Browsings

Browsings collects fifty of Dirda's witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the postmoderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Marilynne Robinson and Hunter S. Thompson. His topics are equally literary pets, the lost art of cursive, the pleasures of science fiction conventions, writer's block, and much more, not to overlook a few rants about American culture. There are also annotated lists galore--of perfect book titles, great adventure novels, favorite words, essential books about books, and beloved children's classics.