A. Every man is his own best critic. Whatever the learner say about a book, however unanimous they are in their praise of it, unless it interests you, it is no business of yours. Don't forget that critics often make mistakes; the history of criticism is full of the blunders the most eminent of them have made, and you who read are the final judge of the value to you of the book you are reading. This, of course, applies to the books I am going to recommend to your attention.

B. And so I beg of you, if any of you who read these pages are tempted to read the books I suggest and cannot get on with them, just put them down; they will be of no service to you if you do not enjoy them. No one is under an obligation to read poetry or fiction or the miscellaneous literature which is classed as belles-lettres. He must read them for pleasure, and who can claim that what pleases one man must necessarily please another?

C. We are none of us exactly like everyone else, only rather like, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that the books that have meant a great deal to me should be precisely those that will mean a great deal to you. But they are books that I feel the richer for having read, and I think I should not be quite the man I am if I had not read them.

D. The first thing I want to insist on is that reading should be enjoyable. Of course, there are many books that we all have to read, either to pass examinations or to acquire information, from which it is impossible to extract enjoyment. We are reading them for instruction, and the best we can hope is that our need for it will enable us to get through them without tedium. Such books we read with resignation rather than with alacrity. But that is not the sort of reading I have in mind. The books I shall mention in due course will help you neither to get a degree nor to earn your living, they will not teach you to sail a boat or to get a stalled motor to run, but they will help you to live more fully. That, however, they cannot do unless you enjoy reading them.

A. 就自己而言，每个人都是最好的评论家。无论哪个学者对某一本书说了些什么，无论他们如何众口一词地对它大加称赞，倘若它激不起你的兴趣，那么这本书就与你毫不相干。别忘了，批评家也常常犯错误，批评史上最杰出的批评家们犯的大错比比皆是。作为读者，你是你所读书籍价值的最终仲裁人。这一点自然适用于我将要向你推荐的那些书目。

B. 因此，我恳请你们，要是你们中哪一位在读了我这篇文章之后禁不住想去阅读我所推荐的书目，却发现无法卒读，那就干脆把它们放下--倘若你不喜欢它们，那它们对你就毫无用处。没有什么人非要去读诗歌、小说以及其他归为“纯文学”的作品不可。读者阅读这些作品必然是为了获取快乐；而谁又能说，使一位读者感到愉快的书一定会让另一位读者喜欢呢？

C. 我们当中，没有一个人跟另外一个人完全相像，至多有点相像而已。想当然地认为对我来说很有价值的书恰恰对你也很有价值，这是不合情理的。但是在读完这些书之后，我感到更加充实了，我觉得要是没有读它们，我就不会成为现在的我。

D. 我想坚持的第一点是，阅读应当是愉悦的。自然，我们每一个人都会为了通过考试，或是为了获取信息而阅读大量的书籍。从这样的阅读中我们无法获取快乐。我们读这些书是为了接受教育。我们最多只能希望既然这些书籍非读不可，我们在读完之后不至于感到单调乏味。这样的书，我们读得无可奈何而不是轻松愉快。然而，我心目中的阅读不属于这一种。我在下面很快将要提到的那一类书既不能帮助你获取学位，也不能帮助你挣钱谋生，更不能教会你驾驶船只或修好出了故障的马达；然而，它们能够帮助你活得更加充实。而这一点，除非你喜欢阅读它们，否则是无法做到的。