Rating: 
Summary: ALL ABOUT HAROLD BLOOM AND WHO CARES?
Review: This book covers a valuable subject and parts of it are excellent, but ultimately it fails because it is not about how to read but how Harold Bloom reads and he can't move away from his favorite subject to let in some fresh air. Here is a minor example: he pulls up one of Shakespeare's sonnets to condemn the Republicans who impeached Clinton. The sonnet CAN be read to attack people who condemn sexual impropriety while engaging in it themselves, but that would apply more strongly to Clinton himself than the Republicans. It was Clinton, after all, who wrote the law which allows the courts to pry into people's bedroom secrets. That he was caught by his own neo-Puritan law is perfect justice. But in the meanwhile, Shakespeare gets lost in Bloom's bloviating. This would be a far better book if Bloom gave his ego a rest and allowed his formidable intellect to do some heavy lifting for a change.
Rating: 
Summary: Delightful
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed, great insight. I found myself at times reading parts to others who love good literature.This is an intriguing and thoughtful book. Writing about books comes naturally to him with humility and wit.
Rating:
Summary: A perspective
Review: Since this book has already garnered quite a few reviews here, I will only briefly give my impression of it for others like me who are interested in "the classics" but have not studied them at any length. I like this book mainly for two reasons. The first is that Bloom awakens interest in us to discover (or rediscover) some of the great short stories, plays, poems and novels of Western literature. I had read some of these works in English lit courses or on my own but Bloom's discussion of them brings them a bit back to life and urges me to read them again with perhaps a different perspective. The second reason is that the book is a good introduction for someone already at least slightly familiar with literature and poetry, in that it covers the literary genres giving short reviews and interpretations of major works in each. Bloom's comments on how to read and why, mostly at the beginning of the book, concluding that we read to strengthen the self, seem only to state the obvious for anyone inclined to read classic literature and do not add too much to the book's value. My biggest complaint, however, concerns Bloom's incessant references to Shakespeare, how nothing in the universe can compare to him, the measure of all things human and devine, yada yada yada. Occasional comparisons to Shakespeare are appropriate and insightful (for instance with Cervantes), and of course Shakespeare hugely influenced all literature after him, but constant comparison is too much! Practically every work treated in this book is measured against Shakespeare. At times it actually annoyed me and I thought a truer title of the book could be: "How I worship Shakespeare and compare him to every other literary masterpiece rather than fully appreciating them for their own unique contributions." Perhaps this suggested title is a bit harsh, but in my opinion Bloom's habit of continually interrupting the merits of a work in order to drag the reader (scratching and kicking) once again back to Shakespeare detracts from an otherwise worthy little book.
Rating: 
Summary: ... better catch up on your readin'
Review: If jive makes you feel alive, if love makes you feel like doved glove, then you've got to read Harold Bloom's "How to Read and Why?" This masterpiece of a self-help guide is sure to dramatically improve your success with the modern woman. With eloquence and style he transfixes the reader with upmost originality and STYLE. He is transplendid, yes that is the word I used, transplendid! that he interpolates many facets of modern sexual energies into a fusion so tubular that audiences will for ever be disco dancing to the stars and cruising in their El Camino cars. So give it a look and transmutate your little itty bitty world.
Rating:
Summary: Disorganized, but still insightful in places
Review: Bloom's attempts to explain why we should read a given author don't always come off all that well. I think he has trouble understanding the audience he's trying to reach here - and I can't exactly blame him. There are still a number of interesting remarks here, though many of them turn up again in 'Genius'. That book may have superseded this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Why read this book?
Review: Don't be deceived by the benign and clever title of this book.
I heard Mr. Bloom interviewed about the book on a PBS program and he is certainly an erudite scholar, it would seem. This book, however is not for the faint of heart. My guess is the average college educated reader who does something else for a living than teach a graduate course in literature will find this book too much. It is certainly written for the academics or Ph.Ds with more than a passing knowledge of the authors mentioned. I must say I did not or could not read the book entirely. Reader and buyer beware.
Rating:
Summary: Should be Titled "What to Read and Why I Like It"
Review: Harold Bloom has written a pithy introduction to the "greats" of the Western Canon. He spends about a chapter explaining how to read, but most of this book is plot summary, excerpts, and Bloom's adoration of writers. Highly recommended for the new student of literature, useful as a parallel text / study guide, but if you've read even half of the works listed in the table of contents, don't bother. My recommendation: use the table of contents and just read those works for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: One of our greatest literary critics at work
Review: It may seem a bit of a presumption to write a book entitled How to Read and Why, but Harold Bloom's is a gentle urging, a guidance and not a proscriptive lecture. Of course we have to realize that he is talking about reading literature, not science, not history, not politics, not pop psychology, and certainly not the latest best seller! Furthermore I'm sure his editor and publisher, looking to the marketplace, insisted on the spin, since this is first and foremost a work of literary criticism, and only tangentially a "how to." Herein Professor Bloom, esteemed literary critic and internationally acclaimed scholar, discourses on mostly English and European literature bringing his usual infectious enthusiasm to the task at hand so that one is inspired to take up again Hamlet or The Charterhouse of Parma or to finish Proust. I have read literary criticism for many years, partially because when I was young I thought reading it would help make me a better writer; but as the years have gone by, more and more I read it as an inspiration to further reading and rereading. Bloom is a particularly good reading companion because of his great erudition and his love of literature, but also because he is a very fine writer himself, and one can learn from his prose. His muse for the art and practice of reading is Dr. Samuel Johnson, whom he greatly admires, along with Bacon and Emerson. His "why" of reading, presented on page 22, comes from a (too studied, in my opinion) fusion of their reasons: "find what comes near to you that can be put to the use of weighing and considering, and that addresses you as though you share the one nature, free of time's tyranny." For all serious readers, time indeed is a tyranny because there really are so many books and so little time. Bloom organizes his book into five chapters: "Short Stories," "Poems," "Novels, Part I," "Plays," and Novels, Part II." The novels of Part I are European novels, including Don Quixote, Emma, Crime and Punishment, etc. Those of Part II are American, e.g., Moby-Dick, As I Lay Dying, Song of Solomon and four others. The short stories include works by Turgenev, Chekhov, Maupassant , Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor, Nabokov, etc. The poems discussed are all by our greatest poets, including Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Browning, Whitman, Dickinson, etc. There is a fine piece on Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Marnier." The three plays discussed are the Bard's Hamlet, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Bloom makes it clear that his most admired writer is Shakespeare, on whose work he is an expert, and Hamlet his favorite play, a prejudice I share. Part of the fun of this book, however is in Bloom's asides on writers perhaps of the second rank, and his insights into the current status of literature. On display throughout is an incisive and authoritative writing style that one can only admire and enjoy, but not duplicate. Here's an example of what I mean from page 249: "We will have no more Nathanael Wests; literary parody expired with him, though it had a brief afterglow in his brother-in-law, S. J. Perelman. Flare-ups of the mode in the late Terry Southern and in the metamorphic Gore Vidal have subsided. There were Hemingway's self-parodies, in his later years, and Norman Mailer's still later parodies, both of Hemingway and himself. All these formidable talents have been subsumed by American media realities; who can match television news and talking heads, and even the daily New York Times, in self-parody? Reality in American is more grotesque and hilarious than any parodist could hope to trump. There is something curiously wistful now about Miss Lonelyhearts, a judgment upon my part that would have infuriated Nathanael West. Still, he was not a satirist, secretly hoping to improve us, but a demonic parodist, providing some music to celebrate our march down into hell."
Rating: 
Summary: New Critic - same old song and dance.
Review: As America's major 'bookchat' academics, Bloom's latest, 'How to Read and Why', is disturbing and disapointing. If I can be so bold, the book is also hypocritical, stating to leave 'ideology' out of one's reading of literature, by and while pushing the stance that all modern works inevitably lead back to Rome; in this case, William Shakespeare. The curious Kabalist treatise at the end, an ideology in and of itself, is quite disturbing. He damns ideology while pushing his own. Literary criticism has moved on Mr. Bloom. We've discovered it is worthwhile analysing historical context as well as irony, paradox, etc. One can study outside the text as well as the text itself and still enjoy or be inspired or change one's view of existence for the better. Interestingly, I had thought the 'New Critic' school was long gone, or at least incorporated into criticism overall, only to find the old boy's still around. Pushing the same old arguments, the same old song and dance.
Rating:
Summary: Praise for his passion and guidance
Review: This bibliography/commentary of Bloom's literary favorites is helpful only if you seek the challenging reads. Bloom encourages younger readers to take on the books that everyone shrugs off and poo-poohs. His 'Invention of the Human' (about ALL of Shakespeare's works) gives mighty weight to his opinions. This slim book is broken down into 5 parts : short stories, poems, novels, plays, and more novels. Sometimes there isn't enough commentary to make his picks interesting. I must say I do enjoy his commentary, though. I wanted more! He is impressively erudite. Turgenev, Chekhov, Blake, Hemingway, Milton, Keats, O'Connor, Melville - the list goes on. He doesn't just like the popular classics. He seems to go after the works these illustrious authors aren't always given credit for and praise. I wanted more on 'Moby Dick' (one of MY favorites). Put this one on the bedside table with a pen. It is obvious Bloom wanted to share his passion and the importance of reading to develop our internal selves. Read with all of your self and never stop.
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