Prize-winning columnist Michael Dirda takes 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.

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Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books!

It seems pointless to point out that Ohio has lots of rain when one of my favorite cities--New Orleans--is largely underwater. I just hope that my friends in the Garden District and the French Quarter are OK. It's just terrible.

I'm here in Ohio, at my sister's this afternoon, having dropped off my No. 2 son at Oberlin College yesterday. He's a freshman at the old alma mater, and is in fact living in my old freshman dorm, in my old freshman section--Second Center Burton. My actual room 226 is now occupied by two young women, Burton having gone co-ed at some point in the past thirty years. Sigh. It was a very nostalgia-laden day. Mike seems to be fitting right in though. I hope his experience of Oberlin is as important to him as mine was to me.

But now it's time for some real questions.

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Ashcroft, BC: Discussion here sometimes turns to great opening/closing lines; but while it can be easy to point to great opening lines that immediately impress, it can be harder to do the same for closing lines, as they depend so much more on what has come before in order to make their impact. Case in point: Gaham Greene's BRIGHTON ROCK, which I just finished and which has one of the most terrifying closing lines I've ever read: 'She walked rapidly in the thin June sunlight towards the worst horror of all.' Seen in isolation it doesn't convey much, but in light of what's come before it's as powerful as a kick to the stomach.

Regarding the debate over Jim Dale and his reading of the Harry Potter books; I understand that the British unabridged audio versions are read by an equally excellent Stephen Fry.

Finally: recently read Jonathan Coe's linked novels, THE ROTTERS' CLUB (set in early 1970s Birmingham, England) and THE CLOSED CIRCLE, which takes up many of the characters 25 years on. Can't recall offhand if they've been mentioned here before, but highly recommended.

Michael Dirda: Yes, kicker lines do require context. Think of the devastatingly sad ending of A Farewell to Arms: "After a while I walked back to the hotel in the rain."

Or the horror of 1984: "He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

I've not read Coe's novels, but they are much admired: His biography of B.S. Johnson was terrific, both vastly entertaining and useful as a means of reminding us of a good, but somewhat forgotten writer.

Fry does have a wonderful voice. Has anyone heard both the Dale and Fry versions of any Potter book?

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Los Angeles, Calif.: Apparently there is a new translation of Thomas Mann's "Joseph and His Brothers." Have you ever taken that bilical/familial plunge? Magic Mountain was long enough...

Michael Dirda: Never have. I always see various individual volumes in used bookstores, but can never remember how many there are or in what order they appear. I suppose Young Joseph is the first. Of course, there's the omnibus volume, but I like the idea of reading books as single novels rather than packed into one heavy, smalltyped volume.

My recollection is that the new Mann translations have generally been an improvement on the old Lowe-Porter versions, but that critics haven't been completely overwhelmed by Wood's Englishing. I do know that Denver Lindley's Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, which came out 30 or 35 years ago, is really good. It is in fact my favorite Mann novel, setting aside Death in Venice as a special case. For one thing, it's both funny and, in one chapter (when a countess seduces Felix), surprisingly sexy.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Hi Michael, You mentioned last week that you were reading a novel by Paul Park. Was it the Princess from Roumania? If so, what do you think? The premise and jacket comments are enticing, but I had never heard of him before. My family and I are big fans of other authors lumped under the fantasy rubric that you've recommended, like Philip Pullman, Tom Holt, Terry Pratchett. Is Park in that league?

Michael Dirda: Yes, it's a good book, and my review will be out on Sunday. (In fact, Book World called this morning, wanting to make a small trim--I referred to Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale and it was felt this might be a bit too arcane--I assured the editors that Propp's work was as well known as Danielle Steel's, but they didn't believe me. No one ever does.

Park is best known as a science fiction writer, particularly for his early books like Sugar Rain. He's much admired by those in the field.

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SciFiGirl: Michael - I had to write in becuase I had to make a comment on a book I just finished: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Chase. Someone wrote in, was it last week?, asking about these mega novels that being released. I will say I initially avoided the book because it was so long, and somehow the description just didn't really appeal to me. But I did finally pick it up, and I am so glad I did. It's one of the best books I've read, almost ever. It's such a funny book, filled with great characters, and she draws them so finely. The footnotes are a joy, since they're almost short stories in and of themselves. I was so sad when I finished the book, and had to leave the characters behind. I don't think I've felt that way, really, about a book since Generation X by Douglas Coupland.

Really, don't be daunted by the length. It's a completely charming book.

Michael Dirda: Well, I did review the book, but with more mixed feelings: I said that the footnotes were terrific, and she was an ace at pastiche. But I thought the book lacked narrative drive and suspense. Also, there was no sex or sense of real danger in it. I mean the Fairy King spirits these women away, but all they do is dance. They're both OK in the end, neither becoming some dark temptress commanded by the King or something. As a friend of mine said, it was like George Eliot writing fantasy.

Still, Clarke's book is an astonishing work,even if flawed.

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Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda: Memorable Exits--Writers and other notables have often departed poignantly (Henry James still making writing motions above the bedclothes, Balzac arguing with his own characters, Faulkner trying to sober up one last time at a drying-out clinic). Many ("Mehr Licht" Goethe, Wilde, Strachey, Pancho Villa, Stonewall Jackson...)died with memorable last words. Some great writers even send fictional characters off with bons mots: Kurtz's "The Horror!; The Horror!;," Angstrom's "Enough.".

I just read that 60-year-old August Wilson--greatly admired for his splendid black play cycle--has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. The ailing playwright told the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:" "It's not like poker, you can't throw your hand in." Wilson did add, "I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready." Any thoughts? Thanks much.

Michael Dirda: Exit lines are fun. There's that one Civil War general, who was warned that there were snipers across the river, but who disregarded the advice saying something like, "Why those boys couldn't hit. . ." at which point a sniper got him.

William Empson, the poet and critic, wanted to have engraved on his tombstone: No More Bother. I've thought of "If it's not one thing, it's another."

I do love the image of James's hand moving across the bedclothes as if he were writing to the end.

And Balzac's "Send for Bianchon. Only Bianchon can save me!" And people not knowning who Bianchon was, until someone pointed out that he was the great doctor of the Comedie Humaine.

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Bethesda, Md.: I also love music and reading. Sometimes I have trouble doing both at the same time. I find it easier with classical or instrumental jazz. Do you often listen to tunes while you read? If so, at what volumes and what kinds?

Michael Dirda: Almost never. Sometimes if there's a lot of noise in the house, I'll put on chamber music, usually Haydn string quartets. They don't have the crescendos of larger works and are relatively serene. Debussy will work sometimes, but a solo piano isn't usually loud enough.

I tend to think one should listen to music or read, but not both. But I'm such a terribly high-minded purist, and you should feel safe to ignore me.

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Rockville, Md.: Mr. Dirda,

If not too intrusive of a question, could you please expound upon your Oberlin experiences? in what ways were they important to you? As a new father (I have a new 6 month old and am still scared to death) that had a largely forgettable undergraduate expreince, any wisom you have gained would be greatly appreciated.

Michael Dirda: Read my memoir An Open Book (Norton). The last quarter or so describes my first two years at Oberlin. I will likely dedicate the book I've just finished to Oberlin College. If I had not gotten a scholarship to go there, I'd probably have spent my life working in a steel mill or possibly become a high school English teacher. Not that both aren't admirable jobs--my father having been the former, and public school teachers being the most important members of our society. I mean, they shape our children.

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Pembroke, NC: Michael,

While perhaps only his wife truly knows, have you heard anything about what Thomas Pynchon might be up to these days? Besides "appearances" on the Simpsons.

Michael Dirda: Nope. Pynchon must be in his seventies now. Perhaps he's writing his memoirs. Mason and Dixon did feel highly valedictory.

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Takoma Park, Md.: Must second the thrill on Jonathan Coe's pair of novels. They combine some of the insights of a Margaret Drabble or a A.N. Wilson into contemporary society with a special brand of wicked funnyness that the other two more ponderous writers can't touch.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Washington DC: Hi Mike!;

If you do enjoy Tales of Genji, as much as the pre-chat blurb mentions, which translated edition do you recommend?

I heard there are Arthur Waley, Edward Seidensticker and Royall Tyler. suggestions??

Thanks!;

Michael Dirda: The Waley is the most beautiful and lyrical, but plays a bit freely with the original. The Tyler is probably the most authoritative and faithful. Seidensticker falls between the two, I think. I read the Waley, but when I reread the book--don't ask me when that will be--I'll try the Tyler.

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Milwaukee, Wis.: Have you read any books by Dan Simmons (Hyperion, Song for Kali, Illum,etc.)? If so, what is your opinion of his work, comparing his work to other modern Sci-fi and Fantasy writers.

Michael Dirda: I read Carrion Comfort--a very scarey horror novel about superbeings among us who can control the minds of others. It was a highly disturbing novel. I remember an actress who is compelled to perform sexual acts, against her will, and the battle among these beings that in the end threatens the destruction of civilization. My friend John Clute, who knows more about sf than anyone, think quite highly of Simmmons science fiction, especially the Hyperion books.

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Anonymous: From your chat intro: "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 yet you don't listen to jazz while reading? Do you prefer to focus on the music as you listen, rather than have it on in the background? Krall is good for background, Ella sometimes too. I love the Jerome Kern Songbook re-release on Verve, which I recently picked up. But I'm also guessing Madeleine Peyroux's latest album, which I listened to in the car not too long ago, would be great reading music.

Say, that reminds me: I heard a piece on the Curt Anderson public radio show, the name of which I can't recall at the moment, on the recent paperback release of the Oxford Companion to Jazz. I own a few jazz reference works, but not that one. Do you recommend it?

Michael Dirda: Yes, the Madeline Peyroux is very good--I like "Dance me to the end of love" in particular.

I will listen to music while driving or washing dishes, but otherwise I just sit in a chair and put somehing on the CD player.

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Waugh question: Hello, I recently finished reading a compilation of letters between Waugh and Nancy Mitford--one of those books I was sorry to finish. I feel like favored houseguests have left too soon...

I've read Scoop and a collection of Waugh's short stories, and am ready for more. Any recommendations?

Many thanks!

Michael Dirda: That's a great collection--I write about it in Bound to Please. You should go on to the fat volume of Waugh's collected letters. Of his novels I'd recommend his first, Decline and Fall, as your next one.

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Rockville, Md.--Last Lines: The line escapes me but I remember being very moved by the final sentence/paragraph in William Boyd's fantastic "Any Human Heart".

Michael Dirda: Still haven't read this alas, so can't help.

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Washington, DC: Hi Michael -- I'm just back from a two-week vacation, and when I tried to catch up with your chat from the archives, I couldn't access the one from last week (Aug. 24). The link goes directly to today's chat. Can the online folks fix this? Thanks!

washingtonpost.com: It has been fixed: Dirda, Aug. 24

Michael Dirda: Voila.

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East Lansing, Mich.: You mention in your into that you are a big fan of "The Tale of Genji". Do you have any recommendations for a particular translation to pick up? Also, any suggestions for modern Japanese novels to read. I am a big fan of Abe Kobe's "Woman in the Dunes" but have not explored much Japanese literature.

Michael Dirda: Try Shusaku Endo's "Silence."

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Takoma Park, Md.: I chewed my way through most of Mann right after college, including Joseph and His Brothers and even Lotte in Weimar (along wtih the more commonly read novels). Felix Krull and Buddenbrooks were the prizes among his output (aside from D in V).

Michael Dirda: Thanks.

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Ashcroft, BC again: You mention you'll be reviewing THE PRINCESS FROM ROUMANIA; will you also be reviewing the new Flashman novel? Interested to see what you think of it. Flash Harry seems to be back on form, alternately blustering and cowering in another far flung corner of the globe.

Michael Dirda: Yep, I will. But that book doesn't come out until November in this country.

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Lexington: Michael, I had a weighty question on John Carey's book 'What Good Is Art', ( a contentious, interesting argument ), but I'll hold that till summer is officially over. In England this is being held as an exceptional years of fiction with new very good books by Ishiguro ( one of my favorites ), McEwan, Barnes, Rushdie, Zadie Smith. It seems only a short while ago the UK novel was declared moribund compared to American fiction. And, some of the Booker names deal with 9/11 and terrorism. The best book I've read on the list is 'The People's Act of Love' by James Meek set in 1919 Siberia, dealing with the Civil War, religion, love, and ,sacrifice in a small town. The atmosphere of the book is reminiscent of 'Dr. Zhivago'. And the writing is beautiful!

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. Yes, English fiction does seem to be hot. I'm reading the new Zadie Smith with great pleasure, at least so far.

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Takoma Park, Md: In light of this week's tragic events in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region, I am reminded of John McPhee's 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning book called The Control of Nature (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)--where McPhee talks about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "war on the lower Missippi River, which threatens to follow a new route to the sea and cut off New Orleans and Baton Rouge from the rest of the United States" (quote from www.johnmcphee.com). Do you think the Post might be able to ask McPhee to write a follow-up essay? (not that he would take any pleasure in being right, just to hear his informed perspective?). Thanks.

Michael Dirda: They could try, but McPhee is getting on in years now and pretty much restricts his writing to the New Yorker, at least as far as I can tell.

There was also that very good book on the great Mississippi Flood by, I think, John Berry.

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SciFiGirl: Re: Dan Simmons. He is brilliant. Carrion Comfort is hands down one of the scariest books I have ever read. The thing I love about him is not only his ability to weave science and literature together in a way that is utterly unique, but also his ability to commit completely to the genre in which he's writing. He also writes noir mysteries, and you would never guess in a million years from reading those that he also wrote science fiction. He has an amazing imagination. The Hyperion quartet are among the best books I have ever read, and his latest book, Ilium, was fantastic. I think he's totally underrated and unrecognized.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. I guess I need to read a bit more Simmons. But in truth Carrion Comfort was so scarey that I couldn't quite face his writing again. Obviously my loss.

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Yellow submarine: Ahoy!; What's the deal w/ copyrights in books? I like to know when a book is 1st published but it seems if a book is re-issued later by a different publisher, that copyright is listed only. Do I have this right? Wasn't Paul and Virginia, for example, published a couple hundred years ago, not 2004 by Wildside Press? thanks

Michael Dirda: It certainly was. I suppose a translation could be copyrighted for two thousand whatever. I don't know why some publishers try to fudge these matters.

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Arlington, Va: Hi,

I'm hoping you or another reader can help me out. I was certain I read in Book World or elsewhere in the Post that a new biography of Frank Lloyd Wright was coming out soon. I thought I read this within the past 12-18 months. If anyone has any information, please share! I've looked on Amazon and the Wright Foundation sites but come up empty.

Michael Dirda: any help?

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Trumansburg, NY: Mr. Dirda,

Do you have any recommendations on Vitctorian literary history or on the pre-Raphaelite movement in particular?

Michael Dirda: A.N. Wilson has a very long, substantial and slightly polemical history called The Victorians, but it covers politics and history as well as art and ideas. Walter Houghton's The Victorian Frame of Mind is a classic of intellectual history. You shouldn't miss the slender but dense and influential Portrait of an Age by G.M. Young. As for the Pre Raph's and the decadents--the scholars to look for are Stanley Weintraub, John Dixon Hunt, William Gaunt, Karl Beckson, and Tim Hilton (for Ruskin--his two volume life is a masterpiece).

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gov't employee in NW, DC: Michael, For pure reading enjoyment, I have enjoyed all six books in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, by Alexander McCall Smith. I understand he has now started a new series of mysteries. Is there any indication that Mr. Smith might visit the US and appear anywhere? I would love to meet him!;

Michael Dirda: I think he did come to the States recently.

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Santa Fe, N.M.: Can you recommend some good histories of New Orleans?

Michael Dirda: Histories? Hmmm. Walker Percy has a good essay on New Orleans in one of his collections. There's an old classic called Frenchman Desire Good Children, and S. Frederick Starr has a book of short chapters and pictures about various aspects of new Orleans history and culture.

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Washington, D.C.: Hey dude, I'm winding up my summer of reading only science fiction (going by the equinoxes) and I was wondering if you could suggest a few more obscure good ones that I may not have run across. And to anyone considering reading only science fiction for an extended period of time: don't.

Michael Dirda: Cutely phrased. Try Bernard Wolfe's Limbo. I'm presuming that you know the work of Bester, Sturgeon, Dick, Zelazny, Le Guin, Ballard, Gibson, et al.

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Indianapolis, Ind.: New Orleans is one of my favorite cities, too. Any favorite novels set in NO? Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces and Percy's The Moviegoer immediately come to mind.

Michael Dirda: James Lee Burke's private eye novels. The ones you mention are the two I think of first.

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Munich, Germany: In a previous online chat session, you mentioned a few important science fiction authors, and I noticed that Bradbury wasn't amongst them. In an article in the Style section a couple of weeks ago on Bradbury, his influence in the genre doesn't seem to be insignificant. (In the article, I especially liked Bradbury's view on science fiction and space travel: "Bradbury has long held that science fiction was the real cause of human space flight. As Adm. Byrd said as he took off for the North Pole, "Jules Verne leads me!;"")

Do you consider Bradbury to have been a heavyweight in the science fiction world? How about Arthur C. Clarke, Stanislov Lem or Isaac Asimov?

Back in my university days, Asimov was incredibly popular, but most science fiction buffs considered Lem to be the pinnacle of science fiction. After all, it was Lem who created the word, "Robot".

Michael Dirda: No, Lem didn't create the word robot. That was Karel Capek, in his play R.U.R.--Rossum's Universal Robots.

Lem is a kind of fantasy/satirist/magic realist/science fiction writer.

Bradbury has always struck me as essentially a fantasy novelist--he has no real interest in science whatsoever. He's best in the early work in Dark Carnival. Even The Martian Chronicles feels like a work of nostalgic fantasy.

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Lenexa, Kan.: Re: Your scholarship to Oberlin, I'll always remember your telling your high school teacher "Mr. Wright" about it. "Keep reading, Michael."

Enjoyed your "Last Words" response--will look for the sniper story as I continue through Foote. I once heard Paula Poundstone on "HBO Comedy..." say that Burl Ives's final words were "I don't care." Poundstone hopes the "poor guy" was just relapsing to "Jimmie Cracked Corn." Thanks again.

Michael Dirda: You're welcome.

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Charlottesville, Va.: Mr. Dirda,

I know you've probably answered this question countless times, but are there any particular translations of the following authors you'd recommend (playing to your Francophonic roots): Flaubert, Dumas and Stendhal.

Also, when will you be returning to grace the pages of Book World? Have you published any articles in other publications lately? I do so love to read your work and I've been missing it of late.

Thanks.

Michael Dirda: I'm back in Book World on Sunday for a good long time.

I guess I'd opt for the latest translations of all three--Richard Howard for Stendhal's Chartreuse de Parme, Margaret Mauldon for Bovary, and whoever does the Penguin Dumas. I will say that the 19th cetnury French writers tend to lose more than a little in translation. Don't quite know why.

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re: Frank Lloyd Wright: Frank Llyod Wright, by Ada Louise Huxtable, Lipper/Viking. There's an essay by Michael Kimmelman in the August 11, 2005 NY Review of Books.

Michael Dirda: thanks

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Lenexa, Kan.: Ada Louise Huxtable had a 2004 biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was one in the Penguin Lives series. I thought it so fine I purchased two additional copies for friends.

Michael Dirda: thanks. I remember the Oberlin gave her an honorary degree for her architectural criticism.

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Copyright: Clarification on copyright: Copyright doesn't last that long (100 years or so), but other things than the original text can be copyrighted. For example: a translation (as Michael says, also for about 100 years or so), an introductory essay to the original text, or an edition (one to which something has been added, say footnotes). Sometimes publishers list the year that their edition of the book is being published, but they're not trying to claim copyright, just stating the date of their publication. If you read the copyright page carefully, you can probably figure out which of the above scenarios is the case in your book.

Michael Dirda: thanks.

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Jeff from Ocala, Fla.: Two questions re: crime fiction

Should Macdonald be considered to be of the same stature as Hammet,Chandler and Spillane in defining "hard-boiled?"

Barzun said that a detective writer was a "practitioner of the genre," not a true novelist or author. Your thoughts?

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. Most people wouldn't put Spillane in the Hammett and Chandler class. Not that Mick isn't fun to read or influential. ("How could you Mike? It was easy.") Since you're from Florida I suppose you mean John D. MacDonald, not Ross McDonald. I've always admired the latter, but somehow never quite gotten John D. But then I've only read a couple of Travis McGees, and not The Executioners or those earlier dark novels. In general, I don't think the writers after Chandler and Hammett are quite in their class, mainly because they are later and the genre was established and mastered before they came along.

I do think crime novels can be art. K.C. Constantine, James Crumley, George V. Higgins for example.

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Frederick, Md.: the john berry book you mentioned on the great missippi flood of 1927 makes the point that everything was done by the powers that be at the time was to save new orleans and let the lower parishes fend for themselves causing the huge death toll

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Herndon, Va: I remember reading "somewhere" about the great 1927 flood which inundated much of the lower Mississippi, and one child, born as her mother and father were being rescued, was given the middle name of "Louisiana Levee Bust."

Michael Dirda: Ah, poor kid.

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La Belle Province: So much to comment on today. Jonathan Coe is, I think, one of the best English novelists writing today. Rotter's Club and A Closed Circle were wonderful, but What A Carve Up!; -- published in the US as The Winshaw Legacy, I believe -- is truly great: the word-play, the biting satire, the palpable alive-ness of the characters. But most of his work, like that of an even greater writer -- Russell Hoban -- has never been published in the US. When I think of the lakes of ink spent on the over-hyped Zadie Smith, for example, I could weep.

As for Dan Simmons, the Hyperion quartet has a heartbreaking twist in the last book. You'd love it.

Finally, I'v been on a Sybille Bedford binge, reading her memoir Quicksands, and her masterpiece A Legacy. Although it had fallen flat when it was published, Nancy Mitford told Evelyn Waugh to read it, and that "saved" the book. I'm sure you know the story. Evelyn wrote to Nancy, "who this brilliant Mrs Bedford could be. A cosmopolitan military man, plainly, with a knowledge of parliamentary government and popular journalism, a dislike of Prussians, a fondness for Jews, a belief that everyone speaks French in the home..." Any opinions on her work, particulary her biography of Aldous Huxley, which I want to read just for Ms. Bedford;s prose style...

Michael Dirda: Interesting note. I revere Hoban, and often mention him as one of the great undderrated writers of our time, and the only living one who has written masterpieces for every age group. I discovered him with Riddley Walker, wrote about a half dozen of his children's books (including the heartbreakingly wonderful The Marzipan Pig), and recently reviewed Her Name Was Lola. I did persuade Indiana University Press to issue a Russell Hoban Omnibus a few years back.

Sorry to hear about Zadie, as I'm enjoyning her new book.

Bedford is certainly a fine writer (I reviewed Quicksands not too long ago), but A Legacy is her finest book, followed by the travel book on Mexico, A Sudden View. I like her work, but not quite as much as many people do.

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Rockville, Md.: Sunday was Robertson Davies's birthday and I was reading an interview where he said, "I'm very fond of reading diaries because they give you a sense of time. They're not selling you anything. And every historian is selling you an attitude."

I thought that was a very nice quote and it got me to thinking about published diaries. Do you or others on the chat today make a habit of reading these, and if so what have been your favorites.

RD seems like a very engaging and humane soul from reading this interview, by the way. Based on your long-time advocacy I've finally acquired the Deptford Trilogy. Really looking forward to it.

Thank you again for having this forum and all the great recommendations over the years.

Michael Dirda: You might enjoy Davies letters and essays too--he was a very engaging, highly opinionated and original man.

I like diaries quite a bit--Kenneth Tynan's is gloomy fun; Waugh's is bitter fun; and therea re dozens of others. You migth enjoy a wonderful fat book called The Assassin's Cloak, which selects from many diaries and arranges the entries by date.

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Washington, DC: Hi Michael,

I've just finished reading Frank Muir's wonderful comic novel The Walpole Orange and find myself wanting more "club literature," if I may call it that. Do you know any good novels set in and among English gentlemen's clubs? There's some of that in Wodehouse, of course. But where else? Thanks in advance!;

Michael Dirda: Try Dunsany's stories about Joseph Jorkens. Nightshade book publishes three collections of them.

I don't know this Muir book at all. To me he's largely half of My Word, and the compiler of the Oxford Book of Huororous Prose and of that Social History of Everything. I didn't know he'd written any fiction.

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Manassas, Va.: Re: Exit Lines... One of my favorites is Emily Dickinson's last letter to her cousins before she died. It read, simply, "Called Back."

Michael Dirda: Lovely.

And on that note, it's time to close this week's session of Dirda on Books. Sorry that I didn't get to all the questions. Please try again next week. Till then, keep reading!

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