Books are about people

I interpret that this is because technical books provide security. Its purpose is to teach. The self-help are meant to show the "stepping stones". Nothing against it, but life is more complex.

Therefore, the novels are fantastic. The Italian Italo Calvino wrote a very useful little book called Why Read the Classics. Calvin begins by saying that a classic is the kind of book that people always say they are "rereading" never "reading". ok, a classic is a book that has earned its place in literary history, is an inspiration to other authors and lulls the dreams of millions of people, from Homer to James Joyce, from, of course, by Shakespeare, that redefined the concept of a classical author. After him, all authors seem to be his disciples. Cervantes, although his contemporary, and endowed with literary genius equal in magnitude, was not as lavish on characters.

Far be it from me to think that I am a reader of classics. I'm just curious. The other day I bought Genius, Professor Harold Bloom, where he makes an analysis of one hundred authors, and I felt like an ant. My knowledge of literature are shallow, I admit, but even so, I do not know what my character would have been without the influence of plural types such as the joyful gang of Monteiro Lobato and erudite class of Plato's Dialogues. And also the characters who have become my accomplices, such as Santiago, Hemingway, Captain Ahab, in Melville, Holden Caulfield, Salinger's, Brás Cubas, Machado, Gregor Samsa, Kafka, Dorian Gray, the Wilde, and go there, until Harry Potter, Rowling's.

The short list above is superinjusta because hundreds missing. They only represent those who helped me to think and understand life. And besides, amused me greatly. Without these wonderful imaginary beings, life would have been very dull. Thank you, my friends.