HeavyMeddle
have you read twilight? it’s pretty good right
MichaelDirda
A masterpiece of marketing.
[deleted]
What’s Michael Dirda’s favorite book of all time?
MichaelDirda
An impossible question. The Odyssey, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Walden, Cyril Connolly’s The Unquiet Grave, Njal Saga, Les Fleurs du Mal, The Tale of Genji–all these are favorites. My favorite writer, though, is probably Stendhal, especially his autobiographical works as Henri Beyle.
TheDiarrheaAnneFrank
alternatively, worst book he ever read?
karmicmoondreams
LOL at your username.
TooSmalley
What was the most controversial book review he has ever give? as example did he ever get major backlash for one of his reviews ?
MichaelDirda
My two most famous “negative” reviews were pretty mean, but with good reasons. About Judith Krantz’s “romance” novel “Dazzle” I opened with this lede: “I read Dazzle in one sitting. I had to. I was afraid I couldn’t face picking it up again.” I ended by pointing out that critics sometimes lament that good trees were felled to produce a book, but in the case of Dazzle I even felt bad for the book’s ink and glue. The other was a very dispassionate demolition job of Daniel Boorstin’s The Creators, a really flawed book about the arts.
StonedTom420
If I were her I would just cut out all of that and put
“I read Dazzle in one sitting.” – Michael Dirda on the back of the book