Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Dana Rail's avatar

This is a perfect list, not because it is one that I (or anyone else) would have compiled, but because it consists of your beloved lifelong literary companions. So much more valuable (and fun to read!) than a concoction, from some pseudo-omniscient perspective, of "greatest" books.

Expand full comment
Daniel Murphy's avatar

This seems like a portrait of the writer as a young man--you, Boze. What has shaped your sensibilities and corresponded with them.

It reminds me that the world of books is so very vast. And, it is critical that we read what appeals to us and (to echo theologian Howard Thurman) "brings us most alive."."

I learned alot reading your list and the thumbnail sketches--e.g., "one can’t help wishing Milton had gone with his initial plan to write an epic about King Arthur" in the context of "Paradise Lost."

You awakened my desire to re-encounter some great works--e.g., "Chaucer’s style is uniquely untranslatable, his joy so capacious, his wit so shrewd and keen."

You made me appreciate a possibility--that a literary critic and biographer, Peter Ackroyd, could be a genius in his own right: "one creative genius contemplating another."

Keep promoting the incalculable benefits of reading.

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” – Frederick Douglass

Expand full comment
26 more comments...

No posts