Genius

Harold Bloom's book, Genius, A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, includes Socrates but not Laurence Sterne, writer of Tristram Shandy.

The inclusions--Emily Bronte, Swinburne, Calvino, Ralph Ellison--are as curious as the omissions--Gertrude Stein for instance--but both make for good reading.

The groupings are remarkable; where else would Blake, D.H. Lawrence, Tennessee Williams, Rilke, and Eugenio Montale come together under one category Bloom names, "Yesod, Lustre 18?"

It's a big book for big people, 814 pages, and possibly as inclusive as a critic like Bloom could possibly be.

"Groupthink is the blight of our Age of Information, and is most pernicious in our obsolete academic institutions, whose long suicide since 1967 continues. The study of mediocrity, whatever its origins, breeds mediocrity," Bloom writes in the preface. 

It would be cool if Bloom were to write a book that began with the aforementioned long suicide, to determine if any genius has emerged from the decline.