Author: Michael Dirda
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Dirda compiled an entire year’s worth of literary essays in his 2015 book about books, aptly titled Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living with Books.
The essays were written on Fridays between February 2012 and February 2013, and began as 600-word columns in The American Scholar that combined literary and personal aspects. Dirda soon found that the word count naturally increased, sometimes doubling or even tripling, due to what he called his “natural loquacity.”
In the introduction he writes: “These are … very personal pieces, the meandering reflections of a literary sybarite. The essays themselves are thematically very diverse and rarely adhere exactly to their stated titles.”
Dirda is a longtime book columnist for the Washington Post and also writes regularly for many literary sections in publications such as the New York Review of Books. Washingtonian Magazine once listed him as one of the 25 smartest people in the capital.
This collection of essays is a true celebration of American literature. Dirda explores his accidental discoveries and the joy of reading for its own sake. His passion goes beyond bibliophilia; the compilation is his love letter to all the books he has discovered along his journey.
The author’s quick wit comes across clearly on paper and he comes across as a friend who is a bookworm and can talk endlessly about books with such passion that it makes you interested in reading again.
“I hope that ‘Browsings’ as a whole gives a sense of a year in the life of a journalist with a particular interest in literature. I also hope that it will encourage readers to search for some of the many titles I mention or discuss,” Dirda writes.
The books he examines are varied, and he offers readers insights that jump out at you. The essays are short enough, but he asks that you read only a few at a time.
“Allow me to make two small recommendations: First, don’t read more than two or three of the pieces at once. Spread them out. That way, it will take longer to browse through and you’ll enjoy each essay more. Trust me.
“Secondly, you should read the columns in the order in which they appear. Each column is meant to stand alone, but I have taken care to keep the topics nicely varied and to provide a seasonal arc to the series as a whole.”