Classics for Pleasure

by Michael Dirda

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 thematically, these are works that have shaped our imaginations.
"Love’s Mysteries" moves from Sappho and Arthurian romance to Sören Kierkegaard and Georgette Heyer.
In other categories Dirda discusses not only Dracula and Sherlock Holmes but also the Tao Te Ching and Icelandic sagas, Frederick Douglass and Fowler’s Modern English Usage.
Whether writing about Petronius or Perelman, Dirda makes literature come alive. Classics for Pleasure is a perfect companion for any reading group or lover of books.
[Source: Amazon]

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Literary Criticism, Classics, Essays, Reference, Literature

341 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2007

About the author

Michael Dirda (born 1948), a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning critic. After earning a PhD in comparative literature from Cornell University, the joined the Washington Post in 1978.

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 written Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2005; ISBN 0-8050-7877-0), Classics for Pleasure (Orlando: Harcourt, 2007; ISBN 0-151-01251-2), critical biographical study On Conan Doyle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011; ISBN 0-691-15135-0), which received a 2012 Edgar Award, and the autobiographical An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003; ISBN 0-393-05756-9).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_...