Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books (Thorndike Press Large Print Biographies and Memoirs)

A Pulitzer Prize-winning Author An Edgar Award-winning Author Hailed as “the best-read person in America” (The Paris Review) and “the best book critic in America” (The New York Observer), Michael Dirda's latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves.

Dirda has written a rollicking, erudite, and terrifically beguiling little book. Reading experiences don't get much more captivating than this; nor does literary criticism. --Maureen Corrigan"

Charming. "

Michael Dirda''s witty essays on books and bookishness are as addictive as literary potato chips you simply cannot stop with just one. Not only do they whet your appetite for the many volumes he so engagingly recommends, they give you a craving for more of Dirda''s own quirky personality. He is our own Montaigne and our Hazlitt. I want more! --Thomas Mann, author of 'The Oxford Guide to Library Research'"

Imagine having a really unbelievably well-read friend, who likes the same stuff that you do but is able to articulate why he loves it so much better than you can. And while explaining it points you at a hundred books and authors you'd love but haven't heard of or have never got around to reading. And who makes you feel, by the end of his explanation, as if you've been inaugurated into a secret society of people who love what can be done with words. That's who Michael Dirda is, and that's what this book does. --Neil Gaiman"

Michael Dirda's witty essays on books and bookishness are as addictive as literary potato chips you simply cannot stop with just one. Not only do they whet your appetite for the many volumes he so engagingly recommends, they give you a craving for more of Dirda's own quirky personality. He is our own Montaigne and our Hazlitt. I want more! --Thomas Mann, author of 'The Oxford Guide to Library Research'"

This joy-filled, reflective collection makes perfect bedside reading.Literate but never snobby, this collection of essays surely willentertain and enlighten book lovers of all stripes."

Beyond bibliophilism, this is a work about how reading stories builds relationships between readers and writers and between readers and readers and how these relationships change and shape one s life. Dirda s exuberance is infectious, and the book is hard to put down. Clearly this author recognizes that the most important quality of a book is the pleasure it gives."

Michael Dirda is one of the great book reviewers of our age. It is not merely that his writing is so lucid and intelligent or that his taste is so inclusive but discerning. The key to his particular magic is that he is always alert to the complex pleasures that animate literature. His engaging essays are those of a restless, omnivorous reader and a true bookman.--Dana Gioia, poet and former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts

Michael Dirda, bookman extraordinaire, has elevated the indulgent pleasures of browsing to the quality of high art. A marvelous collection for serious book lovers, common readers and all of us who take a guilty delight in the gossip of literature.--Alberto Manguel, author of 'A History of Reading'

Pleasure, provocation, passion just some of the words that came to my mind and through my heart as Iperusedthis book. A reunion with the old forgotten favorite books and an introduction to some dazzling new ones, this is a book to go to bed with, to wake up to, and to browse through in between.--Azar Nafisi, #1 'New York Times' bestselling author of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' and 'The Republic of Imagination'"