Do you have a book in you?

Spring always seems the beginning of the year to me, and so about this time I start to look ahead at the work I have planned between now and Christmas. At the moment, I’ve got various essays and reviews lined up for the next couple of months, a talk in April, another in late summer and a third in October. I’ll also be proofing the text of On Conan Doyle--due out in October. With luck, I’ll be able to pay the bills for another year.

Still, every spring I try to think of some Big Book Project I’d like to do. For a long time, I hoped to write something expansive about “The Great Age of Storytelling.” But trade publishers weren’t interested in a book about popular fiction between 1870 and 1930. My course on The Classic Adventure Novel and the Arthur Conan Doyle book are the remnants of that particular dream. At other times, I’ve thought that I should try a biography, but most of the people I think of are either too obscure or too obvious or require too much time and work. And then I wonder if it might not be time for that novel . . .

Sigh. Such vague thoughts are going through my head even as I type. But will anything come of them? I’m not really sure.

Still, I was wondering about other members of the Reading Room: Have you ever wanted to write a book? On what subject or in what genre? Do you have any suggestions for books that the world could use and doesn’t yet have? Please share your thoughts.

- Michael Dirda