Veteran critic and editor Van Doren offers the fruits of decades as a constant reader. Speaking directly to general readers, he aims to bestow the same gift he received from his father, poet Mark Van Doren: “to be acquainted with all kinds of books and not to be afraid of or reluctant to try to read any particular kind.” His 210 selections for discussion are unabashedly personal, ranging across centuries, subjects, and genres. All, from the Orestia to Charlotte’s Web, are books he loves and rereads, in which
“the author has something important to say about something important.”
— Starr E. Smith, Georgetown Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C.