Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven't Touched Since High School

What do the great books of your youth have to say about your life now? Remember reading Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby in high school? How about Slaughterhouse-Five and Pride and Prejudice? Would you read them again now that no one's grading you, just for your own enjoyment? This book helps you decide to do just that. Author Kevin Smokler will guide you through fifty books commonly assigned in high school English class and show you why you'd probably enjoy rereading the same books as an adult.Smokler's essays on the classics - witty, down-to-earth, appreciative, and insightful - are divided into ten sections, each covering an archetypical stage of life - from youth and first love to family, loss, and the future. The author not only reminds you about the essential features of each great book but gives you a practical, real-world reason why revisiting it in adulthood is not only enjoyable but useful. Can The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn help you cope with aging? What does To Kill a Mockingbird have to say about being a parent? How about Fahrenheit 451 on not getting stuck in a crappy job? Practical Classics gives you an incentive to reread and a reason why.

Kevin Smokler (San Francisco, CA) is the editor of Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of 2005. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Believer.