Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments

by Michael Dirda

Overview

"For some time now, the best book critic in America has been Michael Dirda."—Michael M. Thomas, New York Observer

Intimate, humorous, and insightful, Readings is a collection of classic essays and reviews by Michael Dirda, book critic of the Washington Post and winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. From a first reading of Beckett and Faulkner at the feet of an inspirational high-school English teacher to a meeting of the P. G. Wodehouse Society, from an obsession with Nabokov's Lolita to the discovery of the Japanese epic The Tale of Genji, these essays chronicle a lifetime of literary enjoyment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393324891
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/01/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Michael Dirda, who won a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism at the Washington Post Book World, is the author of An Open Book, Bound to Please, and Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	The Crime of His Life	1
	The Quest for Scrivener	4
	Talismans	9
	Maxims, Etc.	14
	Heart of the Matter	19
	Bookman's Saturday	23
	Supplementary Materials	28
	Listening to My Father	33
	Romantic Scholarship	38
	Weekend with Wodehouse	43
	An Abecedary	48
	Mr. Wright	53
	Heian Holiday	58
	Childhood's End	63
	The One and the Many	68
	Commencement Advice	73
	Four Novels and a Memoir	78
	The October Country	83
	Bookish Fantasies	86
	Pages on Life's Way	90
	A Garland for Max	95
	Read at Whim!	100
	Comedy Tonight	105
	Light of Other Days	112
	Data Daze	117
	Four-Leaf Clovers	122
	Sez Who?	127
	Lament for a Maker	132
	Clubland	137
	The Learning Channels	140
	Guy Davenport	145
	Eros by Any Other Name	150
	Frank Confessions	155
	Mememormee	160
	Tomes for Tots	164
	Three Classics	169
	Vacation Reading	173
	One More Modest Proposal	177
	Shake Scenes	179
	After Strange Books	184
	Awful Bits	189
	Turning 50	193
	Blame It on Books	198
	On the Road Not Taken	203
	Excursion	208
	Millennial Readings	213

Editorial Reviews

"Michael Dirda is a superb literary essayist, and Readings should provide deep delight for discerning readers."

Harold Bloom

"Michael Dirda may be as close to the ideal as we are likely to get."

Annie Proulx

Since 1993, Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Dirda, senior editor of the Washington Post Book World, has been beguiling readers with charming tales of a passionate life spent among books. This collection of Dirda's monthly "Readings" columns ranges over topics as diverse as book collecting, classic children's books (he is the former children's book editor at Book World), the intoxicating delights of reading The Tale of Genji, and the guilty pleasures of omnivorous reading. In rich and elegant prose, Dirda pens a poignant paean to his father, waxes wistful about turning 50, and muses mirthfully on the stories of P.G. Wodehouse and other comic writers. From the storehouse of his accumulated literary learning, Dirda happily shares a number of gems about the reading life. For example, on the pleasures of book reviewing he writes, "to open a new book tentatively, with indifference even, and to find oneself again yet again in thrall--to a writer's prose, to a thriller's plot, to a thinker's mind. Let the whole world crumble, so long as I can read another page." Dirda both instructs and entertains with his delightful wit and his zestful insight. Anyone who loves books is bound to love Dirda. Highly recommended.--Henry Carrigan, Lancaster, PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A delightful compendium of Dirda's most memorable Washington Post Book World essays revels in seven years' worth of bibliophilic passion.

Kirkus Reviews