Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education

"Michael Dirda may be as close to the ideal critic as we are likely to get."―Annie Proulx

Surveying the dizzying universe of classic books, Michael Dirda, the Pulitzer Prize-winning literary essayist, proves himself to be one of the most engaging critics of our time―and great fun to read. Opening with an impassioned critique of modern reading habits, he then presents many of the great, and idiosyncratic, writers he loves most. In this showcase of one hundred of the world's most astonishing books, Dirda covers a remarkable range of literature, including popular genres such as the detective novel and ghost story, while never neglecting the deeper satisfactions of sometimes overlooked classics. Short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for criticism, Bound to Please is a glorious celebration of just how much fun reading can be.

• Classics for Pleasure (Harvest Book)
• The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
• Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books
• Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments
• Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life
• 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List
• An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland
• Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
• List of Books