The renowned literary critic has written a book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. Bloom adresses the solitary reader, who, he urges, should read for the purest of all reasons: to discover and augment the self. Always dazzling in his ability to draw connections between texts across continents and centuries, Bloom instructs readers in how to inmerse themselves in the different literary forms. Probing discussions of the works of beloved writers such as W. Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens and William Faulkner highlight the varied challenges and delights found in short stories, poems, novels, and plays.