sometimes forget overtime that reading and scholarly analysis of the reading we become immersed in is a learned skill involving multiple levels of discipline, technique, and style."
"As bonuses, it also includes tests to help you understand how to use these techniques on passages from famous books and it has Mortimer Adler's famous bibliography that he developed while creating his famous Great Books program."
For the first time, this facsimile, complete with elaborate folding sections, allows readers to explore this enigma in all its stunning detail, from its one-of-a-kind “Voynichese” text to its illustrations of otherworldly plants, unfamiliar constellations, and naked women swimming though fantastical tubes and green baths. "For the first time, a complete reproduction [of] The Voynich Manuscript (Yale University Press), has been published, featuring essays exploring what is known about the book and extra-wide margins so readers can record their responses to its beguiling, beautiful strangeness. "For people who like a good historical mystery, this first authorized publication of the fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Voynich Manuscript will fascinate. This beautiful facsimile will make it available for many more people to become enticed and entranced by it.”—David V. Barrett, Fortean Times. This fascimilie and the accompanying series of essays give a clear sense of the current state of knowledge on the manuscript and reveal the findings of new research.”—H.R. "The publication by Yale University Press of an actual-size colored facsimile, with an informative set of specialist essays on the manuscript’s history, materials, cryptological puzzles, and public impact, will no doubt encourage wider engagement with its enigmas and set off a multitude of amateur as well as professional attempts to decipher it. For the first time, Yale has reprinted the manuscript in full, in a gorgeous new edition coupled with scholarly essays on the book. "A mouthwatering facsimile of the incunabulum, complete with foldout pages — one origamied into six folios — and a handful of scholarly interrogations. Clemens and his collaborators have done an extraordinary job teasing out some of the secrets and wonders of the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript in ways that will make this volume an invaluable resource for many years to come.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"(Yale University's Beinecke Library is the current owner of the manuscript) This volume contains detailed, 1:1 scale, photographic reproductions of every page of the manuscript."
"I found a fabulous recipe for elbow softening, and the ladies' bath cure sounds nice."
"Very good version and scan of the original."
"A bevy of insight from experts in the field accompanies high-resolution scans of the admittedly impenetrable manuscript, complete with fold-out sections that mirror the fold-out sections found in the original."
"But overall, a good purchase."
"OH THIS BOOK!!!!!!!"
"Beautiful book, and we're all still trying to decipher the mystery of the artwork and writing."
"Well done, although text could be a little bit larger."
Best Modernism Literary Criticism
In this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Mann uses a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps--a community devoted exclusively to sickness--as a microcosm for Europe, which in the years before 1914 was already exhibiting the first symptoms of its own terminal irrationality. “[Woods’s translation] succeeds in capturing the beautiful cadence of [Mann’s] ironically elegant prose.” – Washington Post Book World.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The protagonist, Hans Castorp, is Mann's bourgeois Everyman, and it's wonderful haw a powerhouse intellectual like Mann can create a sympathetic but also mediocre hero who stumbles through a series of awakenings (and drowsings) on top of a mountain. The Magic Mountain is also very much of its era."
"It provides a clear view of pre-war Europe with its changing mores and budding inventions of the times, and the odd seeming methods of treating tuberculosis in the thin cold air of the Alps before the advent of antibiotics."
"My most favorite book of of all time."
"the plot can be a little slow at times, but it is definitely very painterly and artisitc."
"The book was a welcome addition to reading and interpretation of The Magic Mountain."
"This is a brilliant work by an important author and I am so happy to see it in a kindle edition!"
Best 18th Century Literary Criticism
A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr. Allworthy on his country estate, Tom Jones is deeply in love with the seemingly unattainable Sophia Western, the beautiful daughter of the neighboring squire—though he sometimes succumbs to the charms of the local girls. Alice Wakely completed a doctoral dissertation on Samuel Richardson at Magdalen College, Oxford, and is currently at the University of York. His books include Richardson's Clarissa and the 18th Century Reader (1992), Sterne, the Moderns, and the Novel (2002), and co-edited with John Mee, The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1740-1830 (2004).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The History of Tom Jones: a foundling by Henry Fielding (Novel-Audible/E Book-Fiction) 5* I read along with the Audible of the novel which I found a highly delightful and entertaining experience."
"An impatient reader might be tempted to skip these, but that would mean missing a lot of worthwhile and enjoyable reading. The biggest problem is that the excellent notes often have a reference to another note, with the page number, e.g., a note might be only "See note on page 85." However, there is never a link to these earlier notes, and when reading a Kindle, finding the note on page 85 is not an easy matter."
"I started reading this book in version which included artistic illustrations."
"Excellent edition of this timeless classic, which I decided to re-read (after four decades) when I learned that Trollope considered it possibly the greatest English novel (up to his time, of course)."
"The writing is a bit hard to follow sometimes."
"Long but must-read example of early English literature."
"I never got bored, it was a bit hard to read being the way it was written from that time period but the handy dictionary took care of that."
"Tom Jones is one of the first novels ever and is considered to be one of the three most perfectly planned plots ever written."
Best Booksellers & Bookselling
He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. “A wonderful, moving, endearing story of redemption and transformation that will sing in your heart for a very, very long time.” -- Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain. “Readers who delighted in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and Letters from Skye will be equally captivated by this novel.” —* Library Journal, starred review. “This novel has humor, romance, a touch of suspense, but most of all love--love of books and bookish people and, really, all of humanity in its imperfect glory.” —Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child “Marvelously optimistic about the future of books and bookstores and the people who love both.” — The Washington Post. “Captures the joy of connecting people and books .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I actually didn't have any idea what the book was about when I started reading - and, at this point - having finished, I think I know what it's about but I'm unsure that I could really describe the "type" of book to anyone who asked."
"The recent death of his beloved wife has left him a widower at the age of thirty-nine. Enter an absolutely delightful cast of secondary characters who populate the island and A.J. And if you loved "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" or "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" you'll find lots to love here, as well - not because the plots are similar, but because of the similar feel to the novels that comes from a good cast of eccentric townsfolk, a small community, and a sense of closeness among the characters."
"We learn of his triumphs, his foibles, and his tragedies, and I think the author would make most readers share each of these with him--whether he is co-raising a child with his co-parent Google or finally summoning the nerve to propose to his love. Vikry says that he used to prefer full-length books but now most enjoys the short story, and I think this statement is key to another aspect of this work. Yes, it sells books, but it is also a communal meeting place and the location of ten different Reading Groups."
"If you love books, you are likely to love this novel about the owner of a small bookstore in the neighborhood of Cape Cod, owned by an impatient, embittered man who encounters love on many different levels almost in spite of himself."
"I approach book club choices with some trepidation as it is difficult to make choices that please a diverse group of people."
"The "Bookseller" goes from being a depressed and cynical as a widower to raising a baby left on his door and finding a new love."
"The things we loved."
"This was a case of laudatory reviews raising expectations and then having those expectations somewhat dashed."
Best History of Books
A beautifully illustrated guide to more than 75 of the world's most celebrated, rare, and seminal books and handwritten manuscripts ever produced, with discussions of their purpose, features, and creators. Michael Collins is a native of Ireland and studied theology at the University College Dublin.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The definition of a good coffee table book, this work is almost impossible to avoid picking it up and paging through. Along with photographs of pages from the first edition which include a discussion of 16th century typesetting, is a general synopsis of the book’s subject matter, a thumbnail biography of the author, an over-view of culture during the book’s release and an In Context section which explores its impact in history which in this case is a look at the founding fathers of the U.S. Not every work in the book is covered as lavishly, for example in the final section most books, On the Road by Jack Kerouak has four or five columnar inches and a picture of the cover of the book. The inclusions cover a vast range of subjects from definitive botanical and anatomical works, ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead and the I Ching to Beatrice Potter’s Peter Rabbit along with Penguin publishers first 10 paperback books creating a thoroughly engaging volume."
"A stunning volume spanning centuries of beautiful books from all cultures."
"From earliest times, when books were laboriously written on clay tablets, papyrus, parchment, and paper, until the present, with millions of us obtaining books, magazines, and other reading matter electronically, books have been a hallmark of civilization. While doing so, you will discover a treasure trove about the Gutenberg Bible, Leonardo da Vinci's remarkable notebooks, Vesalius's studies of the human body that set "a new standard for anatomical illustration," Samuel Johnson's extraordinary dictionary, Audubon's masterpiece, "Birds of America," Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.""
"I thought not...). "Remarkable Books" is too big to sit down with and read all at once. However, it's a wonderful book to start at the beginning - 3000BCE - and goes on through the ages to modern times."