Judith Krantz – The Virtual Memories Show

Virtual Memories Show #127:
Michael Dirda – The Meandering Reflections of a Literary Sybarite

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“I enjoy going back to Lorain, Ohio because I’m reminded that the world of Washington and the East Coast literary establishment is a very narrow, special one that’s parochial in its own way. The rest of the world has other concerns: family, job and life in general. Whereas we get all up in arms about very minor things.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning book reviewer Michael Dirda rejoins the show to talk about his new collection, Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books (Pegasus Books). We discuss the importance of reading for pleasure, the difference between book-collecting and shopping, the role of the book reviewer (and how it differs from that of the critic), a recent negative review he didn’t want to write, why he doesn’t read reviews of his work, what his mother said when he won the Pulitzer Prize, and more! Give it a listen!

“The books that you don’t grasp immediately, the ones that leave you off-kilter . . . those are often the books that really last, and matter.”

Our first three-time guest also talks about the democratization of book reviewing, the problems of storing books in his basement, what he wants an author to think upon reading his book review of a book, his affinity for Clive James’ work, whether his reviews have a coded autobiographical element to them, how the limitations of the book review form shaped his style, why he disagrees with John Clute’s philosophy on spoilers, and more!

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We talk about a lot of books in this episode. Here’s a list of ’em (Note: if I ever go to a Patreon crowdfunding model for the show, this is the first thing that goes subscriber-only):

Little Big Man – Thomas Berger
Suspects – Thomas Berger
The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination – Daniel Boorstin
The Discoverers – Daniel Boorstin
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus – Cyril Connolly
The Moving Toyshop – Edmund Crispin
Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books – Michael Dirda
Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments – Michael Dirda
On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling – Michael Dirda
The Robe – Lloyd C. Douglas
The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded – Clifton Fadiman
Party of One – Clifton Fadiman
Enter Conversing – Clifton Fadiman
The Recognitions – William Gaddis
Muse: A novel – Jonathan Galassi
The Green Carnation – Robert Hichens
The Odyssey – Homer
Appleby’s End – Michael Innes
Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts – Clive James
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Zorba the Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis
Dazzle – Judith Krantz
V R Lang: Poems & Plays with a Memoir – Alison Lurie
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds – Charles Mackay
Bright Lights, Big City – Jay McInerney
The Scarlet Pimpernel – Baroness Orczy
Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
Burning the Days: Recollection – James Salter
Memorable Days: The Selected Letters of James Salter and Robert Phelps
Anathem – Neal Stephenson
Walden – Thoreau
Stoner – John Williams
On Writing Well – William Zinsser

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! You might like:

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About our Guest

dirdahead Michael Dirda is a weekly book columnist for The Washington Post, and he received the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He is the author of the memoir, An Open Book: Chapters fom a Reader’s Life, and of four previous collections of essays: Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments, Bound to Please, Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life, and Classics for Pleasure, in addition to his newest collection, Browsings. His previous book, On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling, received a 2012 Edgar Award for best critical/biographical work of the year. Michael Dirda graduated with Highest Honors in English from Oberlin College and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature (medieval studies and European romanticism) from Cornell University. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, the online Barnes & Noble Review, The American Spectator, and several other periodicals, as well as a frequent lecturer and an occasional college teacher.

Credits: This episode’s music is Ah, Putrefaction by Jaristo, from Hans Zimmer’s film music for Sherlock Holmes. The conversation was recorded at the Boston Marriott Burlington on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photo of Mr. Dirda by me.

The original version of this episode had terrible audio quality, so I went back and remastered it! Enjoy!

(And go listen to the followup episode we recorded in July 2014: Bookman’s Holiday!)

Season 2 episode 13 – Michael Dirda – The Correction of Taste

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“My personal crusade has been to urge people to read books they might otherwise not think of reading. . . . There are a lot better books that have been forgotten than are being published today.”

Are you ready for a ~~new~~ beautifully remastered episode of The Virtual Memories Show?

“Some very self-confident writers feel they are among the chosen, the ones that will last forever, but they’re like deluded Calvinists.'”

This time, Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Michael Dirda talks about his lifetime of reading and career in writing, the essence of book reviewing and the role of negative reviews, breaking free of genre ghettoes and the pretense of literary immortality, how the internet has changed the reviewing ecosystem, and why Mao would have loved the collective wisdom of the internet.

“I think of it all as ‘literary fiction,’ if it’s well written.”

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We also get in some literary kibitzing, touching on John Crowley, Neil Gaiman, Marilynne Robinson and a host of other writers and books.

“One of the things I’ve lamented in the course of my lifetime is the changeover in the English curriculum in the universities. English majors will really only know the literature of their time. They will know the same 40 or 50 authors and books. Anyone off the obvious track of the times, they won’t know. They’ll know Gary Shteyngart, but they won’t know Mikhail Bulgakhov, or Gogol. It’s that narrowness, that feeling that anything not of the moment is irrelevant. That worries me.”

Listen to the conversation: Virtual Memories – season 2 episode 13 – The Correction of Taste

(BONUS: Go listen to the followup episode we recorded in July 2014: Bookman’s Holiday!)

About Our Guest

Michael Dirda, a weekly book columnist for The Washington Post, received the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He is the author of the memoir An Open Book and of four collections of essays: Readings, Bound to Please, Book by Book, and Classics for Pleasure. His most recent book, On Conan Doyle, received a 2012 Edgar Award for best critical/biographical work of the year.Mr. Dirda graduated with Highest Honors in English from Oberlin College and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature (medieval studies and European romanticism) from Cornell University. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement , the online Barnes & Noble Review, and several other periodicals, as well as a frequent lecturer and an occasional college teacher.

About Our Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by Out of Print Clothing! Visit their site and check out their great selection of T-shirts, fleeces, bags and other gear featuring gorgeous and iconic book cover designs.

The Virtual Memories Show is on iTunes! If you’d like to subscribe, visit our iTunes page! If you’d like to check out past episodes, you can find us on iTunes or visit the Podcast page for all our back episodes, as well as e-mail signup and tip jar! And why don’t you friend the Virtual Memories Show at our Facebook page? It’d make my mom happy.

Credits: This episode’s music is Desert Prayer by John Sheehan. I recorded the intro on a Blue Yeti mic into Audacity, and the conversation with was recorded in Mr. Dirda’s home in Silver Spring, MD on a pair of Blue Encore 100 mics, feeding into a Zoom H4N recorder. All editing was done in Garage Band, with some post-processing in Audacity. This is a remastered version of the October 2012 episode, with better sound quality. Photo by Amy Roth.

Tag: Judith Krantz

Episode 127 – The Meandering Reflections of a Literary Sybarite

Podcast: The Correction of Taste