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The Western CanonBook

by Harold Bloom

Who uses, recommends or left The Western Canon, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

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Economist at George Mason University and co-author of the blog Marginal Revolution.
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I would start with Harold Bloom’s book The Western Canon, which has a list and surveys a lot of his favorite works, a few of which are nonfiction by the way, and dig in there and just find what you love and pursue it.

The Tim Ferriss Show #413, "Tyler Cowen on Rationality, COVID-19, Talismans, and Life on the Margins"; asked what fiction a lapsed reader should start with. The guest's own words in the transcript Tim Ferriss published on tim.blog.

2020-05-09·tim.blog ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.