6. Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments by Michael Dirda It is entirely apt, actually poetic, that I discovered this collection in a used bookstore. Throughout these pages, Dirda leads us down labyrinthine library steps, through bookstores forlorn and flourishing, to conferences focused on Wodehouse and Faulkner, to his own private paradise sabbatical featuring the The Tale of Genji . He is always in quest of the cheapest, most covetable, most elusive quarry--the books he wants to read. Readings is a collection of essays that appeared in The Washington Post Book World from 1993-1999. Although they could easily be read separately, reading them together produces a pleasing mental marinade. For example, Dirda's emphasis on the physicality of books in each of his essays becomes all the more clear, even more so against a modern backdrop. In 1993 or 1995 or even 1999, it might not have stood out so much that Dirda is preoccupied with old paperbacks and books of corresponde...
Life, Books, and SFF