Dirda on Books

Michael Dirda (The Washington Post)

Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda took your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.

Each week Dirda's name appears -- in unmistakably big letters -- on page 15 of The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a hefty literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be turning out one of his idiosyncratic essays or rediscovering some minor Victorian classic. Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain a myopic 12-year-old's passion for reading. He particularly enjoys comic novels, intellectual history, locked-room mysteries, innovative fiction of all sorts.

These days, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (Glenn Gould, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall, The Tallis Scholars), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, working. His most recent books include "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" (Indiana hardcover, 2000; Norton paperback, 2003) and his self-portrait of the reader as a young man, "An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland" (Norton, 2003). In the fall of 2004 Norton will bring out a new collection of his essays and reviews. He is currently working on several other book projects, all shrouded in the most complete secrecy.

Dirda joined The Post in 1978, having grown up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio, and graduated with highest honors in English from Oberlin College. His favorite writers are Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Montaigne, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell, P.G. Wodehouse and Jack Vance. He thinks the greatest novel of all time is either Murasaki Shikubu's "The Tale of Genji" or Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu." In a just world he would own Watteau's painting "The Embarkation for Cythera." He is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, The Ghost Story Society and The Wodehouse Society. He enjoys teaching and was once a visiting professor in the Honors College at the University of Central Florida, which he misses to this day.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! It's a bright sunny day here in Westminster, Maryland, and spring seems to have arrived. Why, I even broke out my running shoes and very gingerly made my way around the McDaniel College track--part of my new program of exercise. Summer is icumen in and it'll be time to go from book to buff. Sort of. Anyway, I'm on my Charles Atlas regime now and thos big kids won't be kicking any sand in my face this year and saying, "Hey, four eyes, read any good books lately? Hah, hah, hah."
As it happens, I've been reading a reallyh terrific book--for review--about the early Greek poets and can hardly tear myself away from it to do this chat. Always nice when you find something you'd expected to be only worthy and good and then find that it's far more than just that.
Enough of that. This week we'll field any sort of question, though our theme is favorite bookstores.
And so without further ado, on to the show!

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Washington, D.C.: Thought we were discussing book stores today: Except for Barnes & Noble in Johnson City, Tenn., I prefer the independents -- such as Atticus in New Haven, Conn., one (I forget its name) in the middle of Asheville, N.C., a new Internet book store even at authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~28281.aspx, but especially Politics & Prose here in here in Washington, WHERE I WAS PRIVILEGED TO HEAR YOU SPEAK ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON SOME YEARS AGO. What are your favorite book stores?

Michael Dirda: Hey, I was in Politics and Prose not more than two weeks ago, talking about Bound to Please. And my very own wife actually said I was pretty good.
Why do you except the Barnes and Noble in Johnson City?
In truth, I will say that when it comes to bookstores focusing on new books I like a) those independents with discriminating taste (ie. they like the same kind of scholarship and literature that I do), and b) any sort of big emporium where I might turn up something unusual.
But this quest for new biblio-sensations does tend to make me an aficionado of the used bookshop, the once common book barn, and the various church and school book sales and bazaars. I like finding bargains, and my taste has now grown so arcane that I really want things that are hard to imagine most bookshops carrying. Plus so many are out of print.
For instance, just today I found that the McDaniel College library had a copy of a book I've wanted to read for years: Spargo's Virgil the Necromancer, a very fat study of the myths that accrued around the poet Virgil during the Middle Ages, the chief of which being that he was a great sorcerer and mage. The much missed Avram Davidson took this legend and made it into a series of stories about Vergil Magus, the best known of which is the novel The Phoenix and the Mirror.

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Chantilly, Va.: Michael -- can you recommend any good fiction set in the DelMarVa region? Mystery, perhaps?

Michael Dirda: Look for books by Christopher Tilghmann, George Pelecanos, James Michener (Chesapeake), Edward P. Jones, and Charles McCarry (wonderful spy novels).

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Lenexa, Kans.: Mr. Dirda: Did you ever work in a bookstore (or library)? It always seemed to me to be a great opportunity to learn. My little hometown was too small for either; consequently, I worked during high school in a grocery store. I knew where everything was shelved, knew all the prices. (It was years before bar code.) Instead of canned goods, produce, meat ..., how much more useful it might have been had it been children's-lit, biography, sci-fi ... Thank you.

Michael Dirda: Not as a boy, but when I first came to Washington I worked on Sunday afternoons in a kind of paperback book exchange, down at Calvert and Connecticut Avenue. I shelved books in exchange for . . . books. Most of the stuff was pretty ordinary, but one day I did pick up a first edition, mint in dj, of a novel by someone from my hometown. It was priced at $2. And so I now own a first--later signed--of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.
A bit later, when I was working days as a technical writer for a computer company, I would spend one evening a week in Bethesday minding Quill and Brush from 6 to 9. Again in exchange for credit. This was an education, since the Ahearns specialized, then as now, in modern firsts. I spent a lot of time just studying the shelves, picking up books, getting a sense of values, learning how to identify firsts, familiarizing myself with reference books and the full range of various authors works. It was a great education for a bookman. I remember that William Targ--a legendary editor--wrote in his autobiography that everyone in publishing and writing should spend some time working in a bookstore.
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Woodbridge, Va.: Is this the week that you are discussing bookstores?

When I visit relatives who live in the suburbs north of Pittsburgh, Pa., I always make a trip to Half Price Books, a used book store located at 4932 McKnight Road, just south of Ross Park Mall. (McKnight Road is Route 19-business on the map). The selection of literary fiction is good, and the books are organized and sorted so everything is easy to find. Apparently this is a chain but I haven't gone to any of the other stores, so can't vouch for them.

Michael Dirda: I've been to other Half Price Books, and they are a good chain of used and remaindered volumes.

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Ashcroft, British Columbia: In these days of cookie-cutter bookstores with their identical coffee bars and racks of greeting cards and tables full of 'Former Bestsellers - 50 percent off' books (how art the mighty fallen!), I think fondly of the good old days at Foyles in London, when books were shelved by publisher, and you had to take purchases to one desk, hand them over, get a chit for the value of the books, take that to another counter, pay, and then reclaim your books from the first counter (all of this, of course, depended on finding staff). Cumbersome, outdated, time-consuming, frustrating: yes, of course it was. But that was part of the charm, and at least you knew you'd been in a bookstore, not some coffee/gift shop that happened to sell books as well. Who was it who said that when you sell a person a book, you're not just selling them paper and glue? In so many bookstores today they might as well be selling widgets, for all the passion and imagination and knowledge and, yes, charm that's on offer.

Michael Dirda: No argument from me. But as a young man--age 21--I remember how frustrating it was to locate books at Foyle's. Of course, I was only there for an hour, and never really had a chance to learn the layout of the place. But I did buy a first of Milton's God, by William Empson there--and then rode the tube out to Hampstead Heath and got the man himself to sign the book. We spent the day together, talking about poetry and China, then walking on Hampstead Heath, visiting Kenwood to look at the Rembrandt self-portraits from his old age, and finally ending the day in a pub with pints of beer, and playing shove ha'penny. In a month or two I'll be reviewing the much anticipated first volume of John Haffenden's biography of Empson. I should add that I wrote my honors thesis as an undergraduate on his poetry and that he was, for many years, my critical hero. As he was for many others. "Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills/ The waste remains, the waste remains and kills."

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Books and coffee: Re favorite bookstores, I was wondering if anyone can recommend a used bookstore with a coffee bar in the area? I fell in love with Atticus Bookstore Café in New Haven, just off the Yale campus, during an extended visit to that city and I hope to find its counterpart. Of course there are plenty of NEW bookstores with coffee bars, most of which start with a "B," but this is not really the atmosphere I'm after.

Michael Dirda: I'm presuming that by here you mean Washington DC. Kramer Books and Afterwords started the whole coffeehouse bookshop idea, but it--like Politics and Prose, which has a very cozy coffeehouse basement--sell new books. Used bookshops generally don't have room for amenities; every inch of store space tends to be covered with piles of books waiting to be shelved. They will often have coffee from an urn or pot, but that's about it.

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Boston, Mass.: What's the new book that you're reviewing, and, while you're at it, could you toss in the names of a couple other good "History of the Classics" books?

Michael Dirda: Michael Schmidt's The First Poets. It'll be for a week from Sunday.
Histories of the classics? IN what sense? Do you mean books like Albin Lesky's history of Greek literature? Or like Jean Seznec's The Survival of the Pagan Gods?
Intellectual history is my favorite form of nonfiction.

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Arlington, Va.: My comment isn't really about a favorite bookstore, but I think it's germane to the topic. My former wife and I always enjoyed browsing used book stores when we traveled. It got to be a running joke between us, however, that invariably we found the counter clerks to be sullen, asocial, and gloomy. We couldn't identify anything about working in such places that seemed like it would generate such anomie, so we started to wonder whether there was something about the bookstore lifestyle that was especially suited to employees who were already of that dark disposition.

Michael Dirda: Used bookdealers and scouts come with all sorts of dispositions, but many are of an inward turn and so may be intellectuals (sometimes feeling alienated because their gifts haven't been recognized by the world) or loners, who live by their wits, plucking the unrecognized treasure from yard sales and church bazaars.
That said, the best talk in the world--for anyone of a bookish turn--is that among antiquarian book dealers when, after a glass of wine or two, the discussion turns to great coups, the trends in collection, or the difficulty in finding collectable copies of once common books.

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Iowa: Favorite D.C. bookstore: Kramerbooks
Favorite Heartland bookstore: Pages for All Ages in Champaign, Ill.
Favorite West Coast Bookstore: Powell's in Portland, Oregon

I believe in supporting local, independent booksellers whenever possible.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. I"ve always wanted to get to Powell's and Tattered Cover in Colorado.

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Manassas, Va.: Mr. Dirda,

Have you read any of Charles McCarry's novels? I am reading The Old Boys and wondered if you had and what you thought of it.

Michael Dirda: I've read the first six novels about Paul Christopher, up to Second Sight. In fact, I reprint my review of that in Bound to Please, with a lookback at the whole series. At that point, SS was to be the last Christopher novel. I haven't read Old Boys yet.
My favorite American spy novel is McCarry's The Tears of Autumn. And I love the way he develops the character of Barney Wolkowicz, of Youngstown, Ohio, arguably the greatest spy (and more) of his time.

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Cambride, Mass.: I love the Harvard Bookstore in Harvard Square (not the Harvard University bookstore, which is the Coop). They have new books upstairs, but also lots of used books in good condition downstairs, along with chairs and students reading nonstop.

Michael Dirda: Students reading nonstop! Oh, those Harvard types--so snooty! So unAmerican. Everyone knows that college kids don't read any more.

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Alexandria, Va.: Some of my fondest memories from my childhood were the monthly trips to the local used bookstore where my mother, brother and I were usually the only ones there, there was a nice couch to sit down with potential finds, and a black cat to curl up next to you. The proprietor was a nice old man who knew what I liked to read and usually threw in a freebie when I had a big stack of books to trade in. I miss having a neighborhood place like that.

Michael Dirda: You're describing the memories or daydreams of everyone who has ever loved to read.

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Washington, D.C.: Answering your question, the book store in Johnson City, Tenn., is kinda homey, even though it's new. And I'm in the area a lot.
But I notice you don't indicate that you're in love with Politics&Prose, though you've spoken there often. Good idea to go to used book stores, though; I can see how you would be able to find better books perhaps that may be out of print and out of regular retail stores. Do you have any favorite used book stores?

Michael Dirda: All of them. I judge the quality of a town, indeed of a civilization, by the number and character of the used bookshops.

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Queens, N.Y.: Dear Mr. Dirda (a.k.a. Bond, James),

I just read "Boswell's Presumptuous Task" by Adam Sisman about how James Boswell put together his "Life of Samuel Johnson." (I haven't yet read Boswell's book though.) Sisman's point is that yes, Boswell was in his own personal life a complete appalling screw-up, but he wrote the first scrupulously researched biography in modern times and deserves respect for that achievement.

Have you read the "Life of Johnson" (or any related work) and, if so, what are your thoughts? I consider you the final authority on most writers, so your perspective on either Johnson's work or Boswell's would be fascinating to me.

Thanks.

Michael Dirda: You might want to read my review of the Sisman study of Boswell and the making of the Life. It too is in Bound to Please.
Boswell's Life of Johnson is--in the view of many readers, including my friend Andre Bernard, editor in chief of Harcourt, the most entertaining book in the English language.
I would tend to concur--though I sometimes tire of the public Johnson, the man of wit and repartee, and prefer the figure that appears in more modern lives such as Walter Jackson Bate's. There Johnson isn't the great Cham of Literature, so much as a tormented, tic-ridden, pain-wracked, hypochondriacal mass of neuroses. We find his more somber side in his great moral and critical essays--in The Rambler and in the LIves of the English Poets.

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Columbia, Md.: There used to be a wonderful bookstore in Georgetown, the Savile, that also shelved its books by publisher. Your essay on James Laughlin made me think of the shelves of New Directions books in the Savile and how enticing the titles looked. The rows of Larousse Poche with the upside down titles as well ...

Nowadays, so many independent bookstores have disappeared, and the chains seem to be driving more and more to books as merchandise, I'd have to say my favorite is Daedalus Books warehouse in Columbia (which specializes in remainders) where there is still a certain quirkiness in the selection of stock and I can never predict what exactly I'll find ...

Michael Dirda: Daedalus is a treasure--thanks to the discriminating taste of Robin Moody. Savile used to be run by Jim Tenney, who worked for years at the Olsson's in Georgetown.

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Braddock Road in Virginia: I'm newly exiled to the Virginia side of the river for work, and have discovered an excellent used bookstore (name I can't remember) on King Street within five blocks of the King Street Metro.

I heard the owner say they got their stock from a store in Kentucky that closed, which is probably why the stock seems fresh and unusual to me. Different regional reading habits I guess.

Michael Dirda: Gee, I didn't know there were any used bookshops in Alexandria. Thanks for the info.

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Washington, D.C.: Wow. All these references last week to Lord Peter Wimsey, Harriet Vane and specifically Gaudy Night. I finished Gaudy Night a few weeks ago, and for me it was a long overdue return to the magic of reading. I found myself carefully rereading large sections, not just to unravel the mystery or catch Sayers's literary allusions, but to follow her as she worked through how to balance passions and purpose in your life. I was thrilled and sad to read the end, because I could never again have this same experience with these characters that I enjoyed and admired. I had several false starts on the next book (the reliable Aubrey and Maturin) because it meant letting go of the feelings from the last experience.

Despite all that, when my wife asked me if she should read the book, I had a hard time recommending it. What to do? Can this book be appreciated in nearly the same way without becoming attached to the characters through some of the previous stories? And more generally, does one start at the very best of a series, knowing the rest of it may all be downhill?

Michael Dirda: People are divided on Gaudy Night--and there are those who find it a bit pretentious and Not Enough of a Mystery. I myself love the book. Personally, I always try to read the best book by a new author, figuring if I like that one I can go on to others and if I don't, I've given him or her a fair shot. Of course, this doesn't apply when series need to be followed in order, as with Aubrey/ Maturin.

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Boston, Mass.: Hi Michael,
I recently moved from N.Y.C. to Boston, and while I like my new city, I do get homesick. I know this is a big question, but could you recommend some good New York books? I've read "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" and "Sophie's Choice" as well as "The Power Broker," do you have any other suggestions? Could any of my fellow bookwyrms lend a hand?

My favorite bookstores in N.Y.C. were 7th Ave. Books in Brooklyn and the Strand in Manhattan. In Boston, I dig Harvard Bookstore and Brookline Booksmith. I almost went to U. Chicago for their gorgeous bookstore, but went to Oberlin instead, where the cooperative bookstore was bought out by Barnes & Noble.

Michael Dirda: Oberlin is my alma mater. The Ben Franklin store there does stock used books, and quite a few too.
Good New York books? But I thought you were in Boston. Don't you want Boston books?
Still, you should read the Rex Stout mysteries about Nero Wolfe--especially those from the 1930s and '40s, and Dawn Powell's comic novels (e.g The Locusts Have No king). These evoke the New YOrk of our dreams--brownstones and saloons and showgirls and literary types and crime and martinis and nightclubs.

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Lost in a Good Bookstore: Columbus, Ohio has a few unexpectedly good used bookstores clustered in some German neighborhood whose moniker escapes me.

Also there are several clustered in Charlottesville.

Palo Alto, Calif., which used to be a hotbed of good stuff, has nothing much left. Real estate values too high I guess.

Michael Dirda: yes, Charlottesville is a good booktown. I'm flying to Columbus next week--to give a talk at nearby Denison University, courtesy of its English department and the poet Ann Townsend (see her wonderful recent collections The Coronary Garden and Dime-Store Erotics)--but doubt I'll have time to check these shops out. Wherever they are. Sigh.

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Washington, D.C.: When I lived in Hyattsville, Md., I used to go to a little, hole in the wall used book store run by a mother and son, open only during the evening, Sat/Sun. Great buys -- all my Nero Wolfes plus Alan Nevins 8-volume "Ordeal of the Union" for $.50 a volume. Often wonder if it is still there. They were such friendly people.

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. Let me know if it's still open. I could use that Nevins' set.

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Washington, D.C.: I second the Harvard Bookstore, and also recommend House of Sarah Books, on Cambridge Street a little further out from the square (a little past City Hall if I remember right). They have a great used bookstore exchange program -- other used bookstores from throughout New England each display a shelf of their stock in House of Sarah. They had really interesting stock when I visited a couple years ago. And yes there is a fat bookstore cat.

Michael Dirda: thanks.

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Munich, Germany: Scandinavian crime fiction has become a genre on its own here in Europe, with perhaps Henning Mankell leading the way. Mankell was even outselling the Harry Potter series in Germany for a while.

I've just bought my second book by the Icelander, Arnaldur Indriðason, called "Glacier Grave." Another book of his, "Nordermoor," won a prize as the best Scandinavian Crime novel for 2002. I enjoy the built-in gothic aspects of Scandinavian fiction. There's always a lot of mood in the form of bad weather in darkness.

I went to a book reading by an Icelandic author named Steinunn Sigurdardóttir last year, and although she's not a crime writer, her novels have been translated into German and have sold well in Germany, there seems to be no interest from North America.

I think that Mankell and Indriðason have been translated into English, but perhaps Scandinavian crime is too subtle or not violent enough for North American tastes.

All I can say is, you don't know what your missing.

Michael Dirda: Henning Mankell is, I think, available in English, and you certainly make me want to read him, as well as Indridason. I revere the Martin Beck mysteries, especially The Laughing Policeman, which I first read at the urging of another of its fans, David Foster Wallace.

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Pembroke, N.C.: Mr. Dirda,
On bookstores: growing up in Andover, Massachusetts, my favorite bookstore was a dark place with more books than I could ever try to read, with deep wingback chairs and a plate of cookies close by a fire that was seemingly always burning. But going back to this store is somewhat hard, as it is a very small affair now, with far greater amounts of light and far fewer books (the chairs, fire, and cookies are still there). Still, it is nice that a small town bookstore retains its traditions and remains competitive with the big chains -- that it is the prep school's bookstore probably helps quite a bit. While I now frequent Amazon.com and Borders much more often, I remain hopeful of finding another such dark corner, with a wingback and a plate of cookies all my own. Do you (and the other readers) have similar experiences of a favorite childhood bookstore or reading nook becoming too small to contain the adult reader? Or am I just too cynical now?

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. I've never bought a book from an online bookseller.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Doesn't the name "Dennison University" put the image of those little white glued binder paper reinforcement rings inescapably into your mind?

The Dennison company made them and probably lots of other less prominently labelled stuff.

Michael Dirda: Oh, I had forgotten about those ring hole protectors. Gee, those are one of those Proustian items of childhood. The university is Denison, with on n. Don't know if the protectors spell their company the same way. What an awful sentence--it must be past three o'clock, since my syntax is breaking down.

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Takoma Park, Md.: "Gaudy Night" is too twee for me now, but I loved it as an undergraduate.

Isn't it the one that compares love to the Bach Double Violin Concerto (in one of its less twee moments)?

Michael Dirda: I always compare love to the Bach Double Violin Concerto--perferring played by Grumiaux and Krebbers. Doesn't everyone?

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New York: Favorite bookstores: Used to love Calliope Bookshop on Connecticut Avenue, for it had a really wonderful selection of lit crit and fiction. Calliope was a Daedalus bookstore, so you could pick up some good deals on new and obscure books as well.
The Book Exchange in Durham, N.C., remains a favorite; millions of titles, all arranged by publisher. If you're ever looking for a Penguin classic of some title, for example, you can go there and find several copies of the title at various prices.
Other faves: Tattered Cover in Denver; The Happy Bookseller in Columbia, S.C.; The Strand; Gotham Book Mart; Chicago Seminary Co-op (and the Harvard Co-op before it was bought by Barnes and Noble); Micawber Books in Princeton.

Michael Dirda: Good shops all. My old friend, the legendary Bob Halliday, used to be the night manager at Calliope. We used to sip tea and talk about obscure books and classic music there, ignoring the customers. Happy times!

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Hollywood, Calif.: The now-defunct Writer's Bookstore in S.F.'s Cow Hollow area was wonderful. The owner, who I've learned is now deceased, was a wonderful book-loving curmudgeon. I once saw him be incredibly rude to a well-dressed man who had burst in loudly looking for "the new Grisham" but was incredibly kind to ... well, me among others. I didn't live in S.F. but every six months would come in and he'd remember what I bought and ask me about it and so forth. Much missed.

Book Soup in L.A.: Independent and good
Vronman's in Pasadena: Ditto, though fusty
House of Fiction in L.A.: Smelled like cat urine, which somehow made it charming (and a place where you found what you wanted as quickly as possible).

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Rockville, Md.: It seeems from your bio sketch above that you tend to favor non-American writers. Do you have a favorite American writer and do you have a favorite American novel?

Michael Dirda: I've read a lot of American writing. See any of my collections. Favorite American author--Thoreau. Favorite American novel--too many to choose. Moby-Dick, probably. I'm not very original, I guess.

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Annapolis, Md.: Johnson and Boswell: It's been more than 30 years since I received my Ph.D. in 18th-century English lit with my thesis on Samuel Johnson, but I still enjoy reading about Johnson and Boswell. I have read the Sisman book and found it compelling. Another book that explores the relationship between Johnson and Boswell is "The Impossible Friendship: Boswell and Mrs. Thrale" by Mary Hyde. A fictional treatment of this subject can be found in Beryl Bainbridge's "According to Queeney." But to get the right perspective on any of these books, there is no substitute for reading the real thing: Boswell's "Life of Johnson." I also recommend a biography Johnson's early years (the Johnson Boswell never knew): "Young Sam Johnson" by James L. Clifford.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. I own the Hyde and the Clifford, along with its sequel Dictionary Johnson. I remember how I got Bertrand Bronson to review it for Book World. I also went up and interviewed Bate after his SF won the National Book Award. Good times. My late friend Reid Beddow liked to refer to Mary Hyde as the Viscountess Eccles, which she became late in life.

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Bookstore enthusiast: Michael,
I'm submitting this on the early side, because I won't be around this afternoon. You asked for nominations for favorite bookstores in last week's chat and here forthwith are mine:

Three Lives, located in Greenwich Village, New York City. A cozy, intimate, bookish setting that invites people off the street. Whenever I'm in N.Y.C., and am looking for a port in the urban storm, I always make a point of visiting Three Lives.

Blackwells in the U.K. I love the original in Oxford, with its knowledgeable staff, amazing selection (especially of U.K. titles) and an unfussy, unhurried atmosphere.

Maple Leaf Bookstore in New Orleans. Located in the New Orleans District this is sort of a funky bookstore with many new titles, but lots of older, more esoteric ones as well. There are other bookstores in New Orleans with more southern charm, but this is my favorite southern belle.

Michael Dirda: Oh, I like Maple Leaf--along with Beckham's and the other Quarter used bookshops. I've been to Three Lives but don't remember it very well. I do know that the novelist Laurie Colwin helped them to move once. Blackwell's--I found it disappointing when I went there a quarter century ago. But I was shallower then and probably didn't look in the right places.

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Vienna, Va.: Mr. Dirda, what do you think of the Paul Christopher espionage novels by Charles McCarry? I just finished The Miernik Dossier and was so impressed that I went right to The Tears of Autumn, a book originally published in 1974 but which was reissued this year. I'll likely hit all the Christopher books before I'm done. Your opinion?

Michael Dirda: See earlier postings. The Miernik Dossier isn't really a Chrisopher book. Tears is in mid sequence; you might want to look to the first in the series if you're going to read them. It makes sense to follow the order because there are Revelations.

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Three lives: Is long gone, sorry.

Michael Dirda: Sigh.

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Irvine, Calif.: Good Luck on Winning the L.A. Times Book Award. Many thanks for your chat, I learn so much from this chat. Favorite Book stores. For Children's books, The Whale of A Tale at 4199 Campus Dr., Irvine, Calif., winner of the Pannel Award, J. K. Rowling has signed there, wonderful staff, wonderful outreach programs and it's across the courtyard from my favorite restaurant, Britta's Cafe. Next favorite, Rainy Day Books, 2706 W 53rd St, Fairway, Kans., a suburb of Kansas City. The owner Vivien Jennings has hosted more than 250 authors annually, and she advises 150 book clubs.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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South Riding, Va.: Dear Mr. Dirda,

Just two questions and a thank you. Questions: How long has the practice of having admirers write blurbs on the backs of books been around? Is this more common in English, or is it pretty much standard across languages now?

Thank you: I picked up The Shadow of the Wind in, of all places, Costco, two weeks ago primarily because your recommendation was on the back. I'm really enjoying it so far. Both scary and funny!

Michael Dirda: I don't really know how long blurbs have been around. I expect as long as there have been dust jackets, ie. since roughly the turn of the last century.
Hope you continue to enjoy Shadow of the Wind.
And now, folks, it's time for me to go back to reading about ancient Greek poets. So until next week at 2--keep reading!
P.S. I'm sorry that I couldn't get to all the questions. Please try again.

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