The Old Lit Professors Book of Favorite Readings

Book excerpt: Kenneth Tucker taught English for more than thirty years at Murray State University. During his life he has read much indeed. The Old Lit Professor's Book of Favorite Readings collects a number of writings he finds enjoyable, rewarding, and memorable. Stories, essays, poetry, excerpts from longer works compose a potpourri indeed of exceptional writings ranging from Shakespeare to Sherlock Homes, from authors well-known to promising writers of today, including horror and science fiction as well as the classics. Authors range from Herodotus, Homer, Plato, Juvenal through Petrarch, Marguerite of Navarre, Marlowe, Dr. Johnson, to Poe, Hawthorne, Mevillle, to L. Sprague de Camp and William Faulkner on to contemporary poets. One exciting feature of this collection is that most of the selections have not been anthologized before. Although designed for pleasurable reading this book contains introductions and notes which make it suitable as a text for a variety of classes.