Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-volume Literary Education : Essays on Great Writers and Their Books

Michael Dirda

W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2005 - Literary Criticism - 525 pages

Among the most enjoyable of literary critics, Michael Dirda combines erudition with enthusiasm, a taste for the outré and the forgotten, and a playful, understated wit. Like George Orwell or Gore Vidal, Dirda delights in popular genres, such as the detective novel and the ghost story, without neglecting the deeper satisfactions of sometimes-overlooked classics. This new work features scores of Dirda's most engaging essays, never previously collected in book form, all intended to introduce readers to wonderful writers, from the anecdotal Herodotus and James Boswell to the sensuous Colette and Steven Millhauser to such European masters as Joseph Roth, Flann O'Brien, and Penelope Fitzgerald. With his trademark enthusiasm, Dirda also explores The Arabian Nights, the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, the crime novels of Chester Himes and K. C. Constantine, and the worlds of Tarzan, Cormac McCarthy, and Proust. Bound to Please is a glorious celebration of just how much fun reading can be.

What people are saying

Review: Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education

User Review  - David Silva - Goodreads

I love Michael Dirda's books. I use them as pre nap inspiration. I read as I am falling asleep, short one page reviews that many times remind me of much loved writing and often lead me to new ...

Review: Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education

User Review  - Mysteryfan - Goodreads

The subtitle is a one-volume literary education and it really is. It contains short essays on more than 100 writers. I made a list of writers whose books I want to read after reading the essays. He ...

About the author

Michael Dirda , who won a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism at the Washington Post Book World , is the author of An Open Book , Bound to Please, and Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments . He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-volume Literary Education : Essays on Great Writers and Their Books
• Author: Michael Dirda
• Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2005
• ISBN: 0393057577, 9780393057577
• Length: 525 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / Books & Reading