What do the great books of your youth have to say about your life now? Smokler's essays on the classics 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.

The midlife crisis of Huckleberry Finn -- Candide says relax : then get to work -- A separate peace and the dream of best friends forever -- Owners of our lonely hearts -- How the uncaged bird sings -- Real Indians play rock 'n roll -- The autobiography of Malcolm X : yours and mine -- Edith Wharton : 'innocence is for wimps' -- The us yet to come -- Am I a man or an android? -- If this library is paradise -- Staying out of The bell jar -- You may find yourself trapped in Alexander Portnoy's head -- Cannery Row : where everybody knows your name -- My favorite book of them all -- Pride and prejudice : Jane Austen for the clumsier sex -- Marriage counseling from Henrik Ibsen -- Eyes on love -- I've been young and afraid, Joyce Carol Oates : thank you for asking -- The scarlet letter : I don't like it either -- Bartleby in the breakroom -- The work/life balance of Sherlock Holmes -- Working at relaxing with David Foster Wallace -- At the office with 'Master Harold' ... and the boys -- Burning books : one crappy job -- Why To kill a mockingbird makes a great father's day gift -- The ambivalent family of Toni Morrison -- Of wontons, mahjong, and time -- A family of giant insects -- Maus : a comic book about fathers, sons, and genocide -- The renaissance nerds of The phantom tollbooth -- Camping it up with Susan Sontag -- 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' by Walter Benjamin, notes by Kevin Smokler -- Hello, I'm William Shakespeare -- Understanding Marshall McLuhan -- Holden Caulfield, that little brat -- Albert Camus, the unsexy stranger -- Shirley Jackson's rituals of violence -- The stone-faced trip of Slaughterhouse-five -- An act of violence, a book of forgiveness -- The shameless case of Walt Whitman -- Emily Dickinson's lessons for success -- Little heroes and locust -- Visit Tinker Creek : then keep going -- How to tell a hero story -- Beware of revolutionaries who look like pigs -- Meet Thomas Pynchon, your driving companion -- The remains of tomorrow -- Four different ways that things fall apart -- A letter.