num_pages: 246
description: 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 galoreof 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.
language: English
title: Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living with Books
publisher: Pegasus