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Classics for Pleasure
This is not your father’s list of classics. In these delightful essays, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Dirda introduces nearly ninety of the world’s most entertaining books. Writing with affection as well as authority, Dirda covers masterpieces of fantasy and science fiction, horror and adventure, as well as epics, history, essay, and children’s literature. Organized themat...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
November 10th 2008
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(first published November 5th 2007)
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"Real" rating = 3.5 or so
Michael Dirda's Classics for Pleasure is an eminently readable collection of three-to-five-page essays on authors of the lesser known "classics" of Western literature (mostly - Dirda does slip in Laozi (China) and Ferdowsi (Iran)). I'm not about to rush out and find all of the works mentioned in this book but there are some that I am interested in reading. And the ones that I don't feel attracted to? Well, now at least I have an idea of wh...more
Michael Dirda's Classics for Pleasure is an eminently readable collection of three-to-five-page essays on authors of the lesser known "classics" of Western literature (mostly - Dirda does slip in Laozi (China) and Ferdowsi (Iran)). I'm not about to rush out and find all of the works mentioned in this book but there are some that I am interested in reading. And the ones that I don't feel attracted to? Well, now at least I have an idea of wh...more
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OK. It's official. Michael Dirda is awesome. He's smart, witty (but not obnoxiously so), extravagantly well-read, and writes lucidly and entertainingly, without condescension. Simply put, he's charming. You couldn't ask for a better Virgil to help you navigate the classics.
The list of classics discussed in this book is not your parent's list. More specifically, it is not Clifton Fadiman's list. In his introduction, Dirda pays homage to Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan", wh...more
The list of classics discussed in this book is not your parent's list. More specifically, it is not Clifton Fadiman's list. In his introduction, Dirda pays homage to Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan", wh...more
Matthew Hunter
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who read for enjoyment
Shelves:
books-on-books
I tend toward "serious" reading - alternative histories, current affairs, psychology, spirituality, etc. Recently, I realized that I hardly ever read good literature. Then I discovered a series of books by Michael Dirda, literary critic for the Washington Post.
For those who choose to explore Classics for Pleasure, I challenge you NOT to go running to your local bookstore or library to read the works of these authors. It's impossible, I think. So far, based upon his sugg...more
For those who choose to explore Classics for Pleasure, I challenge you NOT to go running to your local bookstore or library to read the works of these authors. It's impossible, I think. So far, based upon his sugg...more
This book is similar to Dirda's "Bound to Please," a collection of quasi-review/analysis and spoiler-eschewing briefs on major books and writers throughout history. Dirda is enthusiastic and easy to read, striking up interest in books which might otherwise escape notice outside of a college survey of 'old' literature. This book (Like 'Bound to Please') is something of a salty snack. You can reach in just about anywhere and get the same happy tone as Dirda sings the praises of authors y...more
Michael Dirda is not only a Pulitzer-Prize-winning literary critic, but is becoming my personal guru for book recommendations. Not that he is aware of this, of course. But I have a special place in my heart for a (a) literary (b) man who can, in print, refer to Georgette Heyer as "as witty as any writer of the past century, as accomplished as P. G. Wodehouse in working out complex plots, and as accurate as a professional historian in getting her background details right." Dirda is not ...more
You won t find a lot of the usual suspects written up in this collection of essays on classic literature. People already know about Dickens, Hemingway, Austen, and the Brontes. They don t need Dirda to point the way. Dirda believes that it s more useful and fun to point readers to new authors and less obvious classics. [return][return]One of the best things about this book is Dirda s broad approach. He doesn t confine himself to one era, genre, or style. He also doesn t expect every b...more
Heather
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who think they've read the classics of English literature
Recommended to Heather by:
Dirda is a favorite author
Shelves:
adult-readers
Michael Dirda is my favorite book critic, and this collection of essays is a good example of why.
He begins, rather charmingly, by assuming that the reader is familiar with Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan" and has already read most of the standards of the Western canon. This book is Dirda's essays on classic literature that even a well-read person may have missed- Sheridan Le Fanu, for example, or Diderot, or the Satyricon. Well, as it happens, I had missed those, althoug...more
He begins, rather charmingly, by assuming that the reader is familiar with Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan" and has already read most of the standards of the Western canon. This book is Dirda's essays on classic literature that even a well-read person may have missed- Sheridan Le Fanu, for example, or Diderot, or the Satyricon. Well, as it happens, I had missed those, althoug...more
Maybe this one was talked up too much for me, but I really thought this was overrated, and it seems like Dirda might have been elevated to the NPR Smug Cannon (Ira Glass, Malcolm Gladwell, Oliver Sacks, maybe Mark Bittman) in that there's a way they make the reader feel smarter with little effort.
Part of my problems with this might be that I read it straight through, b/c i had it from the library- maybe if i look out for him in small doses in the Post or wherever, it won't be so muc...more
Part of my problems with this might be that I read it straight through, b/c i had it from the library- maybe if i look out for him in small doses in the Post or wherever, it won't be so muc...more
I was expecting this to be a 10; it barely scraped in at a 7. I could not wait for it to be published; I stopped by the bookstore three times, hoping to find a copy before the official publication date. And then when I actually got the copy and started to read it? You must be kidding me. Who would read these books? The summaries did not even intrigue me. I, who have been known to write down titles recommended by first graders, wrote down a single recommendation from the scores Dirda mentions. Bi...more
This book delivers one of the better literary tours conducted in recent years.
The tour itself is somewhat light, invitational in tone, and maintains its mission to find fun and pleasure in literary classics.
Dirda tends to celebrate more of what I would term "anthological literature" (literature that almost always ends up in an anthology).
Some mentions of modern writers such as Italo Calvino add, in my opinion, to the value and appeal of this book: th...more
The tour itself is somewhat light, invitational in tone, and maintains its mission to find fun and pleasure in literary classics.
Dirda tends to celebrate more of what I would term "anthological literature" (literature that almost always ends up in an anthology).
Some mentions of modern writers such as Italo Calvino add, in my opinion, to the value and appeal of this book: th...more
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
For those who don't know, Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer-winning literary critic, author of several of those "guides to challenging books for those who don't usually like challenging books;" and now we have his latest, 2007's Classics for Pleasure, essentially more of the same, thi...more
For those who don't know, Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer-winning literary critic, author of several of those "guides to challenging books for those who don't usually like challenging books;" and now we have his latest, 2007's Classics for Pleasure, essentially more of the same, thi...more
I saw this book on other people's reading list, so I went to the library and brought it home to read. Lots of interesting book recommendations from a personal point of view. Books are grouped into themes like "encyclopedic visions" and "heroes." I calibrated his recommendations by reading a few essays about books I had read, and it turns out that I could trust him. As a result, my wish list has about seven new books added to it.
Get a copy from your library and lea...more
Get a copy from your library and lea...more
No matter how well read you are, you'll come away from this book with a list of titles that you feel you simply must read, immediately, so engagingly does Michael Dirda write about them. It's also refreshing to see someone stepping outside the list of 'established classics' so thoroughly, including authors such as Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Sheridan Le Fanu, and M. R. James alongside more canonical names.
This is really excellent; Dirda makes every book he mentions sounds fascinating and wonderful. I wanted to dig up and reread all the books I have that he mentions, and run right out and buy everything I didn't have. I think I will have to get my own copy of this (I borrowed it from the library), just to have it to refer to in the future.
Dirda has compiled a list of books titles other than those of Clifton Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan'
Each section has a witty title.
Love's Mysteries for books on classic romance where he lists Sappho, Georgette Heyer, Cavafy and Anna Akhmatova. Impressive!
His writing is crisp, lively and engaging.
This is an excellent resource for those wanting to reach beyond basic classical literature.
Each section has a witty title.
Love's Mysteries for books on classic romance where he lists Sappho, Georgette Heyer, Cavafy and Anna Akhmatova. Impressive!
His writing is crisp, lively and engaging.
This is an excellent resource for those wanting to reach beyond basic classical literature.
A great book that is a collection of essays written by the author to inspire his readers to go back an revisit (or read for the first time) many of the classics. It's inspired me to give some of them a try, it's not like I have to read them for an English class or something. Now where did I put that list?
Michael Dirda argues, convincingly enough, that the classics are entertaining and exciting, not just burdens to lift. His book is comprised of 4 dozen 3-4-page essays. The ones that appealed to me most (M. R Jaes, H. Rider Haggard, H. P. Lovecraft aren't the great classics. Those get their due, though.
Delightful source of reading ideas. I often use it, along with the Archive of his discussions through the years on books for The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...
More of a reference than a book one reads and finishes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...
More of a reference than a book one reads and finishes.
I like this book less than Dirda's other similar books, Bound to Please and Readings. The chapters in this book were never newspaper reviews, but were written especially for the book. I found them a little leaner in content than his reviews and also thought that he did not wear his knowledge quite as lightly (plus facts were garbled in a couple places that I recognized, including the entry on Beowulf) . His recommendations also seemed less consistently solid and not always living up to the le...more
I didn't like this quite as much as I had hoped to. Far too many of the books/authors reviewed were way too salacious for my taste, so I won't be reading many of these. There are a few authors included I've already read most of, like Elizabeth Gaskell, Rudyard Kipling, Willa Cather.
I'm not sure whether these classics that Dirda mentions are truly pleasurable reading, but his descriptions of them are compelling enough for me to follow some of his recommendations on my to-read lists. It might take me years to get around to them, though...
Michael Dirda really manages to express the joys of reading a good book in this run through of some of his favorite classic works. Part review and part epitaph, these brief essays shine a pleasant light on some oft overlooked titles.
It references Clifton Fadiman's wonderful and engaging book "The Lifetime Reading Plan" and offers more obscure classics with wonderful descriptions of why the author finds them worthy reads. I read it happily in a day.
fun to read about what I've read; fun to read about what I haven't read: H. Rider Haggard, here I come!
People dig this dude. Ellie and NE are both high on him, so that's pretty good recs.
I will be pretty stoked when I've read all these books.
Good for Clifton Fadiman lovers (wherever you are!)
How can Dirda read so much so closely. It is wonderful to read his essays.
Short reviews of "classic" literature. A pleasant journey.
Wanted to like this more than I did.
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Michael Dirda (born 1948), a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic for the Washington Post.
Two collections of Dirda's literary journalism have been published: Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-253-33824-7) and Bound to Please (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005; ISBN 0-393-05757-7). He has also ...more
More about Michael Dirda...
Two collections of Dirda's literary journalism have been published: Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-253-33824-7) and Bound to Please (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005; ISBN 0-393-05757-7). He has also ...more
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