BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS & THE READING LIFE

DISCOVER the virtues of reading by reading the personal accounts of the critic's all-consuming pleasure for literature.

The Power of Delight: A Lifetime in Literature: Essays 1962-2002 (2005) / John Bayley
The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (1994) / Sven Birkerts
How to Read and Why (2000) / Harold Bloom
Why Read the Classics? (1999) / Italo Calvino
The Uses of Literature (1986) / Italo Calvino
A Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World (2005) / Morris Dickstein
Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education: Essays on Great Writers and Their Books (2004) / Michael Dirda
Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments (2000) / Michael Dirda
The American Classics: A Personal Essay (2005) / Denis Donoghue
The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man's Struggle With the Monthly Tide of Books He's Bought and the Books He's Been Meaning to Read (2004) / Nick Hornby
A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books (2004) / Alberto Manguel
A History of Reading (1996) / Alberto Manguel
So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading / Sara Nelson
Hatchet Jobs: Writings on Contemporary Fiction (2004) / Dale Peck
The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel (2004) / James Wood
The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief (1999) / James Wood