From the late 19th to the early 20th century, the December issue of almost any general-interest magazine regularly featured a holiday horror or two. – Michael Dirda
I once read that there are more biographical works about Napoleon Bonaparte than any other man in history. – Michael Dirda
In 1911, Edgar Rice Burroughs, having failed at everything else, decided to write a novel. He was then in his mid-thirties, married with two children, barely supporting his family as the agent for a pencil-sharpener business. – Michael Dirda
Many cultures believe that on a certain day – Halloween, the Irish Samhain Eve, Mexico’s ‘Dia de los Muertos’ – the veil between this world and the next is especially thin. – Michael Dirda
‘The Admirable Crichton’ is probably Barrie’s most famous work after ‘Peter Pan’, nearly a pendant to that classic. – Michael Dirda
Deep in my cortex, the year is divided into reading seasons. The period from mid-October to Christmas, for instance, is ‘ghost story’ time, while Jane Austen and P. G. Wodehouse pretty much own April and May. – Michael Dirda
People who’ve read my reviews know my tastes, know how I approach a book, know my background. I can write with believable authority. It doesn’t mean I’m always right. – Michael Dirda
The goal of a just society should be to provide satisfying work with a living wage to all its citizens. – Michael Dirda
Not all of E. Nesbit’s children’s books are fantasies, but even the most realistic somehow seem magical. In her holiday world, nobody ever goes to school, though all the kids know their English history, Greek myths, and classic tales of derring-do. – Michael Dirda
I don’t like gross monetary inequities. I firmly believe that the wrong people and the wrong professions are being rewarded, and rewarded absurdly, and that the hardest work the obscenely rich do is ensuring that they preserve their privileges, status symbols, and bloated bank accounts. – Michael Dirda
With the possible exception of steampunk aficionados, many reasonable people must view my fascination with Victorian and Edwardian popular fiction – mysteries, fantasy, and adventure – as eccentric or merely antiquarian. – Michael Dirda
Born in 1910, Wilfrid Thesiger spent his childhood in Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, as it was then called, where his father was an important and much-admired British official. – Michael Dirda
For those of us with an inward turn of mind, which is another name for melancholy introspection, the beginning of a new year inevitably leads to thoughts about both the future and the past. – Michael Dirda
A personal library is a reflection of who you are and who you want to be, of what you value and what you desire, of how much you know and how much more you’d like to know. – Michael Dirda
Books can be a source of solace, but I see them mainly as a source of pleasure, personal as well as esthetic. – Michael Dirda
Critics for established venues are vetted by editors; they usually demonstrate a certain objectivity; and they come with known backgrounds and specialized knowledge. – Michael Dirda
For even the ordinary well-read person, the French Enlightenment is largely restricted to the three big-name philosophes: Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire. – Michael Dirda
I didn’t work for any newspapers in college, never worked for any newspaper before ‘The Washington Post’. – Michael Dirda
To an Ohio boy, it represented world-weary Gallic shrugs and Gauloises cigarettes, existentialist thinkers in berets and Catherine Deneuve in nothing at all – French was the language of intellectual power and effortless sex appeal. – Michael Dirda
A job should bring enough for a worker and family to live on, but after that, self-realization, the exercise of one’s gifts and talents, is what truly matters. – Michael Dirda
A reviewer’s lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey’s ‘The Runaway Soul’ despite the novel’s consummate, unmitigated tedium. – Michael Dirda
I find that the Amazon comments often are exceptionally shrewd and insightful, so I’m not going to diss them. But you don’t really have any guarantees that what you’re reading wasn’t written out of friendship or spite. – Michael Dirda
Late summer is perfect for classic mysteries – think of Raymond Chandler’s hot Santa Anas and Agatha Christie’s Mediterranean resorts – while big ambitious works of nonfiction are best approached in September and early October, when we still feel energetic and the grass no longer needs to be cut. – Michael Dirda
Sometimes the very best of all summer books is a blank notebook. Get one big enough, and you can practice sketching the lemon slice in your drink or the hot lifeguard on the beach or the vista down the hill from your cabin. – Michael Dirda
I love the look of books published by the firm of Rupert Hart-Davis: They strike me as handsome, elegant, and inviting. I’ll pick up almost anything with that imprint, especially if it’s in a jacket or priced low. – Michael Dirda
In a single lifetime, roughly from 1865 to 1930, one finds the pioneering and patterning works of modern fantasy, science fiction, children’s literature and detective fiction, of modern adventure, mystery and romance. – Michael Dirda
On any given day, I’m likely to be working at home, hunched over this keyboard, typing Great Thoughts and Beautiful Sentences – or so they seem at the time, like those beautifully flecked and iridescent stones one finds at the seashore that gradually dry into dull gray pebbles. – Michael Dirda
Halloween isn’t the only time for ghosts and ghost stories. In Victorian Britain, spooky winter’s tales were part of the Christmas season, often told after dinner, over port or coffee. – Michael Dirda
