Michael Dirda, Readings
Mon, Apr. 19th, 2004 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI don't feel the same sense of piercing loss finishing this book that I do for others -- instead of having been wrenched out of a particularly glorious world, it is more as though I have emerged with Dirda's voice and thoughts within me. He's graciously shared his books with me, and I have not been shut out of his world once the book has closed.
My favorite passage, out of many: "The pleasures of a book reviewer: to open a new book tentatively, with indifference even, and to find oneself yet again in thrall -- to a writer's prose, to a thriller's plot, to a thinker's mind. Let the whole wide world crumble, so long as I can read another page. And then another after that. And then a hundred more."
My Books to Read list, formidable to begin with, has probably quadrupled in size now.
I read this book slowly, parcelled out during several hour-long lunches that felt both luxurious and too short. I wanted to read more, but I also wanted to savor it. I wore a smile the entire time I read it, sometimes elicited by the bemused recognition of the insatiable hunger for books, sometimes out of sheer enjoyment of Dirda's enthusiasm, and sometimes because it was too funny not to. I think the book is a text equivalent to sitting next to a roaring fire and drinking hot chocolate.
I was also quite proud of myself when two childhood favorites appeared in recommended "Tomes for Tots": Each Peach Pear Plum (need to find that again) and Over in the Meadow!
I am quite sure I will be pulling this out to quote things at people, or to luxuriate in book love, or to dig up more recommendations many, many times.
My favorite passage, out of many: "The pleasures of a book reviewer: to open a new book tentatively, with indifference even, and to find oneself yet again in thrall -- to a writer's prose, to a thriller's plot, to a thinker's mind. Let the whole wide world crumble, so long as I can read another page. And then another after that. And then a hundred more."
My Books to Read list, formidable to begin with, has probably quadrupled in size now.
I read this book slowly, parcelled out during several hour-long lunches that felt both luxurious and too short. I wanted to read more, but I also wanted to savor it. I wore a smile the entire time I read it, sometimes elicited by the bemused recognition of the insatiable hunger for books, sometimes out of sheer enjoyment of Dirda's enthusiasm, and sometimes because it was too funny not to. I think the book is a text equivalent to sitting next to a roaring fire and drinking hot chocolate.
I was also quite proud of myself when two childhood favorites appeared in recommended "Tomes for Tots": Each Peach Pear Plum (need to find that again) and Over in the Meadow!
I am quite sure I will be pulling this out to quote things at people, or to luxuriate in book love, or to dig up more recommendations many, many times.