Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

In The Politically Incorrect Guide to English Literature, Elizabeth Kantor has great fun skewering silly English literature professors, a broad and easy target, but the real point of the book is the joy of reading great literature because it is good and true. The book includes a chronological survey of the greatest hits of English literature and gives fresh insights into why these really are the greatest hits. Read Chaucer for a rich, multi-layered tapestry of life invigorated, not oppressed, by chivalry, authority, and Christianity. Read Shakespeare for the most amazing heartbreaking and real characters, who show that there really is such a thing as human nature, that some choices are inherently destructive, and that love and sex are serious things. Read Jane Austen because she is funny. After reading this book, I wanted to click off the television, put down the newspaper and pick up books off my shelf I haven't looked at since college, not because they're good for me, but because they're just plain good. Any high school senior would benefit from this book, as a sort of inoculation against the silly stuff that passes for English literature study in many colleges. Those of us who were high school seniors many years ago will be reminded how much fun it is to read plays out loud, memorize poetry, and gossip about the characters of great novels. Definitely five stars.