Summer School

  • Reading "In Search of Lost Time"

    You will spend 70 days in a row with this man, and you will be charmed and offended and amazed and sometimes bored, but you will be lucky.
    By Jane Smiley August 28, 2005

  • Reading "Madame Bovary"

    Flaubert's dark tale of adultery feels like it was written in another age -- yet its vision of moral hypocrisy is startlingly contemporary.
    By David L. Ulin August 21, 2005

  • Reading "Lord of the Flies"

    Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a paper on William Golding's survival tale -- without reading the book. This summer, I thought I'd see if it was truly as dreadful as I imagined.
    By Rebecca Traister August 15, 2005

  • Reading "Lost Illusions"

    As an aspiring writer, I was always too scared to read Balzac's cautionary tale of a young poet in 1820s Paris. With my first novel coming out, I was finally ready to take it on.
    By Benjamin Kunkel August 8, 2005

  • Reading "The Wings of the Dove"

    Henry James reminded me, once again, that suffering can bring great rewards.
    By Elizabeth Gaffney August 1, 2005

  • Reading "Little Dorrit" (and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde")

    When I moved in with my boyfriend, Dickens' wonderful epic got lost in the shuffle. Luckily, I stumbled upon Stevenson's famous tale of a kindly doctor and his evil twin.
    By Ann Patchett July 25, 2005

  • Reading "The Prince"

    Would Martha Stewart, Bernie Ebbers, Nixon and Trotsky have stayed on top if they'd listened to Machiavelli?
    By David Bezmozgis July 18, 2005

  • Reading "Anna Karenina"

    I put off Tolstoy's novel for years, but I finally had to find out: Is it truly one of the greatest books ever written?
    By James Hynes July 11, 2005

  • Reading "The Art of War"

    The biggest nerd in high school -- who's now a reputable Chinese scholar -- used to tote around the ancient bible of military strategy. Could Sun Tzu make me successful, too?
    By Matt Steinglass July 4, 2005

  • Reading "The Wapshot Chronicle"

    John Cheever's first novel may seem like a family saga set in a fishing village -- but it's really all about male hysteria and rage.
    By Adrienne Miller June 27, 2005

  • Reading "Jane Eyre"

    Forget the two-fisted Faulkner and Hardy. Tackling Charlotte Bronte's courageously romantic novel made me a better man.
    By Stephen Amidon June 19, 2005

  • Reading "War and Peace"

    Do you really want to spend your summer with Boris and Natasha?
    By Laura Miller June 12, 2005

  • Summer School

    In a new weekly series, Salon takes on the classics you always meant to read -- but never did.
    June 12, 2005
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