Background
Dirda, Michael was born in 1948 in Lorain, Ohio, AMERICA0.
( From Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Michael Dirda c...)
From Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Michael Dirda comes a collection of his most personal and engaging essays on the literary life―the perfect companion for any lover of books. Michael Dirda has been hailed as "the best-read person in America" (The Paris Review) and "the best book critic in America" (The New York Observer). In addition to the Pulitzer Prize he was awarded for his reviews in The Washington Post, he picked up an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America for his most recent book, On Conan Doyle. Dirda's latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the post-moderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace. Dirda's topics are equally diverse: literary pets, the lost art of cursive writing, book inscriptions, the pleasures of science fiction conventions, author photographs, novelists in old age, Oberlin College, a year in Marseille, writer's block, and much more, not to overlook a few rants about Washington life and American culture. As admirers of his earlier books will expect, there are annotated lists galore―of perfect book titles, great adventure novels, favorite words, essential books about books, and beloved children's classics, as well as a revealing peek at the titles Michael keeps on his own nightstand. Funny and erudite, occasionally poignant or angry, Browsings is a celebration of the reading life, a fan's notes, and the perfect gift for any booklover.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1605988448/?tag=2022091-20
( "Michael Dirda may be as close to the ideal critic as w...)
"Michael Dirda may be as close to the ideal critic as we are likely to get."―Annie Proulx Surveying the dizzying universe of classic books, Michael Dirda, the Pulitzer Prize-winning literary essayist, proves himself to be one of the most engaging critics of our time―and great fun to read. Opening with an impassioned critique of modern reading habits, he then presents many of the great, and idiosyncratic, writers he loves most. In this showcase of one hundred of the world's most astonishing books, Dirda covers a remarkable range of literature, including popular genres such as the detective novel and ghost story, while never neglecting the deeper satisfactions of sometimes overlooked classics. Short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for criticism, Bound to Please is a glorious celebration of just how much fun reading can be.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393329631/?tag=2022091-20
( This is not your father’s list of classics. In these de...)
This is not your father’s list of classics. In these delightful essays, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Dirda introduces nearly ninety of the world’s most entertaining books. Writing with affection as well as authority, Dirda covers masterpieces of fantasy and science fiction, horror and adventure, as well as epics, history, essay, and children’s literature. Organized thematically, these are works that have shaped our imaginations. "Love’s Mysteries" moves from Sappho and Arthurian romance to Sören Kierkegaard and Georgette Heyer. In other categories Dirda discusses not only Dracula and Sherlock Holmes but also the Tao Te Ching and Icelandic sagas, Frederick Douglass and Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Whether writing about Petronius or Perelman, Dirda makes literature come alive. Classics for Pleasure is a perfect companion for any reading group or lover of books.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156033852/?tag=2022091-20
(The acclaimed literary journalist Michael Dirda recreates...)
The acclaimed literary journalist Michael Dirda recreates his boyhood in rust-belt Ohio. The result is an affectionate homage to small-town America, as well as a paean to what could be called the last great age of reading.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393057569/?tag=2022091-20
( "As warm and stimulating as a library to which one retu...)
"As warm and stimulating as a library to which one returns again and again." ―Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice) While books contain insights into our selves and the world, it takes a conversation―between the author and the reader, or between two readers―to bring them fully to life. Drawing on sources as diverse as Dr. Seuss and Simone Weil, P. G. Wodehouse and Isaiah Berlin, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Michael Dirda shows how the wit, wisdom, and enchantment of the written word informs and enriches nearly every aspect of life, from education and work to love and death. Organized by significant life events and abounding with quotations from great writers and thinkers, Book by Book showcases Dirda's capacious love for and understanding of books. Favoring showing as much as telling, Dirda draws us deeper into the classics, as well as lesser-known works of literature, history, and philosophy, always with an eye to how we might better understand our lives.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805083383/?tag=2022091-20
Dirda, Michael was born in 1948 in Lorain, Ohio, AMERICA0.
Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree in 1970, Dirda took an Master of Arts in 1974 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1977 from Cornell University in comparative literature.
Currently, he is a book columnist for the Post. They have three sons: Christopher (b 1984), Michael (b 1987), and Nathaniel (b 1990).
( From Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Michael Dirda c...)
(The acclaimed literary journalist Michael Dirda recreates...)
( "Michael Dirda may be as close to the ideal critic as w...)
( "As warm and stimulating as a library to which one retu...)
( This is not your father’s list of classics. In these de...)
(A year of reading)
(Paperback - 1990)
(New copy. Fast shipping. Will be shipped from US.)
Member National Book Critics Circle (former board directors).
M. Marian Peck; children: Christopher, Michael, Nathaniel.