Days of Reading (Penguin Great Ideas)

Features essays about why we read. This work explores the pleasures and trials that we take from books as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work and the joys of losing yourself in literature as a child.|Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922) is now generally viewed as the greatest French novelist and perhaps the greatest European novelist of the 20th century. He lived much of his later life as a reclusive semi-invalid in a sound-proofed flat in Paris giving himself over entirely to writing In Search of Lost Time.|In these inspiring essays about why we read Proust explores all the pleasures and trials that we take from books as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work and the joys of losing yourself in literature as a child. Throughout history some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate dissent war and revolution. They have enlightened outraged provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers pioneers radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.