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Literary Taste: How to Form It

by Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)

Arnold Bennett describes a method for enjoying literature, and suggests the contents of a comprehensive library. Chapters 1-10 and 14 describe his method for learning to enjoy literature. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 contain detailed lists of the 337 volumes required to complete a comprehensive library of English works. This reading is from the 1913 version at Project Gutenberg, and so does not contain the revisions made by Swinnerton for the 1939 edition, which included authors of the early Twentieth Century. Swinnerton’s revisions are available from Wikipedia. (Summary by Timothy Ferguson)

CD booklet
Album Art

• Gutenberg e-text
• Wikipedia – Arnold Bennett
• Wikipedia – Literary Taste: How to Form It
• M4B format available
• LibriVox’s Literary Taste: How to Form It Internet Archive page
• Zip file of the entire book – 87MB
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Total running time: 3:00:52
Read by Timothy Ferguson

mp3 and ogg files

• 01 – The Aim – 00:10:18
  [mp3@64kbps - 4.9MB]
  [mp3@128kbps - 9.8MB]
  [ogg vorbis - 5.4MB]
• 02 – Your Particular Case – 00:09:56
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  [mp3@128kbps - 9.5MB]
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• 03 – Why A Classic Is A Classic – 00:09:15
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  [ogg vorbis - 4.9MB]
• 04 – Where To Begin – 00:11:06
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• 05 – How To Read A Classic – 00:11:22
  [mp3@64kbps - 5.4MB]
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• 06 – The Question of Style – 00:18:41
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  [mp3@128kbps - 17.9MB]
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• 07 – Wrestling With An Author – 00:12:00
  [mp3@64kbps - 5.7MB]
  [mp3@128kbps - 11.5MB]
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• 08 – System in Reading – 00:09:46
  [mp3@64kbps - 4.6MB]
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• 09 – Verse – 00:19:09
  [mp3@64kbps - 9.1MB]
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• 10 – Broad Counsels – 00:09:14
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• 11 – An English Library: Period I – 00:11:14
  [mp3@64kbps - 5.3MB]
  [mp3@128kbps - 10.7MB]
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• 12 – An English Library: Period II – 00:08:23
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• 13 – An English Library: Period III – 00:19:42
  [mp3@64kbps - 9.4MB]
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• 14 – Mental Stocktaking – 00:20:46
  [mp3@64kbps - 9.9MB]
  [mp3@128kbps - 19.9MB]
  [ogg vorbis - 11MB]

Cataloged on March 06, 2009