The Dictionnaire gave him free rein to develop his aesthetic vision of literature, illustrated with numerous comments on style. The work enjoyed considerable critical and popular esteem, not only in France but also abroad, and was hailed as the major literary event of the year. "A bestseller in the francophone world, Dantzig's Dictionnaire égoïste de la littérature française is en extraordinary undertaking, and anyone who buys it is expecting a fact-filled reference book will be either disappointed or, more likely, happily surprised. Biased, mischievous, provocative, Dantzig is also massively well read, funny and instructive. He is an elegant writer, and is clearly passionate about books." Patrick McGuinness, Times Literary Supplement, jul, 14. 2006  In January 2009, Grasset published a new major work by Charles Dantzig. "The Encyclopédie capricieuse du tout et du rien", written as a compilation of lists, enjoyed considerable success. It met with wide critical acclaim and made the front cover of Le Monde in a cartoon by Plantu. It won the Prix Duménil in May 2009 following a unanimous vote. Charles Dantzig published his essay on reading, "Pourquoi Lire ?", in October 2010. It again met with immediate critical acclaim and popular success and was awarded the Grand Prix Giono. "Divided into over seventy short chapters, the book is an impassioned, wide-ranging and occasionally humorous meditation, buttressed by well-chosen quotations, on reading in all its aspects from "Learning to read", in which he says that he has never understood the pejorative tag attached to the word "bookish", through "Reading aloud" to "How to read".", Adrian Tahourdin,  In 2012, he published a page in the French newspaper "Le Monde" (march, 17) called "Du populisme en littérature" (On populism in literature) where he expresses his concern on a dangerous trend in modern literature. Wouldn't more and more "realist" writers be in fact serving some obscure reactionary forces? It has raised a huge controversy all over the world (Canada, Italy - translation in the Corriere della sera)... In January 2013, he publishes a new essay on masterpieces in literature, the first one in French language, "A propos des chefs-d'oeuvre." The book is already translated in many foreign countries, Italy, Germany, China.