Robertson Davies

Michael Dirda

In the second book of the Deptford Trilogy, following Fifth Business, David Staunton, a successful man haunted by his relationship with his larger-than-life father, uses therapy to come to terms with his past. Reprint.

The Manticore

Journalist Michael Kinsley has described Michael Dirda as “the best-read person in America,” then added “but he doesn’t rub it in.” Michael M. Thomas called him, in the New York Observer, “the best book critic in America." Nevertheless, no one named Michael was involved when Dirda was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his reviews in the Washington Post or when his recent book, On Conan Doyle, picked up an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America. Dirda's latest volume collects fifty of his poignant and puissant essays about “the literary life.” The result is a celebration, a fan’s notes, the perfect gift for any booklover or for one’s own bedtime browsing. For readers who admire Janet Flanner, Joseph Mitchell, Edmund Wilson and M.F. K. Fisher, this volume is the ideal literary companion. 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, beloved children’s classics, and, not least, a revealing peek at the titles Michael keeps on his own nightstand.

Browsings

"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.

Notes on Reading and Life

Book by Book

Classics for Pleasure

A collection of classic essays and reviews by a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic for the Washington Post includes writings on the author's first experiences of Beckett and Faulkner in high school, a meeting of the P.G. Wodehouse Society, and a discovery of the Japanese epic The Tale of Genji. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Essays and Literary Entertainments

Readings

A showcase of one hundred of the world's most significant books is comprised of some of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's introductory essays on such writers as James Boswell, Colette, and Joseph Roth, in a volume that includes explorations of a range of genres as well as numerous specific works. Reprint.

An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education

Bound to Please

Organized thematically, a collection of essays introduces nearly ninety of the world's most entertaining and informative books, covering masterpieces of fantasy and science fiction, horror and adventure, epics, history, philosophy, essays, and children's literature, by authors ranging from Sappho and Petronius to Frederick Douglass, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Georgette Heyer. Reprint.

Claude Houghton

"So remarkable in truth is this novel that I cannot understand why it is not universally known and admired." - Hugh Walpole ""I Am Jonathan Scrivener" remains a tantalizing, highly diverting philosophical novel of rare elegance and wit." - Michael Dirda James Wrexham is thirty-nine, lonely, and stuck in a dead-end job when he comes upon an advertisement for a position as secretary to Mr. Jonathan Scrivener. Much to his surprise, he is hired at a lavish salary despite never even meeting Scrivener, and he is told to take up residence at once in the flat of his new employer, who has suddenly disappeared. Mystified by Scrivener's strange conduct and desperate to learn something about him, it seems Wrexham will get the answers he seeks when Scrivener's friends begin to visit the flat: Pauline Mandeville, an ethereal beauty, Francesca Bellamy, a widow who may responsible for the death of her husband, Andrew Middleton, a disillusioned alcoholic, and Antony Rivers, a handsome playboy. But as each of them unfolds his story about Scrivener, it seems that none of them are describing the same person, though all are obsessed with finding him. Why has he hired Wrexham, and why does he seem to have thrust this unlikely group of people together? Is Scrivener engaged in an inscrutable experiment, or could he be laying some kind of trap? And will this enigmatic figure ever appear and say, "I am Jonathan Scrivener"? Popular in his time for his psychological thrillers, Claude Houghton (1889-1961) was admired by writers as diverse as P. G. Wodehouse, Henry Miller, Hugh Walpole, and Graham Greene, but has fallen into neglect in the past half-century. This new edition restores his masterpiece "I Am Jonathan Scrivener" (1930) to print and includes Walpole's introduction from the 1935 edition and an essay by Pulitzer Prize winning critic and Washington Post columnist Michael Dirda.

I Am Jonathan Scrivener

Reggie Oliver

Thirteen Stories and Two Novellas

Flowers of the Sea

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.

Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books

Once out of school, most people read for pleasure. But for some of us there is an equally important reason that we read: to learn how to live. 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. From essential works for children to the definitive ¿interior library¿ that every reader should have at his command, Dirda offers us an opinionated and personal account of what -- and how -- to draw meaning from what we read. ¿Brilliant.¿ ¿As warm and stimulating as a library to which one returns again and again.¿

A Pulitzer Prize-winning critic's often surprising meditation on those places where life and books intersect and what might be learned from both Once out of school, most of us read for pleasure. Yet there is another equally important, though often overlooked, reason that we read: to learn how to live. Though books have always been understood as life-teachers, the exact way in which they instruct, cajole, and convince remains a subject of some mystery. 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 can inform and enrich 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 considerable knowledge, which he wears lightly. Favoring showing rather than telling, Dirda draws the reader deeper into the classics, as well as lesser-known works of literature, history, and philosophy, always with an eye to what is relevant to how we might better understand our lives.

From Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Michael Dirda, a delightful introduction to the creator of Sherlock Holmes A passionate lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Michael Dirda is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars—the most famous and romantic of all Sherlockian groups. Combining memoir and appreciation, On Conan Doyle is a highly engaging personal introduction to Holmes's creator, as well as a rare insider’s account of the curiously delightful activities and playful scholarship of The Baker Street Irregulars. On Conan Doyle is a much-needed celebration of Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius for every kind of storytelling.

Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling

On Conan Doyle

A showcase of one hundred of the world's most significant books offers the author's introductory essays on such writers as James Boswell, Colette, and Joseph Roth, and includes explorations of a range of genres and specific works.

An Extraordinary One-volume Literary Education : Essays on Great Writers and Their Books

A passionate lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes adventures, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Michael Dirda is a member of The Baker Street Irregulars—the most famous and romantic of all Sherlockian groups. Combining memoir and appreciation, On Conan Doyle is a highly engaging personal introduction to Holmes's creator, as well as a rare insider’s account of the curiously delightful activities and playful scholarship of The Baker Street Irregulars. On Conan Doyle is a much-needed celebration of Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius for every kind of storytelling.

The memoirs of a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary journalist and critic discusses his childhood and education in small-town Ohio, his colorful family and friends, and his voracious appetite for reading. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Coming of Age in the Heartland

An Open Book

Presents a critical analysis of the works of the British author, including his mysteries about Sherlock Holmes and his lesser-known short stories and novels.

Michael Dirda

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