New Yorker writer returns to high school English class — for a year

Valerie Strauss introduces an excerpt from David Denby’s book Lit Up at The Washington Post.

"David Denby is a highly regarded journalist who is a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and the author of Great Books: My Adventures With Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World, a fascinating 1996 narrative about his experience going back to Columbia University a few decades after graduating and re-enrolling in core classes that taught the 'great books' of the Western Canon. Now Denby has written a new book, Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives, again immersing himself in class — but this time at high school — to learn if great teachers can help young people fall in love with great literary works."

And at On Point with Tom Ashbrook at WBUR Boston, How To Get Teens To Read:

"David Denby on the 24 great books that can bring even today’s kids to reading. And maybe you, too."