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.

The transcript follows.

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Michael Dirda: It was a bright cold Wednesday in October and the clocks were striking 14. So it must be time for Dirda on Books! Last night I attended an elegant soiree at the Hay-Adams Hotel, honoring my colleague Marie Arana and her new novel Cellophane. It was, I think, the first time I'd been downtown in quite a while, having continued for weeks on end huddled over books and keyboard working on this new book and my weekly reviews. I think that when this book is done--in a couple of weeks--I will devote myself to gardening, home repair, and body building. I need to get out of my head for a while.

All right. Let's look at this week's notes and queries. (Does that venerable journal still exist, I wonder?)

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New York, N.Y.: Every time I finally convince myself that the world is good and fair and decide to lend out some of my books I inevitably get burned by them never being returned. Is there a polite way to ask for them back? I think a lot of people assume that I'm giving to them for keeps.

Somewhat related, as I noticed a translation of Thomas Bernhard's first novel "Frost" has just been published. I notice that Vintage started re-publishing more affordable paperback versions of some of his other novels "Gargoyles" and "The Loser" (U of Chicago deserves credit for first publishing Bernhard but their paperbacks are ridiculously expensive!)

Anywho, "Concrete" was one of the above aforementioned novels that I lent out, and it is now out of print and fetching big $ on Amazon. Anyone know of any plas for Vintage to reprint "Concrete" as well?

Sorry for the long winded lender's rant.

Michael Dirda: I don't know, but I suspect that Concrete, being one of Bernhard's major books, will be back in print before too long. Interestingly enough, I recently picked up a nice first for a few dollars of Correction, a title I like much more than the similar sounding The Corrections.

I like late Bernhard quite a bit--the more bitter and sour he got, the more he seemed himself. Not sure about this first novel.

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Texas: Hi Michael,

Any recommendations for books dealing with lost love, heartbreak and despair? They would match my current mood perfectly. Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. This seems to be a recurrent problem. Apparently people out there keep falling in love and having their hearts broken. You'd think we'd have learned by now.

Well, there are obviously two ways to go here--match your mood or counter your mood. Personally, I think the counter your mood approach is best. Read cynical writers like La Rochefoucauld. Reduce love to mere sex and turn to Casanova's memoirs or a paean to freespiritedness like Gide's Fruits of the Earth. Try some poems by cavalier poets like Suckling and Rochester. Study Buddhism and learn that attachment to earthly sensual things causes nothing but pain.

Time is the only real analgesic for heartbreak. But in the meanwhile you might plunge into something as absorbing as the love affair. Okay, so there's nothing that's that absorbing. Still, you need a cause, a project that demands all your time. Maybe this is the occasion to study classical Greek or learn Italian or take up piano lessons. A friend of mine when she knew a relationship was breaking up would go straight to the gym: She used to say, "Gotta get in fighting trim" so that she'd be ready for the next guy.

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Fair Oaks, Va.: So what is the Hays-Adams like inside? I have only seen it from outside, not feeling entitled to enter it. It features in American history from time to time (I think it is mentioned in "Reveille in Washington") and I sometimes like to stalk sites of historic importance.

Happy Feast of St. Crispian, by the way.

Michael Dirda: Thanks. I've never been to any of the rooms. But the dining areas are airy, and the lobby is relatively small. The room we were in had lots of tapestry like things on the wall. You should just wander in sometime, preferably dressed in jeans and some grungy tee shirt; that way they'll figure you're a rock star staying there.

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Washington, D.C.: Hey Michael,

Thanks for the chat. Just to give you a bit of background, I'm a huge fan of more experimental modern lit books, in the mold of Safran Foer's and Eggers' debuts. Are there any comparable up and coming authors releasing books in that genre? Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Don't know what's coming up, but there are far more experimental books than either of those two author's out there. Do you know the following:

Tom Phillips, A Humument

Daniel Spoerri, An Anecdoted Topography of Chance

Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies

Georges Perec, Life A User's Manual

Gilbert Sorrention, Mulligan Stew

Max Ernst, The Hundred Headless Woman

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Lenexa, Kan.: I too have started Bernhard's "Frost." Benfry had a tantalizing review in the NYTBR--saying "Among 20th-century purveyors of gloom--think of Beckett, say, or Philip Larkin ("Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth")--some of the most distinctively doom-ridden wrote in German, though not necessarily in German." He goes on to mention Kafka, Trakl, Canetti, and Sebald, but then saya "Bernhard...may have had the darkest imagination of all."

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I remember you covered "Extinction" in "Bound to Please."

Michael Dirda: Bernhard is certainly a gloomy gus, but a passionately gloomy one. He has more bile in him than most of the authors, just as Larkin goes in for self-pity and Beckett for saintly despair.

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Friendship Heights, Washington, D.C.: Hi

Thank you for hosting these chats.

I just finished L'assommoir by Emile Zola (my French language skills were rusty, and I'd never read Zola).

Thoughts? Do you recommend him or any of the other naturalists like Crane?

Thanks!

Michael Dirda: L'Assommoir is a marvelous book. In fact, I"m including a piece on Germinal in this project I'm working on. Why not read more Zola? You can try the noirish early thriller Therese Raquin or Nana, about the courtesan daughter of the couple in L'Assommoir, or La Debacle, which I recall A.N. Wilson calling one of the greatest of all novels about war. I also like the early Faute de l'Abbet Mouret--very lyrical and heartbeaking. But Germinal is the classic. A strike in a coal mine, a doomed love affair, and the wonderfully overthetop anarchist Souvarine.

Crene, though, is certainly worth reading. I'd suggest Maggie and The Monster. Just as good is the melodramatic fiction of Frank Norris--Vandover and the Brute, The Pit, etc. And then there's Dreiser, of course: Sister Carrie, The Financier. All very powerful books, if one can accept that love of excess and a bit of corniness from time to time.

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Ovid, N.Y.: Are there any recognized authorities on the history of the Bible? Best guesses of when the different parts were written and by whom?

Just finished the Stephen Mitchell translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh and I was taken aback by all the biblical allusions, or should I say all the Gilgamesh allusions in the Bible.

Michael Dirda: Stephen Mitchell, though a brilliant translator in his way, isn't a reliable one when it comes to scholarly accuracy. I'm not sure what you mean by biblical allusions though--The Flood appears in many early poems, as do Adam and Eve figures, and descents into Hell or the Otherworld.

The Literary Guide to the Bible, compiled by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode is probably the book where you should start this quest. I have a long essay on Biblical scholarship, from a literary perspective, in my collected Bound to Please.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: I lord it over my family and friends that I have a complete collection of Dickens novels from 1889. Should I brag less?

Michael Dirda: Well, you should brag less, just to be more bearable to your family and friends. As for this edition: Which one is it? In general, Dickens collected editions are fairly common, though some are nicer than others. I own a broken set of the Gadshill, which I like because the paper is thick and the type is quite large. So many editions of Dickens use very small fonts or the paper has browned--I can't stand either of these.

Of course, owning Dickens doesn't really count. Reading Dickens does.

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Perec's Life: You mentioned Perec's Life, a user's Manual. I don't get that book at all.....maybe I read to literally?

Michael Dirda: What's to get? On one level, it's a collection of stories, each pegged to a different flat in the apartment building. On deeper levels, it's filled with intricate patterns, in-jokes, and repeated motifs. Take a look at David Bellos' life of Perec--he devotes a few pages to some of the mysteries of Life a User's Manual.

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New York, N.Y.: Bernhard isn't all doom and gloom. He believes passionately in life and rails more against the forces that try and suppress and destroy it. Plunked in the middle of his novel "The Loser" are lines like "Each human being is entirely unique, and each is the greatest work of art ever created" and "Whoever cannot laugh doesn't deserve to be taken seriously."

Michael Dirda: Yes, you're right. As I say, he's more bilious than gloomy--hating Austria, the Catholics, the shameful concessions during the Nazi years, etc etc. As I recall, Bernhard's will stipulated that his plays could never be performed in Austria.

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Annapolis, Md.: I just finished reading "The Shadow Of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafn and really enjoyed it. Could you recommend any other books like this one, either by him or someone else, that I might also enjoy? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. If you look up my review, you'll find I mention a slew of such books. Here are a few: A.S. Byatt, Possession; Arturo Perez-Revert, The Club Dumas; Laurence Norfolk, Lempriere's Dictionary, Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum.

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New York, N.Y.: I loaned a first edition of Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle." My friend never gave it back, and when I asked after it, he said he liked the cover art and didn't think I'd mind his keeping it. (To be fair to him, I'd been loose with other books in the past.)

Later, I understand that it was put in a storage locker. Now that he lives out in the 'burbs, I suspect it's on a shelf somewhere. Maybe I'll get take it back at a holiday party.

If he's reading this (which I know he's not), I would like it back. Thank you.

Ok, I feel slightly better. Now if I just had a tumbler of Cutty Sark and some jazz music.

Michael Dirda: I think you have a good working plan.

P.S. So far as I'm aware, New York still has liquor stores and Tower isn't out of business yet.

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Fairfax, Va.: Years ago I was trudging painfully through a book about the medieval theologian John Dun Scotus. I came across this exchange between Scotus and a rival theologian (they had been having a heated and high-falutin' discussion over dinner up to this point):

RT: If you get right down to it, what exactly separates the genius from the idiot?

JDS: A tabletop, evidently.

That made me wonder about medieval (or any distant past) humor. Do you know of any study on this? Someone should do one so that I can read it.

Michael Dirda: Probably the closest thing you can easily find are studies of the medieval fabliaux--these are funny, even crudely funny. Another good place might be commentary on some of Chaucer's more earthy tales, e.g. The Miller's Tale or The Summoner's Tale. No doubt there exists whole books on medieval humor, though. I wonder if its a topoi covered in Curtius's European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages? Might be worth a look.

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Denver, Colo.: Any recommendations on children's literature in the 9-12 year old range?

Michael Dirda: Yes. You or your little friend might still enjoy the works of James Stevenson, WIlliam Joyce, Chris Van Allsburg, especially if he or she is closer to 9. If he or she is on to chapter books, try Daniel Pinkwater (boy oriented) or Joan Aiken (girl oriented).

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Baltimore, Md.: In response to the earlier post, do you consider Safran Foer to be particularly original or experimental? If memory serves, David Grossman wrote See: Above Love long before JSF.

Michael Dirda: I"m sorry to confess that I just don't have any interest in his work at all. NO doubt I'll meet him next week and regret these words. My deepest conviction is that, with a few exceptions, you can't really write important fiction at a young age. Poetry is different.

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Munich, Germany: Bodybuilding...

I'd have thought that carrying sacks of books around to cafes would be exercise enough for anyone.

But speaking of questing, have you ever dabbled into the works by T.H. White? Are there any works out there that you can recommend after "The Once and Future King".

I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. How would you compare White's Merlinesque book with the Harry Potter series.

Michael Dirda: White is certainly wonderful, especially Sword in the Stone. The other great fantasy trilogies of our time might be worth looking into: The baroquely splendid Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake and the novels of E.R. Eddison. You might also try Islandia, by Austin Tappan Wright, or Hope Mirrlees' Lud in the Mist, or Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter.

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New York, N.Y.: For the Perec reader I would recommend his collection of essay's "Species of Spaces" which also contains an early explanation of what he was trying to accomplish in "Life", also Perec's semi-autobiographical "W or A Memory of Childhood" which is dark and beautiful - and a bit easier to follow.

Michael Dirda: Yes. Also, there are a number of Oulipo anthologies that have essays on the practices of the school. Harry Mathews writes frequently about Perec in various essays and his wonderfully touching book The Orchard.

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Lenexa, Kan.: I just finished "The Eyre Affair"--think you reviewed it, didn't you? Fforde's alternate histories, literary allusions, wit, and overall cleverness are special. Sometimes you wonder if your reading enjoyment is from something intentional or accidental. Fforde writes "...as long as we're not eating steak tartar. The fourth man is Felix7..." and I immediately thought of Neil Simon's great scene with Felix and Oscar and the two cooing Pigeon sisters ("Gwendolyn and Cecily" who Simon cleverly took from Oscar Wilde). What do you think? Also, how high do you rank the young Simon?

Michael Dirda: For me Neil Simon is only movies of The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park, and one or two other things. I liked what I saw, but I don't know how much was Simon and how much was Hollywood.

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San Jose, Calif.: Do you know of any sites for book chat (please, not the usual gatherings of the socially-challenged)?

Michael Dirda: What do you mean? There's a California bookgroup you might try called Bibliobuffet. If you have a special interest, there are always listservs and chats on, say, Patrick O'Brian's work, the Lucia novels of E.F. Benson, classic English ghost stories, etc etc. Just type in a few key words in google and see what happens.

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Woodbridge, Va: For the person who asked about the history of the Bible: There is an exhibit currently at the Sackler gallery in DC on Bibles prior to 1000 A.D. A recent WP article about the exhibit commented on changes in the Bible through the ages. There is a catalog to the exhibit, and "members" of the Sackler can order the catalog online.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Herndon, Va.: To: New York, NY (Concrete)

You can find at least 14 copies of Concrete on Alibris.com, starting under $15. BTW this is not a plug for Alibris, just my version of a public service announcement.

Michael Dirda: Thanks.

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Fiction at a young age?: Oh, interesting comment!

What do you suppose the "best" age to begin writing good fiction would be?

Michael Dirda: Oh, you should start writing fiction whenever you wish. But the greatest novels tend to be the fruits of experience not the seeds of promise.

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Washington, D.C.: Any idea if Neal Stephenson's The Big U is worth reading?

Michael Dirda: NOpe. Have you read his other books? Crytonomicon is the one people usually start with.

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Maitland, Fla.: I've been reading the Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn and have found them to be very, very good -- a passionate intelligent woman caught up in world events and the "movers and shakers."

Michael Dirda: Yes, she was certainly that. I have an old reference book, written in the 1940s, with an entry on her in which the author actually comment on how good looking she is. Wouldn't happen now.

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Herndon, Va.: Another way to look at The Bible: www.slate.com right now is featuring a "blogging the bible" section in which each chapter of the Old Testament (just made it to Isaiah) is discussed. Boy, talk about murder, slaughter, blood, guts and various kinds of sex! If The Bible had been dissected this way when I was a boy, attendance at Bible Class would have been up 1000 percent!

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. Gee, you only have to read the Bible to see how good it is--crime, sex, murder, war, rapine, etc etc. Yahweh wasn't a vengeful god for nothing.

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Washington, D.C.: I've heard very mixed reviews from people, but what's your opinion on Zadie Smith's White Teeth...worth the read?

Michael Dirda: I liked it a lot. Very good evocation of family life, funny, touching, literary. There aren't that many good books about the love among members of a family.

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Ashcroft, B.C. (BR): Re: books for children aged 9 - 12: there are some great series from the past which are still readily available, either new or secondhand. The Great Brain stories by John D. Fitzgerald, about a junior con artist growing up in Utah at the turn of the last century, are great for boys or girls, as are the 'Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators' series from the late 1960s and onwards; they hold up very well today, and my own 9-year-old son loves them (he loves the Great Brain books as well). The Edward Eager books are also good, and you can't go wrong with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. If you're looking for something British, Enid Blyton's tales of the Famous Five, and her 'Adventure' series about four children who have lots of, er, adventures are still ripping good yarns.

Michael Dirda: Excellent choices. When I start to feel the pen slipping from my grasp, I shall turn it over to Ashcroft to carry on the good fight.

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Tallahassee, Fla.: The mythic and historical links among Near Eastern myth, including that of the Bible, Greek myth and other cultures has a massive bibliography. For the basics, I'd just start with a world mythology textbook; even if it's not enough, its bibliography, at least, should prove fruitful, as might the introductions and bibl of any of the many other translations of Gilgamesh (and check out the Enuma Elish for the creation of the world, too). For the Near East and the Bible in particular, a good source is James Pritchard's classic Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament.

While we're on Near Eastern literature, I'd like to plug Thorkild Jacobsen's The Treasures of Darkness. It's a very scholarly, yet very accessible and fascinating overview of the major points of Mesopotamian religion. He includes large parts of many of the basic texts and comments on them as he goes, including Gilgamesh. If you're interested in ancient mythology at all I'd recommend the book.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks for the Thorkid Jacobsen recommendation--I'll look out for this myself.

In my youth, I took a course on the Old Testament from Herbert Gordon May--the general editor of the Revised Standard Version of the OT. It was like learning from God. We used the Prichard anthology you mention.

For me, Will Durant's Our Oriental Heritage first told the 13 or 14 year old M. Dirda that many, many religions shared some key beliefs in Eden, floods, gods who die and live again. It was the first crack in my Catholic faith.

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Woodbridge, Va.: Re books being returned--

You can put a bookmark in the book with the notation: Please return to the library of ...

Lacking that, you can ask the lendee if he liked the book.

I think it is better not to lend books unless someone specifically asks for them. I think what we booklovers sometimes do is try to get someone else to read a book by lending it, and the other person really isn't so enthusiastic about reading the book as we are, so they don't get around to reading the book, and then it is forgotten.

There is something to be said for buying remainders or used books and then giving them away after you read them. Less clutter in the house and less guilt...

Michael Dirda: People almost never read the books they borrow. I myself do pick up lending copies of favorite books. Unfortunately, I never seem to meet just the right people to pass then on to.

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Hay Adams: I used to practice law in San Francisco and the firm I was with represented a large oil company. Periodically we would come to DC for conferences. One of the company young guys and I always traveled together and made a habit of staying in different hotels each trip. Once we arrived late at the Hay Adams to discover only 2 rooms left. I checked in first and was assigned a small room in the bowels of the hotel -- no window. It sucked. I had been in the room 30 seconds when my friend called. He had been given the "Presidential suite" on the top floor looking over Lafayette Park at the White House. Needless to say, we hit the in suite bar pretty hard and stayed up WAY LATE. A beautiful hotel if you get the right room.

Michael Dirda: Nice story. As they say, timing is everything.

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: For New York, who has trouble getting lent-out books back:

To spare borrowers' feelings, try a little white lie -- "I was wondering if you could return -title] to me by -fill in the date], because I promised to lend it to another friend, who's really looking forward to reading it, too." OK, OK, so it's untrue, but it works for me every time!

Michael Dirda: Good idea.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Mr Dirda,

I just finished Of Human Bondage by Maugham and really enjoyed his portrayal of Philip Carey. What do you think? If you like Maugham, can you recommend other books by him?

Thank you

Michael Dirda: I do like Maugham, but mostly the short stories--nearly all are first-rate--and three or four books: Ashenden, or The British Agent (made up of stories); Cakes and Ale, a wonderfully witty evocation of the literary life; Christmas Holiday, a terrific novel about an English innocent in sinful Paris; the memoir The Summing Up.

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Chapel Hill, N.C. (Audio Book Girl): Hi, Michael. I'm halfway through the 13 October New York Review of Books. I noticed Robert Fagels has just translated the Aeneid. You may be interested in articles about Proust and Lovecraft. On a different note, can you recommend a grammar book for a preposition/punctuation-challenged teenage boy? This boy wants to write for a living, by the way... Thanks! And now I have to try and remove vinyl floor adhesive from a cat's paw...

Michael Dirda: Grammar book? I have a barebones high school text called Plain English Handbook. Karen Gordon has a number of witty grammar books out there. I'm sure you know The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. More sophisticated is The Reader Over Your Shoulder by Graves and Hodge.

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North Park, Calif.: For some reason I've overlooked the writer Brad Leithauser until I picked up a used copy of "A Few Corrections." As a regular obituary reader, I found the premise very interesting, Do you know his work, and if so can you recommend other books?

Michael Dirda: That's a very clever book. Leithauser is probably best known as an extremely fine poet--but one who also writes fiction with some regularity. You might try his novel Hence, which I remember got good notices (I didn't read it).

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Arlington, Va.: Have you read Ralph Waldo Emerson? What would you recommend for an Emerson novice looking for a good entry point into his work?

Michael Dirda: Robert D. Richardson's exhilarating biography, Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Then I"d look for an old anthology Emerson: An Anthology (or something like that) by a pair of eminent critics, I think one is Daniel Aaron. It arranges snippets from Emerson by theme, and is a wonderful sampler. This works because Emerson's prose is so disjunctive--his sentences don't flow together so much as butt up against each other.

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Fair Oaks, Va.: Last week there was some discussion of books which feature virtuous fathers. I like "A Bully Father: Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to his Children" (edited by Joan Patterson Kerr/Random House 1995). It's a charming book with amusing anecdotes and drawings as well as loving but firm advice, guidance and correction.

The original poster was looking for something from classic literature for an older father, so maybe it isn't suitable in his case. I think it would make a nice gift for new fathers.

Michael Dirda: Thanks.

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Arlington, Va.: I'm not sure if this question is relevant to this chat, but I am looking for a place to donate some books in Arlington, VA. Do you know of any places to donate books?

Many thanks.

Michael Dirda: You might call your local library--libraries often take donations that they sell, either in the lobbies of their building or in special sale rooms. They'll even give you a tax credit.

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Lexington: Michael, For those of us who love books about books, reading and collecting, Alberto Manguel is at it again-this time with a book about libraries, "The Library at Night." At night because the world outside disappears and the library is lit by its light as a beacon in a dark world. He quotes one of your favorites, "A big library really has the gift of tongues and vast potencies of telepathic communication." A personal library is really a reflection of the owner's personality, as well as a refuge. A public library reflects the culture of the country. Of course, there are famous lost libraries and imaginary libraries; and, even Hitler's library, of which over a thousand volumes are housed in the Jefferson Building. What would a devotee of horror give to discover the Necronomicon? And then there are imaginary libraries with real volumes like Nemo's famous library. Sholem Aleichem after the destruction of Jewish libraries began hiding as many books as possible in an attic. And, then there is Bradbury's famous book about lost books. Recently a father of a 15 year old in Calif. objected to his daughter being assigned "Farenheit 451" during banned book week and wanted the book banned because it was "filth" (he admitted to not having read the book). Libraries, Manguel says, are not the real world only a reflection of it for our perusal containing the possibility of experience, knowledge, and memory; and, perhaps most of all-consolation.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. Alberto--we met once years ago and have occasionally talked since--is incredibly learned and well read, and a nice guy too. I wish I could be any of those things.

On which note, I think it's time to bring this session of DoB to a close. I'm sorry I didn't get to all the questions. Till next Wednesday at 2, keep reading.

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