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The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
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The Bright Book of Life
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Publisher's summary
America's most original and controversial literary critic writes trenchantly about 48 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 for more than half a century was regarded 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 48 essential works spanning the Western canon, from Don Quixote to Book of Numbers; from Wuthering Heights to Absalom, Absalom!; from Les Misérables to Blood Meridian; 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 listened to 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.
Critic reviews
"Fresh insights and renewed joys... fervent... dedicated... [Bloom] candidly analyzes what he considers a novel’s shortcomings and where he differs with other critics’ assessments. [His] ardent celebration of novels is tinged with the inevitable losses of old age... Warm recollections of a singular literary life." (Kirkus Reviews)
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Edith Hamilton shows us Rome through the eyes of the Romans. Plautus and Terence, Cicero and Caesar, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and Augustus come to life in their ambitions, their work, their loves and hates. In them we see reflected a picture of Roman life very different from that fixed in our minds through schoolroom days, and far livelier.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Not so bad
- By steve on 04-25-11
By: Edith Hamilton
-
Figures of Earth
- A Comedy of Appearances
- By: James Branch Cabell
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 23
Figures of Earth, subtitled "A Comedy of Appearances", follows the vicissitudes of Dom Manuel the Redeemer from his lowly swineherd origins through his unlikely elevation to the Count of Poictesme, and beyond. Published in 1921, it was the second volume of “The Biography of Manuel”, Cabell’s great work about an imaginary land that also managed to skewer the world of his upbringing as a Southern Gentleman of Virginia, and nearly everything else, besides!
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Nostalgia
- Going Home in a Homeless World
- By: Anthony Esolen
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
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Edgar Allan Poe - The Complete Works Collection
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Philippe Duquenoy
- Length: 48 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 463
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 388
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 380
Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most prolific authors of his time, eventually gaining recognition for his tales of horror and his uncanny ability to paint a macabre picture with words. The Complete Works Collection of Edgar Allan Poe contains over 150 stories and poems, separated into individual chapters, including all of Poe's most notorious works such as The Raven, Annabel Lee, A Dream Within a Dream, Lenore, The Tell-Tale Heart, and many more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Would recommend to anyone!!!
- By Gail Blackwell on 03-14-18
By: Edgar Allan Poe
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The Greek Way
- By: Edith Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 315
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 253
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 250
Based on a thorough study of Greek life and civilization, of Greek literature, philosophy, and art, The Greek Way interprets their meaning and brings a realization of the refuge and strength the past can be to us in the troubled present. Miss Hamilton's book must take its place with the few interpretative volumes which are permanently rooted and profoundly alive in our literature.
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3 out of 5 stars
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...Not as Good as The Echo of Greece
- By The Masked Reviewer on 11-04-16
By: Edith Hamilton
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Two Horror Classics: Frankenstein and Dracula
- By: Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 28 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 70
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
In Frankenstein, a classic tale of bio-engineering gone horribly wrong, Victor Frankenstein uses body parts of the dead to bring a creature to life. When Frankenstein abandons his experiment in horror, the Monster embarks on a quest that results in the ultimate revenge. In Dracula, a timeless gothic vampire romance, young solicitor Jonathan Harker must shield his fiancé, Mina, from the predations of the insatiable Count Dracula. Mysteriously drawn to the Count, Mina, however, struggles to break free from the psychic grip of the mysterious dark stranger from Transylvania.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful rendition of two Gothic Horror classics!
- By Teela'Na on 10-03-19
By: Mary Shelley, and others
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The Birthmark
- By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Narrated by: Walter Covell
- Length: 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 64
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 64
Hawthorne approached the Romantic notion of the ability of science to destroy art (or beauty) in the form of fictive "horror stories" of biological research out of control. This story is the best of that group. A devoted scientist marries a beautiful woman with a single physical flaw: a birthmark on her face. Aylmer becomes obsessed with the imperfection and his attempts to remove it via his scientific skills, thus rendering his bride perfect.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bland uninspired
- By Holcomb on 10-02-12
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Edgar Allan Poe - The Complete Short Stories
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Bob Thomley
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,310
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,158
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165
All of Edgar Allan Poe’s great short stories in one 16-hour collection.
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3 out of 5 stars
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NEVERMORE
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-23-15
By: Edgar Allan Poe
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The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Walter Zimmerman
- Length: 1 hr and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 88
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
Dostoevsky is primarily known for his monumental works like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. However, he also wrote many excellent shorter works that embody the same exploration of human psychology on a smaller scale. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is one of his best short pieces. No less a writer than Virginia Woolf says of Dostoevsky, "Out of Shakespeare there is no more exciting reading."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Inspiring
- By Jeremy on 01-09-09
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Immortality
- By: Milan Kundera
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 149
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 125
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera. Like Flaubert's Emma or Tolstoy's Anna, Kundera's Agnes becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera's supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose: to explore thoroughly the great themes of existence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cerebral Crosswinds in Parisian fields
- By W Perry Hall on 01-13-14
By: Milan Kundera
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Heart of Darkness (Unabridged)
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 49
Long hailed as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, Joseph Conrad's tale of one man's descent into the mysterious and deadly Congo jungle to find a messianic ivory trader is a journey into the depths of man's own greed and quest for power. Marlow, our narrator, relates his story of his slow upriver quest to meet the strange and enigmatic Kurtz, who lives isolated in the jungle and is revered by the natives he exploits.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Narrator!
- By BOA on 09-25-20
By: Joseph Conrad
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Dombey and Son
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect pair
- By Philip on 03-25-08
By: Charles Dickens
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- By: Thornton Wilder
- Narrated by: Sam Waterston
- Length: 3 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 608
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 447
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 444
Wilder's stories consistently explored the connections between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, always returning to fundamental questions about the meaning of life. This Pulitzer Prize-winning tale concerns the lives of five people who fall to their deaths from a Peruvian rope bridge in 1714. A humble Franciscan, Brother Juniper, witnesses the accident and determines to learn about the lives of the victims in order to find out whether this accident happened by chance or by plan.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent Story, But Poor Audiobook Technically
- By RKL on 11-15-13
By: Thornton Wilder
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Siddhartha
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Harish Bhimani
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 196
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Hermann Hesse’s classic novel Siddhartha, takes place in ancient India around the time of the Buddha (6th century BC). Siddhartha and his companion Govinda set out in search of enlightenment. Siddhartha goes through a series of changes and realizations as he attempts to achieve this goal. Siddhartha joins the ascetics, visits Gotama, embraces his earthly desires, and finally communes with nature, all in an attempt to attain Nirvana.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Sounds rushed
- By Viviane on 10-17-11
By: Hermann Hesse
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Love Letters of Great Men
- By: John C. Kirkland
- Narrated by: Chris Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
When words of love do not come to you on their own, then listen to these letters. Complete, actual love letters of great men like Lord Byron, John Keats, and Voltaire. Leaders like Henry VIII, George Washington, and Napoléon, who wrote to his beloved Joséphine, "I awake consumed with thoughts of you...." Artists like van Gogh, Mozart, and Beethoven, who famously penned, "Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved...."
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4 out of 5 stars
-
For all us hopeless romantics!
- By Stitch on 04-12-13
By: John C. Kirkland
-
Measure for Measure
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Royal Shakespeare Company
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Highly recommended
- By Todd on 10-16-08
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Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
- The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 16
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Story5 out of 5 stars 16
The last book written by the most famous literary critic of his generation, on the sustaining power of poetry.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Culmination of Bloom’s Wisdom
- By Jesse on 12-24-20
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The Western Canon
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- By: Harold Bloom
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- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 133
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
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5 out of 5 stars
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A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
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How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
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Falstaff
- Give Me Life
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him. Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom examines Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Falstaff brooks no rebuttal.
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Harold Bloom
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Possessed by Memory
- The Inward Light of Criticism
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
What an endowment!
- By Norman on 04-03-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Ruin the Sacred Truths
- Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Mort Crim
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Harold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or "J") writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Illiad, the Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's Prelude, and works by Freud, Kafka, and Beckett.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
Not one of Bloom's best
- By Benjamin Myers on 03-31-17
By: Harold Bloom
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Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
- The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 16
The last book written by the most famous literary critic of his generation, on the sustaining power of poetry.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Culmination of Bloom’s Wisdom
- By Jesse on 12-24-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 133
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
Falstaff
- Give Me Life
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him. Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom examines Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Falstaff brooks no rebuttal.
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
Possessed by Memory
- The Inward Light of Criticism
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
What an endowment!
- By Norman on 04-03-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Ruin the Sacred Truths
- Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Mort Crim
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Harold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or "J") writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Illiad, the Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's Prelude, and works by Freud, Kafka, and Beckett.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not one of Bloom's best
- By Benjamin Myers on 03-31-17
By: Harold Bloom
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Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 19
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history - and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime.
By: Harold Bloom
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The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies
- By: Professor Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Professor Harold Bloom
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Lowest WPM Ever
- By Ronald on 11-16-11
-
Iago
- The Strategies of Evil
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
A Moor's Not Nice Guy - friend
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
How to Think Like Shakespeare
- Lessons from a Renaissance Education
- By: Scott Newstok
- Narrated by: Gabriel Vaughan
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
A lively and engaging guide to vital habits of mind that can help you think more deeply, write more effectively, and learn more joyfully.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Outstanding!
- By Jason on 05-08-24
By: Scott Newstok
-
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
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In Montparnasse
- The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dalí
- By: Sue Roe
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
In Montparnasse begins on the eve of the First World War and ends with the 1936 unveiling of Dalí’s Lobster Telephone. As those extraordinary years unfolded, the Surrealists found ever more innovative ways of exploring the interior life, and asking new questions about how to define art. In Montparnasse recounts how this artistic revolution came to be amidst the salons and cafés of that vibrant neighborhood.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Second of Two Books
- By Robert Keith on 10-26-19
By: Sue Roe
-
Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
-
The History of English Poetry
- By: Peter Whitfield
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
English literature is a treasure trove of wonderful poetry. From Shakespeare to Milton, Keats to Shelley and Tennyson to Yeats, this accessible history (especially written for Naxos Audiobooks) introduces the listener to countless small masterpieces, including all the old favorites and some lesser-known gems. Whitfield explores this most expressive of art forms and traces the historical development of a rich and diverse canon of poetical works.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Enjoyable and enlightening
- By Roger on 10-27-09
By: Peter Whitfield
-
Fifty-Two Stories
- 1883-1898
- By: Anton Chekhov, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
From the celebrated, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and War and Peace: a lavish, masterfully rendered volume of stories by one of the most influential short fiction writers of all time.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
Annoying narrator
- By Mida on 07-01-20
By: Anton Chekhov, and others
-
English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama)
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 25 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16
C. S. Lewis offers a magisterial take on the literature and poetry of one of the most consequential periods in world history, providing deep insight into some of the greatest writers of the age, including Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, William Tyndale, John Knox, Dr. Johnson, Richard Hooker, Hugh Latimer, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, and Thomas Cranmer.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Treasure
- By James on 08-25-22
By: C. S. Lewis
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story5 out of 5 stars 23
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,958
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,317
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,303
E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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5 out of 5 stars
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
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What listeners say about The Bright Book of Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- J. J. Kuzma
- 09-10-21
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
If you enjoy the ramblings of Harold Bloom at the end of his years, as I do, then you’ll enjoy this book. The narration, however, is quite jarring for the frequency of mispronunciations. Was there an editor overseeing this production? Anyone who seeks out a Harold Bloom audiobook is going to know the correct pronunciation of (to cite only a few I recall now,) such names as Gide, Cuchulain, Rimbaud and Mann. I even heard the word “treatise” pronounced “tree-teese.” Quality control was not a priority with this production.
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20 people found this helpful