Life-long Reading Plan (Upgraded Version)

Author: (American) Clifton Fadiman
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: "To hear the truth at dawn is to die by evening, which is enough." — Confucius
Books are the nourishment of the world. Without books, life is like a sunless day; without books, wisdom is like a bird without wings. — Shakespeare
Reading a good book is like communicating with many noble people. — Goethe
The ideal book is the key to wisdom. — Tolstoy
Books have made me a happy person, turning my life into a light and comfortable poem. — Gorky
Living with books, one never sighs. — Romain Rolland
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. — Edison
Books are friends, though they have no emotions, but I am very loyal to them. — Hugo
"Classic works," as Karl Van Doren believed, "are those that do not need to be rewritten." Yet The Lifetime Reading Plan (the upgraded version), this classic introduction to classic works, is an exception to that claim. Over forty years, Clifton Fadiman's The Lifetime Reading Plan has been revised three times. This new edition introduces readers to over 130 classic works from around the world, with concise content and clear narration, offering both information and entertainment. Like previous versions, this book covers all the great works of Western civilization, from Homer to Hawthorne, from Plato to Pascal, from Shakespeare to Solzhenitsyn, including epics, novels, dramas, as well as philosophy, psychology, political science, poetry, history, and biographies. However, unlike previous editions, The Lifetime Reading Plan goes beyond traditional Western literary habits, focusing on and including numerous works by Eastern writers. This edition includes both Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin and The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu; Lu Xun stands shoulder to shoulder with Tolstoy, while Sima Qian and Thucydides share the same volume. Thus, the "new" in the "upgraded" edition refers not only to the book's revision but also to significant changes in its content—such as the inclusion of Asian culture, the acceptance of new classics, and the removal of works from the previous edition that did not stand the test of time.