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The Bright Book of Life
Novels to Read and Reread
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Check link for latest rating. ( 188 ratings, 28 reviews)
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
The Bright Book of Life is ideal for readers with an interest in classic and contemporary literature, literary criticism, and the Western canon. It suits both those familiar with the featured novels and anyone keen to deepen their understanding of narrative fiction’s significance and enduring power.
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Description
The Bright Book of Life is America's most original and controversial literary critic's foray into the world of narrative fiction. Harold Bloom writes trenchantly about forty-eight masterworks spanning the Western tradition, from Don Quixote to Wuthering Heights to Invisible Man, in his first book devoted exclusively to narrative fiction.
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom—who was regarded for more than half a century as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic—gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on forty-eight essential works spanning the Western canon. These range from Don Quixote to Book of Numbers; from Wuthering Heights to Absalom, Absalom!; from Les Miserables to Blood Meridian; and from Vanity Fair to Invisible Man.
Here are trenchant appreciations of fiction by, among many others, Austen, Balzac, Dickens, Tolstoy, James, Conrad, Lawrence, Le Guin, and Sebald.
Whether you have already read these books, plan to, or simply care about the importance and power of fiction, Harold Bloom is your unparalleled guide to understanding literature with new intimacy.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Praised for its erudition and depth, The Bright Book of Life is hailed as a lifetime’s reflection by a master reader. Reviews highlight Bloom’s elegant and insightful prose, balanced with candid critique and rich literary excerpts. It offers fresh insights and heartfelt celebration of novels, tempered by the author’s thoughtful reflections on ageing and literary legacy.
Washington Post, The New York Journal of Books, Shelf Awareness, and Kirkus Reviews all commend Bloom’s articulate and passionate meditations on essential fiction.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781984898432
Publisher: Random House USA Inc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 28 December 2021
Country: United States
Imprint: Random House Inc
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 132.0mm
Height: 203.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 448
Collections
About the Author
HAROLD BLOOM lived in New Haven and was a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, where he taught for over sixty years. Before that, he was Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than forty books include Possessed by Memory, The Anxiety of Influence, Shakespeare- The Invention of the Human, The Western Canon, The American Religion, and The Daemon Knows- Literary Greatness and the American Sublime. He was a MacArthur Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism, the Catalonia International Prize, and Mexico's Alfonso Reyes International Prize. He lived in New Haven until his death on October 14, 2019, at the age of eighty-nine.
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